CCTV Network Planning

A well designed CCTV surveillance system needs to be well documented; otherwise maintenance becomes very difficult for a number of reasons. Without appropriate documentation the CCTV engineer or client will be asking themselves the following questions:

• What field of view is this camera “supposed” to be covering?
• Where is the equipment, where are the cameras supposed to be?
• What DVR/NVR is this camera connected to?
• How many spare inputs does this DVR/NVR have?
• What IP address, subnet mask, gateway is this IP cameras supposed to be?
• Is this NVR supposed to be setup for remote access, if so what’s the public IP address?
• Was this camera un-plugged from the DVR/NVR deliberately to make room for another, more important camera?
• What recording settings is the DVR/NVR supposed to be set at?
• Is there enough hard disk storage free to cater for a new camera & maintain required history?
• Is this camera going directly to the DVR/NVR or is it going through an external device?

CCTV Site Plans

Surveillance plans are of the upmost important, they layout surveillance camera locations and fields of view of each CCTV camera. Site plans also lists other CCTV related equipment, including DVR/NVR location, monitor locations, ID Scanner locations and other information.

CCTV Schematics

The CCTV Schematic is a visual representation of how all the surveillance devices are connected to each other. What surveillance cameras are on what DVR/NVR and any looping, switching or POS interfacing associated with the DVR/NVR? It also shows any networking components associated with the DVR/NVR i.e. switches, modems etc.

Network Flow Diagrams

Network flow diagrams are applicable for large Digital based video surveillance systems that utilise computer networks and infrastructure to transport digital video to Network Video Recorders. The diagram summarises network utilisation and traffic throughput based on the number of factors including:

• Number of cameras
• Image quality settings
• Video codec used
• Number of users accessing cameras simultaneously
• Frame-rates-per-second (FPS)

CCTV Schedule

This is an important document containing alarm system equipment descriptions and CCTV camera location descriptions. It includes:

• Camera location descriptions
• Which DVR/NVR a camera is connected to
• Which input of the DVR/NVR a camera is connected to
• Camera NO: which corresponds to number on CCTV plan
• The type of Camera, Lens, Mount, Housing etc.
• Camera name
• Other related CCTV equipment & more...