BUS
620
Research Abstract Six
“Video Surveillance CCTV”
What is Video Surveillance via CCTV?
CCTV (Closed Circuit
Television) is a visual surveillance technology designed for monitoring a variety
of environments and activities. CCTV systems typically involve a fixed (or
"dedicated") communications link between cameras and monitors. Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) is a
television transmission system in which live or prerecorded signals are sent
over a closed loop to a finite and predetermined group of receivers, either via
coaxial cable or as scrambled radio waves that are unscrambled at the point of
reception.
What sort of technology is used in CCTV systems?
The modern CCTV
systems involve a linked system of cameras with full pan, tilt, and zoom able
to be operated remotely from a control room.
These systems may involve sophisticated technology such as digital
recording and playback as well as analog. Features can include night vision, computer
assisted operation, and motion detection facilities which allows the operator
to instruct the system to go on red alert when anything moves in view of the
cameras.
Camera systems
increasingly employ bullet-proof casing, and automated self defense mechanisms
which ensure that cameras under attack are covered by neighboring cameras, these can be legitimately described as military
style systems.
Components or Options with Digital CCTV Surveillance
Systems:
What about the Picture Quality?
The clarity of the
pictures is often excellent, with many systems being able to recognize a
cigarette pack at a hundred meters. The systems can often work in pitch
blackness, bringing images up to daylight level.
What are the uses of CCTV
Surveillance?
There are three principal CCTV
uses:
What does the public think of CCTV?
The picture is
mixed. While proponents of CCTV are inclined to describe opposition to the
technology as marginal, the reality is much less conclusive. In one survey a
large proportion of respondents expressed concern about several key aspects of
visual surveillance.
The extent of
concern was highlighted by the outcome that more than fifty per cent of people
felt neither government nor private security firms should be allowed to make
decisions to allow the installation of CCTV in public places.
While this response could be interpreted a number of ways, it goes to the
heart of the privacy and civil rights dilemma. Source (Honess
T, and Charman E (1992) ;
"Closed Circuit Television in public places" Crime Prevention Unit
paper no. 35)
in 1992, according to an article in Personnel Journal, there were
ten million employees in the
High Level Systems View of Digital CCTV
Notice
the Surveillance Camera on the Street Light