Learn it before you buy it.
Guides, a glossary and calculators, written by the people who install these systems. No sales pitch — read first, then decide if you even need us.
Open the glossary →Where to start
Three texts, in this order, and you'll know more than whoever is selling you a system.
What needs recognising
The guide below. Twenty minutes that decide the whole budget.
How many cameras and how much disk
The calculator gives you a number you can argue with.
Who's watching at 3am
Verification, or a siren on an empty street.
Calculator — cameras and disk
Enter your site's numbers for a starting point: camera count, recorder channels and 30-day disk.
Estimate for 4 MP, 15 fps, H.265. The real project is made on site.
- Cameras
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- Recorder
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- 30-day disk
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All articles
12 articles
Video Surveillance · 9 min
How to choose a CCTV system
Almost every bad installation starts with the same mistake: someone buys a number of cameras instead of answering what needs to be seen, from what distance, and for how long the footage has to exist. Seven questions, in an order that actually matters.
Video Surveillance · 6 min
How many cameras does my site need?
The count doesn't start from floor area, it starts from doors. The order you count in changes both the final number and the final price.
Video Surveillance · 7 min
IP or analog camera in 2026
The question isn't which technology is better in general — it's whether the cable already in your wall still solves the problem more cheaply than a new one.
Video Surveillance · 5 min
How many days of footage should you keep
A shortfall surfaces at stocktake, not on the day it happened. Retention is a business question before it's a storage question.
Video Surveillance · 6 min
Resolution and distance: what you actually see at 20, 40 and 80 m
Megapixels are spread across the scene. Scene width decides what you see — not the number printed on the box.
Video Surveillance · 8 min
Night vision: IR, WDR and what you actually see
The range on a spec sheet is measured under lab conditions. Rain, fog and a strong light behind the target change that number more than anything printed on the box.
Alarms & Perimeter · 6 min
Alarm with verification, or without it
What false alarms actually cost you, in money and in credibility — and what camera verification changes in that equation.
Alarms & Perimeter · 7 min
Perimeter: IR barriers from 100 to 700 m
Stopping someone at the fence line costs less than cleaning up afterward. How IR barriers work, what shortens their range, and the tradeoff between false alarms and gaps in coverage.
Monitoring 24/7 · 6 min
When does 24/7 monitoring pay off
Compare it to a single night shift, not to the price of a camera. The question that actually decides it is who's watching the camera at 3am.
Access & Attendance · 7 min
Time attendance: cloud or your own server
Price, control and backup — three arguments that actually decide between a cloud platform and running your own server on site.
Access & Attendance · 6 min
Access control: card, fingerprint or NFC phone
Every option fails a different way. The choice isn't which one is best in general — it's which failure mode bothers you least at that particular door.
Law & Data · 6 min
CCTV footage and the law: retention, notice, who's allowed to watch
Recording isn't an unlimited right. Retention periods, an entrance notice, and who's allowed to open the archive should be decided before installation, not after an incident.
Glossary
CCTV
Closed Circuit Television — a video system whose signal isn't publicly accessible.
PoE
Power over Ethernet — one cable carries both data and power to the camera.
NVR
Network Video Recorder — records IP cameras; channel count is the system's ceiling.
ONVIF
An open standard that lets cameras and recorders from different makers work together.
WDR
Wide Dynamic Range — keeps a face visible against a bright entrance behind it.
Questions people ask
How much does video surveillance cost?
Price follows the project, not the camera count: the same four cameras don't cost the same at 10 m and at 60 m, and disk follows retention days. We give a figure after a site visit, and it holds.
How many cameras does a house or shop need?
Start from the entrances, not the floor area: every door and gate is one camera, then add the dark side of the building and the till. A 200 m² house usually lands on five; a 120 m² shop on four.
Do I need internet for a camera system?
Not for recording — the recorder works on its own. You need it to watch from your phone and for the monitoring centre to see the event; without a link, the archive stays on site.
How long may footage be kept?
Only as long as the purpose requires, with a notice at the entrance and named accounts for access. We set the retention period with you and write it into the internal policy.
Can old cameras connect to a new system?
Often yes, over ONVIF or an existing coaxial cable. On the site visit we check what's worth keeping and say plainly what isn't.