HD CCTV nullifies the threat to our industry from IT integrators

HDCCTV allianceAs far back as 2003 commentators have been asking the question whether IP CCTV will be the domain of security installers or IT integrators. The question has dragged on and to their credit security installers have been fighting hard to maintain their market share of newly installed IP CCTV systems. The biggest problem they face is that the decision making process as to who decides to install an IP surveillance system has shifted very much into the hands of the IT director. This is because anything that runs on a company network almost always gets thrust into the hands of the IT department. They protect their network with a passion and will not let anyone touch it who does not have a prestigious background in IT . This has meant that security installers inexperienced in the ways of IP have been struggling to talk to the IT departments of big companies on their level. The result, the IT director would almost always prefer to talk to IT integrators and so the business slips away.

Now however we have HD SDI CCTV cameras and HD SDI DVR’s. This suddenly tips the scales back in the favour of the security installer. He suddenly finds that he can provide HD solutions with quality images to his customers and the technology is just simple plug and play.

The  most important factor though in this whole battle is the security installers database. This database is full of customers many naive to the benefits of IP CCTV or HD CCTV who already have analogue CCTV installed. So what is the security installer sales department going to sell when it comes to the time to upgrade? Well it seems obvious he will push the customer in the direction of HD CCTV . No IT departments to deal with , no laptops to provide , no software to worry about , no extra training.  Best of all HD images with no compression or latency. In the UK we have hundreds of thousands of CCTV systems in desperate need of upgrade and IP CCTV is quite simply not an option for the vast majority of these. HD CCTV is about to come of age and the market place is primed and ready for it .