Guide
Five questions to ask before a CCTV upgrade
A practical pre-flight checklist for facility managers thinking about replacing or expanding their video surveillance system.
· Stokoe Communications
Most CCTV systems get upgraded for one of three reasons: cameras are failing, the recorder is end-of-life, or coverage gaps have become a real operational problem. Before any of that work starts, here are five questions worth thinking through.
1. What are you actually trying to see?
A surprising number of upgrades happen without a clear answer. License plates at the gate? Faces at the loading dock? Crowd density in a lobby? Each of these calls for a very different camera, lens, and mounting position. Start here.
2. How long do you need to keep footage?
Retention drives storage. Storage drives cost. A 64-camera site at 24/7 high-bitrate recording stores very differently from one configured with motion-only recording on most channels. We always quote with retention assumptions stated clearly so there are no surprises later.
3. What’s the network situation?
Modern IP cameras need bandwidth, switches that support PoE, and ideally a dedicated VLAN. A lot of older sites need network upgrades alongside the camera work. It’s better to find this out at quote stage than during install.
4. Who’s going to use the system day-to-day?
Operator workflow matters. A security desk monitoring live feeds has very different needs from a facilities manager who only pulls clips after an incident. The right VMS, the right user roles, the right mobile access — these decisions should follow how the system will actually be used.
5. What happens in five or ten years?
This is the question we wish more clients asked up front. Cameras and recorders are physical equipment that wears out. The platform you pick now determines whether year-six maintenance is a small invoice or a forklift rebuild. We default to platforms we’ve been able to service for a decade or more.
Got a project in mind? Get in touch — we’ll come out for an on-site walk-through.