See everything. From anywhere.

// The install

What a CCTV install involves, from walk-through to handover.

A camera system is a small network project with lenses on the end. Here is the order the work runs in, and why the quote is fixed before anyone drills a hole.

• Site walk-through, free. We walk the premises and write down what you need to see: the front door, the till, the loading dock, the car park. Camera count, mounting heights and cable routes are noted before the quote, which is how the quote stays fixed.
• Placement. Each position is chosen for what it must capture and at what distance: a face at the door, a number plate at the gate, a wide view of the yard. Low-light cameras go where the lighting is poor.
• PoE cabling. One data cable per camera carries power and video back to a PoE switch, so there is no plug pack at the far end to fail. Cabling is labelled, terminated and tested, the same as the structured cabling on any network job.
• The recorder. Footage lands on a network video recorder (NVR) at your premises, sized for your camera count and how long you need to keep footage. An NVR or storage upgrade from $440 adds room when a site outgrows it.
• Apps, detection and handover. Remote viewing is set up on your phone and desktop, detection zones are tuned to your site, and the system is documented so you hold the logins. Health monitoring and maintenance is from $33 per month.

// Storage

4K PoE cameras, NVR storage and how long footage is kept.

How long footage is kept is arithmetic, not a promise on a brochure. The recorder has a fixed amount of disk. Every camera writes into it at a rate set by its resolution, its frame rate and how much movement it sees. When the disk is full, the oldest footage is overwritten. So retention is the disk size divided by the combined write rate of all the cameras. Four 4K cameras recording continuously fill a disk far faster than four recording only on motion, and a car park at night writes far less than a shop floor at lunchtime. At the walk-through I work the sum out for the number of days you want, size the recorder to match, and the storage upgrade from $440 adds capacity later without replacing the system.

• On-site first, cloud where it counts. Footage stays on the recorder on your network, with secure cloud retention for the cameras that matter most, so a stolen or damaged recorder does not take the only copy with it.
• Export before it rolls off. When something happens, export the clip promptly. Once the recorder loops back over that date, no setting brings it back.

When footage is lost: recovery, not a shrug.

A recorder nobody has the password to, a failed recorder drive, or footage that has to come off a system that was never meant to give it up: that is drive and video recovery work, done in-house rather than shipped to a lab. It is unusual capability for a provider this size and it has saved real businesses real money. Non-clients are welcome at $220 per hour. Stop using the recorder immediately, because recording over a failing disk turns a recoverable job into an unrecoverable one, and you get honest odds before any work starts. Detail on the backup and recovery page.

// Detection

Smart detection: people and vehicles, not possums.

Plain motion detection fires on anything that changes between frames: headlights on a wall, a tree in the wind, the possum on the fence. After a week of that, everyone mutes the alerts. Smart detection looks for the shape of a person or a vehicle instead.

• Zones, drawn on the picture. A shape over the parts of the scene that matter: the doorway, the gate, the yard inside the fence line. The footpath and the road stay in the recording but out of the alerts.
• People and vehicles, per camera. A person crossing the yard after hours is an alert. A car in the customer car park at 10am is not. Rules are set per camera and per zone, on a schedule, so alerts arm outside trading hours and only on the cameras that cover a way in.
• Tuned to your site. Zones and sensitivity are set for your premises at handover, not left as shipped.

// Access

Access control and alarms on the same system.

A key is a password you cannot change. When someone leaves with one, the fix is new locks and new keys for everyone. Access control replaces the key with a fob that is switched off in seconds, and it records every time the door opened and who opened it.

• Single door from $1,650. A reader at the door, a controller in the comms cabinet and a set of fobs, supplied and installed. More doors are added to the same controller as you need them.
• Who went where, and when. Every open is logged against a fob, and the camera clip for the same moment sits beside it. A lost fob or a departed staff member is one setting, not a locksmith.
• One system, one clock. Cameras, door access and the alarm are integrated, so a door event, an alarm event and the footage line up in one place instead of three systems that never agree on the time.

// Network safety

Cameras on the business network, safely.

Cameras are computers. They run software, they have passwords, and a cheap install plugs them into the same flat network as the accounts PC and the EFTPOS terminal. This is the part most camera installers do not write about, and it changes how the job is built.

• Their own VLAN. Cameras and the recorder sit on their own network segment, separated from office PCs, the server, the tills and guest WiFi, with the firewall policing what crosses between them. A camera with a software flaw cannot reach your accounts machine, and a laptop with malware cannot reach your footage. Same design rule as the security page.
• No port opened to the internet. Remote viewing runs through the app or a VPN that terminates on the router, not a port forwarded straight to the recorder.
• No default passwords. Every camera and the recorder get their own strong credentials on the day, and you hold them.
• A switch that can carry it. A managed PoE switch from $440, sized for the power draw of every camera at once, so the camera segment is a real VLAN and not a sticker on a port.

// Indicative pricing

What it roughly costs.

Real numbers, because "contact us for pricing" is code for "brace yourself." These are honest ballparks, your fixed quote comes after a free consult.

Indicative pricing ex GST at market rates +10%, varies with cabling runs and site layout. Free site walk-through before any quote.

// Questions

Cameras, your questions answered.

// Pairs well with