Two signs that you should replace your premises' CCTV system
If your premises' CCTV system is several years old and you're considering replacing it, here are some signs that this is the right thing to do.
The system's poor picture quality has made a recent break-in hard to solve
If your CCTV system is a bit old, the cameras' picture quality will probably be quite poor and might not always provide you with the visual information you need when security issues arise. If someone broken into your premises recently and you, along with the police, assessed the CCTV footage and found that you were unable to discern what the intruder looked like, due to the camera's low resolution, and this led to you being unable to track them down, then now might be the time to get a new CCTV system.
Investing in a modern set of CCTV cameras, that have the highest available resolution, will mean that if security issues like this recent one occur again and you need footage from the cameras as a way to identify some intruders or thieves (or as a form of evidence for any related legal matters), the footage will not just provide you with some blurry outline of a person but instead will offer a clear image of the individual, that allows you to identify them by their facial or body features, or by specific, small details of their attire.
You're extending your opening hours and need to be able to record at night
If your premises has, up until now, only been open during the day, but you now wish to extend its opening hours and stay open at night, you will need to have CCTV cameras that can record clearly after dark. Unfortunately, a lot of older CCTV systems are not designed for use at night and the images they provide in low lighting conditions tend to be so fuzzy that they are almost useless.
If your current cameras provide reasonably clear footage during the day but are unable to provide the same when used at night, you must replace them with ones that are able to deliver high-resolution images in the dark, before you start extending your opening hours. The reason for this is as follows; security incidents often happen more frequently at night. Intruders, for example, prefer to attempt break-ins under the cover of darkness, when they're less likely to be noticed, and alcohol-related incidents of aggression or vandalism also tend to happen in the evenings. As such, even if you have never actually needed to use the footage from the CCTV cameras in the past when you were only open during the day, you may end up needing it if you want to keep your premises open at night.
For additional information on CCTV systems, reach out to a local security system company.