The need for some level of surveillance within homes and businesses as a crime deterrent is obvious, and for this reason camera makers have come up with a variety of closed circuit television systems, known by the general term CCTV. Unlike TV stations which broadcast a general signal for any television to receive, a CCTV system sends its signal to a central point for observation and records the cameras onto a digital video recorder or DVR for later playback. The pictures can also be transmitted over broadband for viewing remotely on a variety of devices including Android or iPhones, various tablet devices and internet connected PC’s etc.

CCTV has moved into the digital age with IP CCTV cameras now becoming widely used, these CCTV or IP cameras can be integrated into home or business security systems over existing IT and data networks for viewing on local networks, smartphones and internet connections worldwide.

Substantial advances in camera technology and manufacture in recent years has not only brought the cost of CCTV to affordable levels for both commercial and domestic users, the resulting improvement in the quality of the pictures and digital recording quality has meant that even the most budget priced system can reproduce clear and definable pictures.

Recently, a number of high-profile crimes have been investigated and prosecuted thanks to evidence provided by such systems. They recorded the faces of the men responsible for the 7/7 bombings of London, and showed two-year-old James Bulger being led away from a shopping mall by his two killers, the ten-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. CCTV cameras also recorded scenes from the recent riots in the UK and have been almost exclusively used to catch and prosecute the looters.