Most people take public and home security for granted. We encounter CCTV cameras on a daily basis, but fail to recognize their importance in surveillance and security. What was once public curiosity and a luxury security aspect has become the norm today. Whether it’s your place of business, a restaurant, or your home, CCTV technology plays a huge role in keeping you safe and preventing crime. Just ask the experts at Communications Solutions Inc. in Jacksonville, Florida, and they will tell you how crucial CCTV cameras and equipment are for business and home security. But where did CCTV come from and how did it make its way into our businesses, commercial spaces, and homes? Today, we will discuss the evolution of CCTV to help you better understand the journey of CCTV technology through history.
The Evolution of CCTV
CCTV technology, security cameras, and recording technology have come a long way over the past few decades. Let’s look at the evolution of CCTV, starting with its invention.
● Invention of CCTV Technology
Walter Bruch, a German electrical engineer, invented the closed-circuit television (CCTV) during World War II. This was before he became a pioneer of German television by inventing the PAL color television. Bruch’s CCTV technology was not developed for security or human surveillance as we know it today.
Instead, like many of the inventions during that time, it was made for the military. The German military used CCTV to monitor weapons testing. The first ever documented use of CCTV technology was by the German military in 1942, to monitor the launch of V-2 rockets from the safety of a nearby bunker.
Observers could only, however, watch the live footage of launches and weapons testing through the CCTV because recording capabilities would become possible decades later.
The American government did not take long to acquire this new CCTV technology for themselves and started using it to safely observing their nuclear bomb tests. For the first time, scientists could safely observe the destruction and aftermath of nuclear weapons from inside their labs.
A few years later, the war was over and in 1949, Popular Science published the first commercial use of CCTV technology, called Vericon. It was an entirely wire-based CCTV system for the public, that did not require any government permits for commercial use.
● CCTV for Public Safety and Home Security
Nearly a decade later, CCTV technology was used by the British police for the first time to monitor security for the Thai royal family’s visit in 1960. Realizing the potential and benefit of CCTV for surveillance, London Transport installed CCTV cameras at train stations to improve public safety.
Within the next decade, CCTV started supporting public safety in “high risk” areas like stations and banks and began to make its way into homes. Marie Van Brittan Brown pioneered and patented the home security system in 1969, turning CCTV into a viable tech security solution for homeowners.
● VCRs and Policing
Despite being invented in 1951, video cassette tapes didn’t hit the markets till much later in 1969. Connecting CCTV to record on these video cassettes required many steps but allowed building owners to record their security footage.
It didn’t take long for cassette tapes to be replaced with more advanced technology, VCRs. They became the primary and easiest way to record CCTV surveillance footage in the 70s. This was a period of rampant crimes in New York, which is why the city immediately took advantage of it to prevent crimes.
CCTV security cameras proved highly beneficial for the city in problem areas and helped prevent and reduce crime through the 70s.
● CCTV Meets Digital Recording
While CCTV recording became convenient from quite early on, it wasn’t easy to review hours of footage to investigate specific events in the timeline. However, in1986, digital recording truly revolutionized CCTV surveillance.
It brought a significant change in how we viewed the recorded footage because, for the first time, we could easily browse through the timeline of the recorded footage. This meant authorities and building owners could quickly find concerning events and incidents.
Not long after, in the early 90s, digital recording made another breakthrough for CCTV with the introduction of a viewing technique known as digital multiplexing. It allowed video feed from several CCTV cameras to be combined on a single TV or monitor using a multiplexer.
CCTV surveillance footage quickly became a key source for law enforcement to investigate crimes, accidents, alibis, and more.
● Further Convenience with DVR and the Internet
DVR technology made multiplexers obsolete because they could compile several video feeds automatically. This automation made the process simpler and more convenient by removing several additional steps that were previously needed.
Moreover, DVRs provided immense recording space and convenience over the tapes that were being used at the time. This meant we no longer had to constantly remove and replace videotapes for the footage to continue recording.
Today, this same DVR technology allows us to view CCTV footage from remote locations. The internet and cloud services are also used to record CCTV footage, whereas software solutions have completed taken over the old hardware recording techniques.
● Modern Day CCTV and Facial Recognition
Since the 90s, CCTV technology has become immensely popular and made its way into our offices, restaurants, banks, malls, and homes. They help us maintain security and prevent and investigate crime in public and private spaces.
Modern CCTV cameras can capture incredible high-resolution footage and feature zoom, wide-angle, 360-degree, and night mode capabilities.
CCTV has become incredibly convenient and allows us to view live or recorded footage remotely, even if we are halfway across the world from the recording camera. Modern developments in CCTV technology like facial recognition have been in the works since the 2000s.
Facial detection technology has been available to law enforcement agencies since the late 2000s. Today, the technology has been further streamlined thanks to facial recognition cameras and advancements in AI technology.
CCTV with facial recognition technology can pick up human faces, identify them, register those identities, and notify authorities or owners accordingly.
The Evolution of CCTV Conclusion
The future of CCTV technology is bright, and every aspect of it will only get better with time. Things like facial recognition technology, AI, and other advancements will enable us to bolster public, private, and home security.
From weapons testing to policing, home surveillance, and facial recognition, CCTV technology has come a long way. We may take it for granted today, but it is an important aspect of security for any individual, asset, home, or business entity.
If you want to learn more about the evolution of CCTV, or if you want to deploy CCTV security cameras and systems for your home or business in Florida, Contact Us Today.