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Module 2 · CCTV Design

CCTV Design

Camera types and selection criteria, field of view/resolution/lens fundamentals, coverage-driven camera placement strategy, and the lighting considerations that determine whether a correctly specified camera actually delivers usable video.

Choosing a camera is not a single decision — it is matching fixed, PTZ, and panoramic camera types to the specific viewing task, then sizing lens and resolution against a pixels-per-foot requirement tied to whether the footage needs to support detection, recognition, or identification. This module walks through that selection process end to end, then covers placement strategy using coverage cones and the lighting factors that can defeat an otherwise correctly specified camera.

By the end of this module you should be able to explain why a 4K camera framed too wide can deliver worse identification-grade footage than a correctly framed 2MP camera — a resolution-versus-coverage trade-off Module 3's video analytics content depends on directly, since an analytic can never resolve what the underlying camera system cannot.

Free related reading in this studio
→ Interactive Reader: CCTV System Design and Use Cases→ Security Camera Layout and Coverage Analysis: Field of View, Mounting Height, and Lens Selection→ Concept Explainer: Camera Resolution, Frame Rate, and Bitrate

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