Company News
11/12/07
Launch of national CCTV testing service endorsed by police
The UK’s first CCTV quality testing service endorsed by a police force has launched.
The Forensic Video Analysis Group has been set up with its testing systems endorsed by North Wales Police.
It will analyse and assess the suitability of CCTV digital video recorders for producing accurate good quality images that can be retrieved quickly and easily by the police, and ultimately used in court.
Recorders that pass are given a grade and a logo to display.
The company has been founded by James Davies and William Pratt.
Between them they have worked for police forces and in the CCTV industry, looking at the recovery, analysis and presentation of CCTV evidence. The pair became frustrated at the varying suitability of footage captured.
James said: “After crime prevention, the purpose of any CCTV system is to produce evidence for prosecution. Our tests look at the ease and suitability of a digital video recorder for this purpose and award one of three grades.
“There is no current scheme to assess digital video recorders, making it difficult for CCTV buyers to pick the right one. We aim to quickly become the national standard for digital video recorders.”
The service uses a set of tests to analyse the suitability of a CCTV digital video recorder against a set of key criteria.
They include:
• Does it record good quality images?
• Are the images accurate?
• Can the evidence be presented in court easily?
• How much modification or compression is added to the original image?
Assessed digital video recorders will be given one of three grades: ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ or ‘Tested’.
James added: “The move from tape systems to digital systems saw a degradation in image quality in some systems, which inspired us to set up this testing scheme and establish industry-wide standards.”
For more information please contact us by telephone on 01492 818 130 or by using the Contact Page on the website.
