CheckMyCCTV increases brand support

CheckMyCCTVAs part of CheckMyCCTV’s ongoing development program, the number of supported brands has now been expanded. Users of CheckMyCCTV can update their software to support additional brands at no extra cost.

These DVR/NVR brands are currently supported:

More brands are being added all the time, check the Supported Systems page for an up to date list of supported products and a roadmap detailing which products will be supported in the future.

If you are a DVR/NVR Manufacturer, Installer, or User and your system is not listed, please Contact Us to discuss integrating with it.

 

Dedicated Micros DVR remote reporting in a tick

CheckMyCCTV Dedicated MicrosFor the last 5 or so years, Dedicated Micros DVR products have had Remote Alarm Reporting capabilities built-in. Which means the DVR can be programmed to ‘dial-up’ a Remote Video Receiving Center (RVRC) when an alarm condition is activated.

As the majority of Dedicated Micros DVRs are configured only as a CCTV recorder, the remote reporting  function is often overlooked by installers, but it could be used to offer your customers a better service and increase your revenue streams from your existing or new installations.

What does this mean for installers?

In the current economic climate, it may be difficult for your customers to justify replacing a perfectly good CCTV system. If this is the case, you can use the remote reporting function built into Dedicated Micros DVRs to broaden your service portfolio and leverage more revenue streams from the CCTV systems they already have.

What does it mean for end-users?

For little or no upfront cost your customers’ CCTV cameras to be monitored by an RVRC, responding to alarm activations and liaising with the police or private response services to provide extra security. The RVRC can also provide services such as audio challenge, access control, concierge services, and two-way ‘help point’ audio.

How easy is it to set up remote reporting?

With Dedicated Micros ‘NetVu Connected’ DVRs, it’s as simple as connecting the DVR to the Internet , ticking a box in a web page, and filling in a few connection details. The RVRC will normally be able to advise you on how to set you connection up.

What Dedicated Micros products support remote reporting?

Pretty much any Dedicated Micros product manufactured in the past 5 years has remote reporting built-in, even the latest level entry Eco4 model. Check with your local Dedicated Micros office for a full list of compatible devices.

Which RVRCs can support Dedicated Micros remote reporting?

Most RVRCs can support Dedicated Micros products. The CheckMyCCTV Service Providers below can also monitor your customers’ CCTV systems to ensure they are operating correctly, automatically alert you to any issues with your customers’ installations from £1 a week. Contact them now to see how they can increase your service offering and revenue streams.

CheckMyCCTV Remote Video ResponseRemote Video Reponse

Email: sales@nullremotevideoresponse.co.uk

Tel: 0844 8791 007

 

CheckMyCCTV Visual VerificationVisual Verification

Email: sales@nullvisualverification.com

Tel: 0844 415 7777

 

CheckMyCCTV EMCSEMCS

Email: sales@nullemcs.co.uk 

Tel: 0800 716 179

 

 

Cut the cost of remote CCTV maintenance

CheckMyCCTV Maintenance Over the last 30 or so years, CCTV maintenance contracts have barely changed. Usually consisting of One or Two scheduled ‘pre-emptive’ maintenance visits a year to check that the system is working correctly.

In the era of tape based CCTV recording, scheduled maintenance was required to maintain the quality of recordings as the tapes and VCR heads became worn over time, but with digital CCTV systems this is not the case.

Pro-active not Pre-emptive

With modern Digital CCTV systems, there is no gradual degradation of recording quality between maintenance visits. CheckMyCCTV can monitor network connected CCTV systems for faults and recording issues, allowing maintenance visits to be targeted towards sites that actually need them.

Scheduled maintenance visits only ensure that your customers’ CCTV systems are working on the day of the visit, or two for bi-annual maintenance, but what about the other 363 days of the year when there’s no engineer on site?

Remotely Monitored Fault Reporting

CheckMyCCTV changes the way CCTV maintenance visits can be conducted. By automatically providing  Remotely Monitored Fault Reporting your customers are getting a maintenance package which is suited to the Digital era.

The benefits of remotely monitoring your customers’ CCTV systems for faults include:

  1. Peace of mind that your customers’ installations are working 365 days of the year.
  2. Immediate notification of fault conditions, often before the customers are aware of them.
  3. Proactive approach to customer service, rather than expecting your customers to detect issues.
  4. Increased efficiency of maintenance contracts – Pay As You Go and reduced visits to provide you and your customers with a ‘best value’ proposition.
  5. Reduced Costs of site visits by taking service engineers off the road, reducing fuel and labour costs, and improving the first visit fix rate.

A typical installer with 100 remote sites can save more than 30% of their Labour and Fuel costs by replacing two scheduled site visits with a single scheduled site visit and an emergency site visit triggered by CheckMyCCTV.

Pay As You Go Maintenance contracts

Current Pay As You Go maintenance contracts require the customer to detect faults and report them to the installer, in reality customers only tend to discover faults when they require footage from the CCTV system which is often not available. At this point, the damage is already done, the system you installed and maintain did not work and whether it is your fault or not, it is the your name and reputation that are tarnished.

By implementing CheckMyCCTV, faults are detected as soon as they happen, allowing you to pro-actively contact your customer to advise and arrange a site visit.

The next time you get a call from your customers to report a fault with their CCTV system, think how much better it would have been if it were you telling them that you have found a fault and you’re sending someone to fix it.

It’s time to drag maintenance contracts into the digital era, provide your customers with a better service for less with CheckMyCCTV. Contact Us for a FREE Trial to see how.

 

 

Beta support for Videoswitch DVRs released

CheckMyCCTV Videoswitch SupportCheckMyCCTV now supports Health, Status, and Operation monitoring for Videoswitch DVR products.

If you use Videoswitch products and would like to participate in the Beta Programme, please email us to register as a Beta tester feedback@nullcheckmysystems.com and we’ll send you a link to download the software.

CheckMyCCTV is currently supporting the Core test functionality for Videoswitch DVRs including:

    • Network Connection
    • Time/Date Accuracy
    • Camera Status
    • Disk Recording
    • Recording Duration

…and more

For more information on Videoswitch products visit www.videoswitch.co.uk

 

CheckMyCCTV Starter Pack Promotion

For a limited time, we’re offering new customers our CheckMyCCTV Starter Pack, which gives you everything you need to start checking the Health, Status, and Operation of your CCTV installations right now, at a great value price.

 

The CheckMyCCTV Starter Pack includes:

 

  • CheckMyCCTV Software (Client/Server)
  • 25 Unit One-year License
  • Remote Configuration*
  • Remote 1-hour Training Session*

Sign up for a 14-day FREE CheckMyCCTV trial today and see if your CCTV systems can be monitored for operational issues and faults, every hour of every day.

* Remote Configuration and Training session requires remote access using free TeamViewer software.

Beta support for Genie DVR released

CheckMyCCTV Genie Beta supportCheckMyCCTV now supports Health, Status, and Operation monitoring for Genie DVR products. If you would like to participate in the Beta Programme, please register to download the Trial and let us know that you are using Genie DVR products.

 

You can send your feedback, comments and suggestions to feedback@nullcheckmysystems.com and we’ll respond to every email.

CheckMyCCTV is currently supporting the Core test functionality for Genie DVRs including:

  • Network Connection
  • Time/Date Accuracy
  • Camera Status
  • Disk Recording
  • Recording Duration
For more information on Genie products visit www.geniecctv.com

 

CheckMySystems launches Referral Scheme

Know a business who may want to use CheckMyCCTV? Refer another business to us, and you’ll receive £2.50 for every license they purchase in the first 12 months –  up to a maximum of £1,000 per referred customer. All you need to do is complete a simple contact form and we’ll do the rest.

Please ensure that the business is aware that you are referring them, you will only receive the referral fee if they acknowledge that you referred them.

[si-contact-form form=’3′]

 

RVR Service powered by CheckMyCCTV

Remote Video Response (RVR) has launched a new service designed to continuously monitor the health of its customers’ CCTV equipment.

RVR, part of UTC Fire and Security, is to roll out the new service in partnership with CheckMySystems Ltd.

It has been built around software designed to enable cameras, detectors and recorders to be checked hourly.

Colin Walters, RVR general manager, said that the potential weak link in any CCTV installation, monitored or otherwise, is the efficacy of the products installed: “Some believe that once a system has been installed, then they can forget about it because it will always be working. Sadly this is not the case, as our research has shown.

“Now we are able to regularly check each element of a CCTV system to monitor the network connection and ensure the hard disks have not failed or the system has stopped recording,” he said. “All of this can be done remotely, taking the benefits of RVR to those that would not normally use our services.”

Darren Rewston, managing director of CheckMySystems said customers were noticing that despite buying expensively maintained solutions for their premises, their systems could often have a fault for many months without anyone noticing: “Engineers normally only check the equipment once or twice a year as part of a maintenance package,” he said.

“But the RVR service, using CheckMyCCTV software means that the CCTV installation is being constantly monitored and warning when an issue occurs. Installers using this service will be informed exactly what the issue is, so it reduces the need for lengthy on-site diagnostics, and increases the chance of a fix in the first visit. The potential cost reduction for service calls can be huge.”

New Feature: Daily Status Reports

Get a daily status update of all your CCTV installations

CheckMyCCTV’s new Daily Status Report function allows you to generate automatic ‘snapshot’ status reports for all your sites, every day.

This function is designed for people who do not need the granularity of individual alerts which are generated when as issue is discovered. By receiving the Daily Snapshot Report, they will see the status of their entire estate in a single email at a user defined time each day.

Typical recipients could be Security Managers, Facility Managers, Loss Protection Managers, and even the End-Users. Daily Status Reports can be configured on a Global, Customer, Site, or Unit basis, so group security managers could receive a status report for all sites, and local security managers would only receive a status report for their own sites.

The report can be customised with your logos and layout, and you can choose whether it is exception driven – only sent when issues are discovered, or a complete report with all sites displayed regardless of their current status.

Daily Status Reports give you and your customers an ‘at a glance’ summary of the issues on your sites, and has been optimised for traditional email clients as well as iPhone, Android, and other Smartphones that can display HTML emails.

New Feature: Camera Tamper Detection

CheckMyCCTV Camera Tamper Detection launched

A CCTV system is only as good as the images it is recording. So if your cameras have been tampered with, your CCTV system may be as good as useless if the cameras are not recording the intended target area.

The problem is, how do you know when they have been moved? If the cameras are tampered with the system would carry on recording and the user would be blissfully unaware that their CCTV system is severely compromised. A manual check could be done, but this would be a hugely time consuming exercise comparing a ‘reference’ image against the current image.

CheckMyCCTV already monitors for camera faults, but it now goes one step further and monitors for camera tampering.

How does it work?

The Camera Tamper Detection function in CheckMyCCTV works by taking snapshots from each camera every day at user defined times (usually one during the day, and one at night). These are analysed and compared with images from the previous day, if the new image changes its view by more than user defined threshold, an alert is generated.

Camera Tamper Detection is a semi-automatic check, meaning that although CheckMyCCTV will generate an alert when the image has changes above a certain threshold. It is designed to augment manual camera checks, giving the operator an indication that a camera may need to be investigated further.

What can it detect?

Using the Camera Tamper Detection feature, CheckMyCCTV can now monitor and report when cameras are moved, obscured, covered, or sprayed, using existing network connected CCTV recorders without having to purchase additional equipment.

A typical application for Camera Tamper Detection could be in a shop or retail environment, where cameras are trained on the Till areas, or at entrance/exit doorways of buildings. An alert would be triggered if these important cameras are moved or obscured.

We’re not going to claim that camera tamper detection is 100% accurate, it is designed as an automated ‘first pass’ to give the operator a means of quickly checking whether reported cameras have indeed been tampered with.