Six questions decide whether a camera system actually helps when something happens. Straight answers from the XEON Security engineers who specify and install them every week.
A plate roughly 15 m from the camera, same lens and field of view on all three. Switch sensors and watch the characters appear. This is why resolution matters after the fact, not on the live view.
For most properties, 4MP to 4K. The point isn't a sharper live picture - it's being able to zoom into a recording afterwards.
A 1080p camera covering a whole driveway will show that a car arrived. A 4K camera covering the same area can show the plate. Put your highest-resolution cameras where people and vehicles enter, and use wider, lower-resolution cameras for general overview.
Resolution
Pixels
Where it belongs
1080p · 2MP
1920 × 1080
Short distances, indoor rooms, overview shots
4MP
2560 × 1440
Doors, porches, small yards
4K · 8MP
3840 × 2160
Driveways, parking, entrances where faces and plates matter
XEON FIELD NOTE
On most jobs we specify one 4K camera on the main approach and 4MP everywhere else. Putting 4K on all eight positions triples your storage cost for footage nobody will ever zoom into.
Almost every camera records at night. The question is whether it records in colour, and how far it can see.
Standard infrared night vision gives a black-and-white image, usually out to 20–40 metres. Low-light "colour night" cameras keep colour, which matters when you need to describe clothing or a vehicle, but they need some ambient light from a street lamp or porch light.
Check the stated night range against the distance you actually need to cover. A camera rated to 30 m is not useful on a 60 m perimeter.
XEON FIELD NOTE
The cheapest upgrade to night footage is usually not a better camera. It's a light. Adding one motion-triggered floodlight on an approach lets an ordinary colour camera do what an expensive low-light model would have been bought for.
An NVR keeps footage at your property with no monthly fee. The cloud keeps a copy somewhere a burglar can't reach.
A network video recorder is a box with hard drives that records every camera continuously. It's the most cost-effective way to store weeks of 4K video. Its weakness: if it's stolen or damaged, the footage goes with it.
Cloud backup sends clips - or full recordings - off-site. Many systems use both: continuous recording to the NVR, event clips to the cloud.
Wired, wherever you can run a cable. Wireless where you can't.
Wired PoE cameras get power and data through one cable, so they never need charging and don't drop out when Wi-Fi is busy. Wireless and battery cameras are quicker to install and good for spots that are hard to cable, but they depend on signal strength and regular recharging.
A well-planned system often combines both, with wired cameras on the critical approaches and wireless filling the awkward corners.
How many cameras?
Start with every way in, then the places things of value sit.
Cover each entrance, gate and ground-floor door first, then driveways and parking, then anything valuable stored outside. A typical house needs four to eight cameras; a small business, eight to sixteen.
The exact number comes from sight lines, not square footage - which is why an on-site survey beats a guess from a floor plan.
XEON FIELD NOTE
The most common thing we correct on existing systems: six cameras all watching the front of a building, and nothing on the side gate everyone actually walks through. Count entrances before you count cameras.
Incidents are often noticed days later - a missing delivery, damage found on Monday. Keeping less than two weeks means the footage may already be overwritten when you go looking.
Businesses should check whether their insurer or local regulations require a longer retention period, and whether there are privacy rules on where cameras can point.
Stop guessing. Run the numbers.
XEON Security's Optical & Infrastructure Calculators are seven free engineering tools that answer the questions in this guide with your actual figures - your lens, your mounting height, your retention period. No account, no payment, and everything runs in your browser.
Why we built them: most CCTV quotes are assembled from product pages rather than optics. These are the same calculations our engineers run before specifying a system, published so you can check any quote - including ours.
This guide is written and maintained by XEON Security. We design and install CCTV systems for homes, businesses, industrial sites and government facilities - and we'll give you a straight recommendation, including when you need fewer cameras than you think.
XEON Security operates from offices in the United States and the Philippines, and serves clients across Lithuania. Talk to us in whichever language you prefer.
Residential, commercial, industrial and government installations across the United States, Lithuania and the Philippines, in English, Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian and Filipino. See the full range at xeonsecurity.com.