CheckMySystems' 24/7 CCTV health checks offered to Visual Verification's customers

12 Dec 11

CheckMySystems – the CCTV diagnostics software specialist - has signed an agreement to enable Visual Verification, the Cheshire-based monitoring station, to become a CheckMyCCTV service provider. Brian Sims reports.

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By Brian Sims

The deal means that Visual Verification can offer its end user customers advanced CCTV health, status and operation monitoring using CheckMyCCTV as part of its comprehensive portfolio.

For Visual Verification's customers who opt for this service there's the reassurance that remedial action can be taken immediately when an issue arises in the field (whether it be to do with the failure of a camera, hard disk, detector or network connection).

Crucially, this intelligent, proactive approach is not reliant on time-consuming manual checks or problems being noticed by the end user (where delays may leave sites unnecessarily vulnerable).

In operation, the sophisticated CheckMyCCTV software has been devised to be as intuitive as possible for the operator through its on-screen 'traffic light' warning system. The warning system can be customised to offer pop-up boxes, audible alerts and e-mail messages as required, and can send a daily status report to customers.

For the Visual Verification solution a dual-screen operation has been set-up in the Control Room with one screen displaying the global status of sites and the other featuring an interactive map to give the status and location of each installation covered by the CheckMyCCTV software.

Enhanced integrity and security

"With the roll-out of the CheckMyCCTV service we are able to give our customers who subscribe to the solution an industry-leading system for enhanced integrity and security above and beyond anything that was previously possible," explained Steve Nelson, the managing director of Visual Verification.

"Ensuring a CCTV installation is fully operational is, not surprisingly, a critical concern for us at Visual Verification given the record level of criminal activity we have seen on our monitored sites this year. To date, the number of arrests since the start of 2011 stands at 73."

Nelson continued: "Thankfully, once CheckMyCCTV was implemented, labour intensive site checks that were previously undertaken manually are now automatic and conducted around-the-clock. This checking process is also much more extensive, so rather than being confined to simply checking that a site is connected it can drill-down to look at hardware and configuration issues on the CCTV system."

In conclusion, Nelson told Info4Security: "Encouragingly, the response from customers who have signed-up has been extremely positive once they see the practical benefits. We expect the number of CheckMyCCTV subscribers to increase significantly in the coming months."

What the solutions provider says...

Darren Rewston, the managing director of CheckMySystems, believes that this "revolutionary software" is proving its worth by providing an important safety net for monitoring station's like Visual Verification and their connected sites.

"A key driver for the take-up of CheckMyCCTV is the fact that it ties-in with the widespread recognition by monitoring stations and their customers of the need to have an effective, economical and simple method of constantly monitoring the status of security-critical CCTV equipment," stated Rewston.

"By flagging up any issues automatically, CheckMyCCTV provides the peace of mind that there are no critical gaps in surveillance left by undetected failures."

System compatibility to date

The CheckMyCCTV solution is currently compatible with CCTV systems from the following manufacturers: Dedicated Micros, Heitel, Vista, Adata, Dahua Technology, QNAP and Videoswitch. New brands are being added all the time by the development team at CheckMySystems.