CCTV that actually holds up after an incident

Cameras are the easy part, and most sites already have them. Footage that survives contact with an insurance adjuster, a police request or a card chargeback is the part that fails, and the gap is never the camera count. It is retention, pixel density, clock accuracy and whether anyone has ever practiced an export.

Retention: 30 days is the floor, 60 to 90 is the target

Shrink investigations and register discrepancies usually land within a week. Liability does not. A slip and fall gets reported to an attorney six or eight weeks after the fact, and by then a 14 day recorder has overwritten the only evidence that the floor was dry and the wet-floor sign was out.

Set retention to at least 30 days and aim for 60 at the register and entrance. If the recorder cannot hold that, the fix is usually a bigger drive rather than a new system: surveillance-rated drives run $120 to $260 for capacities that double most stores' retention. Check the actual oldest recording in the software, not the setting. A recorder configured for 60 days that is dropping footage at day 19 is a full disk or a failing one.

Pixel density is the number that decides whether footage is evidence

Resolution on a spec sheet means nothing without distance. What matters is pixels per foot across the target.

• Around 20 pixels per foot: you can see that a person was there and what they did.
• Around 40 pixels per foot: you can recognize someone you already know, read a plate at short range, and identify clothing and bags reliably.
• 80 pixels per foot or better: facial identification of a stranger, and reading serial numbers, packs and denominations.

A 4MP camera covering a 20 foot wide checkout counter gives you roughly 130 pixels per foot horizontally, which is plenty. The same camera stretched across a 60 foot parking lot is down near 43, which is why lot footage always disappoints. If you want faces, you need one camera pointed at the entrance at head height, framed on a doorway width, not a wide shot from the ceiling corner.

Frame rate follows the same logic. Run 15 frames per second at the register and the entry, and 8 to 10 on the sales floor and the lot. Cash handling at 4 fps is where hand movements happen between frames.

The nine views a small retail floor actually needs

1. 1Register, over the shoulder of the cashier, showing hands, drawer and the customer's face.
2. 2Register, opposite angle, showing the counter surface and the card reader.
3. 3Entrance at face height, tightly framed.
4. 4Safe or back office.
5. 5Stock room door, the one staff carry through, framed to show what is in their hands.
6. 6Stock room interior, covering the high-value shelf and the returns pile.
7. 7Back door and receiving, including the dock or the alley step.
8. 8Sales floor overview covering the high-shrink aisle and the fitting rooms or blind corner.
9. 9Parking lot and the dumpster corner, where the after-hours incidents happen.

Clock sync, the failure nobody sees coming

If the recorder clock is four minutes off the POS clock, matching a transaction journal to video becomes guesswork, and a defense attorney will say so. Point the recorder at a network time server, verify it twice a year, and check it after every power outage and every daylight saving change. Write the offset on the recorder if you cannot fix it, so whoever pulls footage knows to correct for it.

Practice the export before you need it

The worst time to learn your export workflow is with an officer standing at the counter. Once a month, pick a random time from the previous day, export three minutes from two cameras to a USB stick, and open it on the store laptop. That test catches four things at once: retention, camera health, clock accuracy and whether the exported file plays without a proprietary viewer nobody has.

Keep a labeled USB stick in the safe and a one-page export instruction taped inside the office door with the recorder IP, the admin account and the steps. Do not keep the password on that page.

Maintenance that keeps the system honest

• Clean domes and lens covers quarterly. Dust film, insect webs and, anywhere near a cooking line, airborne grease cost more image quality than any settings change.
• Check IR at night, in person, once a month. A dome with fogged IR looks fine on the daytime view and is useless at 2 AM.
• Replace surveillance drives at three to four years, before they fail. A drive that dies takes the entire retention window with it.
• Photograph the recorder screen showing all channels live, monthly, and keep it in a folder. That is your proof of which cameras were working on a given date.
• Confirm the recorder is on the UPS that protects the POS. A recorder that reboots with every brownout loses hours of index.

What repairs cost

Per part, installed, not a whole-job band.

Camera replacement runs $180 to $420 per camera installed on existing cable. A recorder swap is $900 to $2,400 depending on channel count and storage. Cable pulls are the expensive surprise: a single new run through a finished ceiling, a masonry wall or exterior conduit can pass $600 on its own, which is why it is worth adding the two cameras you might want during any job that already has a lift on site and a technician pulling cable.