Covering All Ground

Video surveillance stays on guard at shopping centers

New video surveillance technologies reduce mall managers' dependence on costly security guards, minimize false alarms and capture important details. Although theft is an important reason to have a video system, it is not the only issue for a shopping center.

Video also eliminates the payouts of fraudulent slips and falls, a major liability concern of retail outlets. It lets shoppers know they are protected, which is why so many mall operators prioritize the parking lot when developing their video systems. Managers and security staff also can use the cameras to spot traffic tie-ups or other problems in and around the mall.

Typical Shopping Mall Video Systems

Dome cameras are strategically placed to cover all common areas. In most cases, the dome system switches automatically between a color mode for daytime use and a more sensitive monochrome made for nighttime viewing.

This lets one camera provide around-the-clock surveillance, reducing equipment and maintenance costs. Fixed cameras are typically used in various service areas, including loading docks, restrooms and emergency exits.

In addition to increasing security, mall managers often use the system to monitor essential areas and ensure certain mall operations are running smoothly. For example, cameras can watch cleaning crews and staff to maintain the integrity of the mall, fixed cameras placed at escalators minimize liability issues, and a camera in front of the mall monitors the valet service and ensures streets are kept clear.

Cameras also can record cars entering and exiting while monitoring parking deck capacity. If a car needs to be towed, records show whether the car has been there for five minutes or an hour. In the event of an incident, staff also can zoom in on a license plate.

With a surveillance system and a digital DVR, the manager in the back office can view any camera or play back any image at any time, as well as send images over the Internet.

With traditional cameras, outdoor details can often be overpowered by bright light, making it difficult for security personnel to see inside trucks at loading docks or what's going on inside an entrance. Headlights make it nearly impossible to see license plates in the parking deck.

New digital cameras display perfect picture quality equal to the human eye. For example, motion adaptive DNR takes dark images and makes them clear. Digital image stabilization removes the blurs of motion, providing a crisp still image. Today's digital cameras also incorporate a low-light noise-reduction and color-suppression function. Their extended dynamic range feature corrects the problems of darkness and brightness, which render images unreadable. Wide dynamic range provides clear images even under backlight, removing glare problems.

Such technology increases exposure in shadowed areas and decreases exposure in bright areas, delivering a light-corrected image that shows crucial details clearly. It even adjusts for different lighting conditions within the same image.

While ordinary surveillance cameras are affected by glare, refl ections, backlighting and shadows that obscure important details, new camera technologies let users see everything. When installed in a mall lobby, security staff can see clear images of people's faces, even if the afternoon sun or bright refl ections shine right into the camera.

Megapixel Cameras in Entrances, Parking Lots

If the main goal of a camera is to capture a face at the entrance or a license plate in the parking lot, its objective is to produce a clear image. Without clarity, neither facial nor license plate recognition software can be effective.

That is why most shopping centers are selecting megapixel cameras, which provide higher-resolution progressive-scan images, instead of analog PTZ, which provide lower-resolution interlaced-scan images, or even standard digital IP PTZ cameras, for these locales.

The picture quality advantages of megapixel network cameras benefit shopping centers in several ways. In some applications, a megapixel network camera can cover the same area as other cameras but with an improved level of picture quality. For instance, almost everyone is familiar with images captured by CCTV systems in which the quality is so poor that little can be determined from the recording and, all too often, no positive identification is possible.

Megapixel network cameras solve this disadvantage by producing increased resolution and clarity. For example, a high-resolution analog camera provides a resolution of 704x480 while the megapixel camera provides a resolution of 1,280x1,024, a significant difference. In other applications, megapixel cameras cover a wider area than standard CCTV cameras. This means a shopping center can install a megapixel camera with four times the resolution of a standard camera or even a 3.1 megapixel camera with 10 times the resolution of a standard camera.

Shoppers Want to Know They Are Safe

To alert workers and shoppers that a surveillance system is watching over them, many shopping centers display live video on a large screen, which allows people to see themselves on the monitor. A video wall is easy to set up and can be used for multiple purposes.

When not showing surveillance video, these monitors can display a variety of advertising and multimedia messages. These professional monitors differ from standard TVs because their screen protection techniques can display information without the possibility of screen burn.

Leveraging the Advantages of Remote Monitoring

By tying a surveillance system into the Internet, a shopping center can share its video with the local police and allow authorities to access certain cameras, as well as PTZ from dispatch, and respond quickly when needed. In other cases in which remote monitoring is not an option, shopping center security staff can send video to the police so they can respond quickly, knowing exactly where they have to go and with what they are dealing with.

Featured

  • New Report Reveals Top Trends Transforming Access Controller Technology

    Mercury Security, a provider in access control hardware and open platform solutions, has published its Trends in Access Controllers Report, based on a survey of over 450 security professionals across North America and Europe. The findings highlight the controller’s vital role in a physical access control system (PACS), where the device not only enforces access policies but also connects with readers to verify user credentials—ranging from ID badges to biometrics and mobile identities. With 72% of respondents identifying the controller as a critical or important factor in PACS design, the report underscores how the choice of controller platform has become a strategic decision for today’s security leaders. Read Now

  • Overwhelming Majority of CISOs Anticipate Surge in Cyber Attacks Over the Next Three Years

    An overwhelming 98% of chief information security officers (CISOs) expect a surge in cyber attacks over the next three years as organizations face an increasingly complex and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digital threat landscape. This is according to new research conducted among 300 CISOs, chief information officers (CIOs), and senior IT professionals by CSC1, the leading provider of enterprise-class domain and domain name system (DNS) security. Read Now

  • ASIS International Introduces New ANSI-Approved Investigations Standard

    • Guard Services
  • Cloud Security Alliance Brings AI-Assisted Auditing to Cloud Computing

    The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining standards, certifications, and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today introduced an innovative addition to its suite of Security, Trust, Assurance and Risk (STAR) Registry assessments with the launch of Valid-AI-ted, an AI-powered, automated validation system. The new tool provides an automated quality check of assurance information of STAR Level 1 self-assessments using state-of-the-art LLM technology. Read Now

  • Report: Nearly 1 in 5 Healthcare Leaders Say Cyberattacks Have Impacted Patient Care

    Omega Systems, a provider of managed IT and security services, today released new research that reveals the growing impact of cybersecurity challenges on leading healthcare organizations and patient safety. According to the 2025 Healthcare IT Landscape Report, 19% of healthcare leaders say a cyberattack has already disrupted patient care, and more than half (52%) believe a fatal cyber-related incident is inevitable within the next five years. Read Now

New Products

  • ResponderLink

    ResponderLink

    Shooter Detection Systems (SDS), an Alarm.com company and a global leader in gunshot detection solutions, has introduced ResponderLink, a groundbreaking new 911 notification service for gunshot events. ResponderLink completes the circle from detection to 911 notification to first responder awareness, giving law enforcement enhanced situational intelligence they urgently need to save lives. Integrating SDS’s proven gunshot detection system with Noonlight’s SendPolice platform, ResponderLink is the first solution to automatically deliver real-time gunshot detection data to 911 call centers and first responders. When shots are detected, the 911 dispatching center, also known as the Public Safety Answering Point or PSAP, is contacted based on the gunfire location, enabling faster initiation of life-saving emergency protocols.

  • 4K Video Decoder

    3xLOGIC’s VH-DECODER-4K is perfect for use in organizations of all sizes in diverse vertical sectors such as retail, leisure and hospitality, education and commercial premises.

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.”