How to choose a CCTV system for an office or factory in Ghaziabad (2026 buyer's guide)

Every week we are called to look at a CCTV system that somebody regrets. The pattern is familiar: a dealer quoted a low per-camera price, the cameras went up wherever the cable reached, the recorder came with whatever hard disk was in stock, and nobody wrote down the password. This guide is what we tell clients at the survey stage so that the system they buy — from us or anyone else — is one they will still be happy with in three years.

Start with what you need to see

Before any discussion of brands or megapixels, walk your premises and list the places where something could go wrong. For an office: the main entrance, reception, the cash or accounts area, the server room door, the back exit. For a factory: gates, weighbridge, loading bays, finished-goods store, the raw-material yard, canteen and the boundary wall at night. For a housing society: the gate, each tower lobby, lifts, basement parking and the perimeter.

Then ask, for each spot, whether you need to identify (recognise a face or read a number plate), recognise (know it was Ramesh, because you know Ramesh), or merely detect (see that someone was there). This decides the camera, not the other way around. Identification needs a camera close to the subject or a high-resolution camera with the right lens; detection can be done with a wide-angle 2MP camera covering a whole yard.

IP versus HD analog

IP cameras send video as data over a network cable, usually with power on the same cable (PoE). HD analog cameras (HD-TVI, HD-CVI, AHD) send video over coaxial cable to a DVR. In 2026 the decision is simpler than it used to be:

• Choose IP if you have more than eight cameras, need to identify faces or plates, want to add cameras later, or want analytics like line-crossing and people counting. Almost every factory, school and society falls here.
• Choose HD analog if it is one small premises — a shop, a clinic, a flat — with four to eight cameras and a tight budget. It is reliable and simple, and 2MP analog is perfectly adequate for a 400 sq ft shop.

The price gap has narrowed. A decent 2MP IP camera in Ghaziabad costs only a little more than its analog equivalent once you include the PoE switch, and it saves on cabling and on future headaches.

Resolution: 2MP, 4MP, 5MP, 8MP (4K)

Resolution is about pixels on the subject. A 2MP camera 25 metres from a gate will not read a number plate; a 2MP camera 4 metres from a door will capture a face clearly. As a rough rule for Indian commercial sites:

• 2MP — corridors, small rooms, shop floors, anywhere the subject is within 6–8 metres.
• 4–5MP — the sweet spot for most offices, factory floors, society lobbies and parking.
• 8MP / 4K — gates, yards, loading bays, anywhere you want to zoom into recorded footage and still see detail.

Higher resolution costs more in storage and bandwidth, so mix: 4K at the gate, 4MP in the lobby, 2MP in the corridor.

Night and low light

Every camera has infrared (IR) LEDs; the question is range. A camera with 30 m IR will not light a 60 m yard. For perimeters and yards consider cameras with longer IR, "colour at night" sensors, or simply installing lights — a sodium or LED floodlight on a timer does more for night footage than any camera upgrade.

Storage: how many days do you actually need?

The number of days of recording depends on camera count, resolution, frame rate, recording mode (continuous or motion) and the hard disk size. Thirty days is the usual minimum for offices and shops; societies and factories often want 60–90 days because an incident may be discovered weeks later. Ask the installer for the calculation, not a guess. Also insist on surveillance-grade hard disks — desktop drives fail early under 24-hour writing.

Remote viewing and user access

Any modern recorder supports viewing on a phone. What matters is how it is set up: separate user accounts for the owner, the manager and the security agency; no default passwords; the recorder on its own network segment so a compromised camera does not expose your office computers. Ask for this explicitly.

What a proper quotation includes

1. A camera layout drawing marked on your floor plan.
2. Brand and model number for every camera, the recorder, the switch and the hard disk.
3. Cable type and length, conduit or casing, and who makes the civil holes.
4. Recording days calculated and stated.
5. Warranty on products and on installation labour, stated separately.
6. AMC cost for year two onwards.

If a quotation is a single line — "16 cameras with DVR, Rs. X" — you are not comparing like with like.

Common mistakes we fix

• Cameras pointed at the sky or at a wall because they were mounted before anyone checked the view on a screen.
• A recorder in a cupboard with no ventilation, failing every summer.
• Power supply shared with the lighting circuit so the cameras die when the lights are switched off at night.
• Nobody knowing the admin password after the installer left.
• No AMC, so the first failed camera is discovered on the day footage is needed.

What it costs in Ghaziabad and Noida

Prices move, but as a frame of reference: a 4-camera 2MP analog system for a shop is an entry-level purchase; an 8-camera 4MP IP system for an office is a modest investment; a 32-camera factory system with a 4K gate camera, ANPR and 90-day storage is a project that deserves a design. In every case the installation quality and the AMC matter more than the brand on the box.

Next step

If you are in Ghaziabad, Noida or anywhere in Delhi NCR, we will survey your premises at no cost and give you the drawing and quotation described above. Even if you buy elsewhere, you will know what you are buying.