Even for retail space with a small footprint such as this Pinko shop, megapixel cameras can provide high image quality and resolution for flexibility and cost-effectiveness whether it’s coverage of the inventory or the cash register. Photos courtesy of Arecont Vision

When it’s time for a video makeover, retail enterprise security leaders are more often going big.

Traditionally, the choices remain evaluating performance against expectations among an analog system, an IP system with standard resolution cameras and a megapixel camera system.

While it is obvious that IP-based networked cameras are the major trend, thanks in large part to advantages of using the organization’s infrastructure, more retail security executives are also choosing megapixel cameras, often for the high quality images for monitoring and retrieval for forensics review and business intelligence.

One example: When Lauren Bright, a leading wholesale and retail enterprise that specializes in importing European apparel, opened a Pinko Italian fashion store in Harbour City, Hong Kong, security sought a video surveillance system to monitor internal staff and provide anti-theft protection. They were really looking for high resolution imaging to do the job more effectively. As always in the retail environment, overall system cost was a consideration.

In the end, 1.3 and 2 megapixel cameras (Arecont Vision) were chosen through integrator ADT Hong Kong.

The improved video quality of megapixel imaging is especially important in retail applications. For example, better video quality makes it more likely an operator could clearly see the denominations of paper bills changing hands in a questionable point-of-sale transaction.

In addition to lower bandwidth and storage requirements, megapixel cameras can dramatically decrease costs related to other elements of a system, such as fewer software licenses, fewer lenses and a decrease in man-hours needed to bring it all together. These advantages play especially well in the retail environment, where costs are always a consideration.