LA CCTV Supply · Systems design
A security design a bidder can price and an inspector can check.
Camera layouts tied to a pixel-density target. Door schedules that decide egress behavior on paper. Storage and power sized with the arithmetic shown. The drawings leave here complete enough that your installing contractor is quoting scope, not guessing at it.
01 Design services
Eight disciplines that have to agree with each other.
A camera plan that ignores the PoE budget, or a door schedule that ignores egress, is where change orders come from. These are produced as one coordinated set.
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Camera layout & pixel density
Every camera placed against a stated task — detect, observe, recognize or identify — with the field of view, lens and mounting height chosen to hit the pixel density that task needs at the target distance. Plans show the cone, the target line and the density achieved there, not just a triangle on a floor plan.
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Access control door schedules
A row per opening: reader and credential technology, lock type and fail-safe or fail-secure decision, request-to-exit, door position switch, power source, and the Division 08 hardware it has to coordinate with. Egress behavior is decided on the schedule, not in the field.
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Intrusion detection zoning
Partitions and zones that match how the building is actually opened and closed, sensor technology chosen for the space, tamper and line supervision, entry/exit timing, and a written response expectation for each zone.
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Network & storage sizing
Switch counts and PoE budget, uplink sizing, VLAN and multicast treatment, recorder or server placement, and the retention math that decides how much storage you actually buy. Sized with headroom, then written down so the IT group can argue with the numbers.
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Power & battery calculations
Load list per power supply, voltage-drop check on the longest run, and standby battery sizing from measured standby and alarm currents with a derating margin — the 20 % margin NFPA 72 requires for fire alarm secondary power is a sensible habit everywhere else too.
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Riser & conduit routing coordination
Riser diagrams, pathway and sleeve requirements, conduit fill and bend radius, firestopping at rated assemblies, and separation from noise sources — coordinated with the electrical and architectural sets before anything is roughed in.
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Submittal & closeout packages
Cut sheets matched to the specification, shop drawings, point-to-point wiring, programming and naming schedules, acceptance test forms, and the O&M/as-built structure the closeout will be judged against.
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Acceptance & commissioning plans
A written test per device type and per system function, with pass criteria, so the day the system is handed over there is a document that says whether it works — signed by somebody.
02 Deliverables
Ten documents, issued as editable files.
Design intent is worthless if it only exists in a PDF nobody can revise. You get the working files, the schedules as tables, and a bill of materials that a purchasing department can actually act on.
Revision discipline. Every sheet and schedule carries a revision block. When the field changes something, the sheet changes — that is what makes the closeout package worth keeping.
- Device layout plans with camera cones, coverage intent and mounting notes
- Access control door schedule and per-opening wiring detail
- Intrusion zone list with sensor types, partitions and response expectations
- Riser diagrams and pathway/conduit coordination notes
- Head-end and rack elevations, with power and cooling load
- Network requirements sheet: ports, PoE class, VLANs, bandwidth and storage
- Power supply schedule with load, voltage drop and battery sizing
- Bill of materials with model numbers, quantities, spares and accessories
- Specification sections and submittal requirements
- Acceptance test plan and closeout document list
03 Standards we design to
The documents behind the dimensions.
Published, public standards — summarized here in plain English. The authority having jurisdiction, your accrediting official and your contract always have the final word on which edition applies and how.
| Standard | What it governs | How it shows up in the design |
|---|---|---|
| ANSI/TIA-568 | Balanced twisted-pair and optical cabling components and performance. | The horizontal channel is limited to 100 m — up to 90 m of permanent link plus patch and equipment cords. Anything past that gets a fiber run, a mid-span enclosure or a relocated IDF on the drawing, not a hopeful splice. |
| ANSI/TIA-569 | Telecommunications pathways and spaces. | Conduit fill, bend radius, pull-point spacing, sleeve and slot provisions, and how big the telecom room really has to be once you add recorders, power supplies and battery cabinets. |
| NFPA 101 | Life Safety Code — means of egress. | A door in a means of egress must be openable from the egress side without a key, tool, special knowledge or effort. Access control never gets to defeat that: fail-safe or fail-secure is chosen per opening, with the authority having jurisdiction, and it is recorded on the door schedule. |
| NFPA 72 | National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. | Fire alarm design belongs to the fire protection engineer; our drawings define the interface — release of electrically locked egress doors, monitoring points, and the secondary-power practice (including the 20 % battery derating margin) we carry into security power calculations. |
| UL 294 | Access Control System Units. | Listed units are rated at levels I–IV for destructive attack, line security, endurance and standby power. We call out the level the project needs rather than assuming every listed panel is equivalent. |
| UL 681 · UL 1076 · UL 2050 | Burglar alarm installation and classification · proprietary alarm units and systems · national industrial security systems. | UL 681 covers how a burglar and holdup alarm installation is classified; UL 1076 covers proprietary systems; UL 2050 is the certificate service used for the protection of classified U.S. Government material — the context behind the Extent 3 requirements on a SCIF or SAPF project. |
| ADA 2010 Standards | Accessible design — operable parts. | Readers, keypads, exit devices and intercom buttons sit inside the 15 in minimum to 48 in maximum reach range, and operate without tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist. It is a dimension on the elevation, not an afterthought. |
| Section 889, FY2019 NDAA | Federal sourcing restriction. | For federal work we design with the Section 889 prohibition in mind: covered telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from the named entities — and their subsidiaries and affiliates — is kept off the bill of materials, and the substitution is made at design time, not at submittal. |
Standards are cited for design intent only. LA CCTV Supply is not affiliated with or endorsed by TIA, NFPA, UL Solutions or any U.S. Government agency, and nothing here is a listing, certification or approval.
04 Storage & bandwidth estimator
Retention math, with the working shown.
Change the inputs and watch the arithmetic. It is an estimate: real bitrates move with scene motion, lighting, codec and analytics, so we confirm with the recorder manufacturer tool and a measured stream before anyone signs a purchase order.
Storage & bandwidth estimator
Estimate only · runs in your browser
Typical H.265, ~15 fps, moderate motion.
- Raw capacity
- — TB—
- Usable needed
- — TB
- Video written
- — TB
- Per camera per day
- — GB
- Aggregate stream
- — Mb/s—
With JavaScript off, the arithmetic is still simple enough to do by hand:
Worked example: 32 cameras at 4 Mb/s, 24 h/day, 30 days, 10 % headroom, no RAID overhead → 43.2 GB per camera per day, 41.5 TB of video, 46.1 TB usable, 128 Mb/s aggregate.
Decimal TB (1 TB = 1000 GB), matching how drives are sold. Formatted capacity is a few percent smaller. Add the operating system volume, database and any video export space separately.
05 Handoff to the installing contractor
We draw it. Your licensed contractor builds it.
That boundary is on purpose. It keeps the design honest, it keeps the bid competitive, and it keeps the licensing question simple.
What the package gives the contractor
Plans, schedules, risers, a bill of materials and a test plan — enough to price the work without inventing scope, and enough to install it without calling every day.
Who holds the installation contract
Your licensed contractor. LA CCTV Supply provides security consulting and system design, sells the equipment and trains your people. We are not an installing contractor: installation is performed by your licensed contractor, except for small non-permitted work under $1,000 all-inclusive, which we can handle directly.
What we do during construction
Answer RFIs, review submittals against the design, attend coordination meetings, and witness acceptance testing if you engage us for owner’s representation.
What changes in the field
Something always does. We reissue the affected sheet and the schedule row so the as-built record stays true, rather than letting a marked-up print become the only copy.
FAQ
Design questions, answered.
If your situation is genuinely unusual, the phone is faster than a form.
Read the SCIF & SAPF primerCan you design around equipment we already own?
Usually. We audit what is installed, keep what still has service life and a supported firmware path, and design the new work to sit alongside it. Where a legacy device is the reason a whole system cannot meet the requirement, we say so and price both options.
Do you stamp drawings?
No. We produce design documents, schedules and specifications for low-voltage security systems. Where a project requires an engineer of record, a licensed professional engineer stamps the set — our package is written to be reviewed and incorporated by that engineer or your architect.
Does the storage estimate replace the manufacturer calculator?
No. The estimator on this page is arithmetic on a bitrate you supply, and it is deliberately transparent about that. Before purchase we redo the numbers with the recorder manufacturer tool and a measured bitrate from the actual scene, because motion, lighting, compression and analytics move the answer a long way.
Do you install the system you design?
No. LA CCTV Supply provides security consulting and system design, sells the equipment and trains your people. We are not an installing contractor: installation is performed by your licensed contractor, except for small non-permitted work under $1,000 all-inclusive, which we can handle directly.
Send us the floor plan.
A PDF of the plan, a rough device count and the date you need to bid is enough to start. We will tell you what the design set should contain before we quote it.
Please don’t send classified information, CUI or facility addresses through web forms or unencrypted email.