The UK has between two and four million CCTV cameras in operation. It’s hard to pin the exact number down as there is no requirement to register them, so figures are based on somewhat flaky sales data. What is certain is that the bulk of these cameras use analogue technology which causes a lot of problems in terms of quality, accessibility and reliability.

Over the past few years, IP-based fully digital cameras have grown in demand. The big CCTV vendors such as Axis, Panasonic, Bosch and Mobotix are currently fighting it out for market share. However, these stalwarts have been joined by new entrants from the IT market such as Cisco and D-Link.

The exciting thing for IT resellers is this: CCTV is pure channel. Apart from the odd corner shop with a self-installed dodgy webcam, all sales are initiated by channel partners and there is good margin in it. The cameras themselves are pretty similar, although some pioneers have unique technologies that give them the edge in wireless, distributed or outdoor environments. However, at a basic configuration level, the technology is easily understood by any IT supplier with a basic grasp of IP and storage.

The replacement or installation of a new CCTV systems also fits nicely with other projects like VoIP, network upgrade or videoconferencing, and best of all, the budget often comes out of facilities and not operational.

Many channel partners would discount CCTV as waste of time, but with typical deal sizes at even a small, single site hitting £20,000, and the drip feed commission from offsite monitoring contracts, it seems any IT reseller who simply ignores CCTV is missing out on a nice little earner.

Christine Horton is the editor of PC Pro’s sister site Channel Pro.

At the more budget end of the scale we saw HP’s Compaq CQ2000, a beautifully designed small-form-factor PC with a 20in TFT for a mouth-watering price of just £286 exc VAT. We’ve seen cheap mini-PCs and nettops before, but this is the first we’d really want in our living room.

We also reviewed Toshiba’s latest business model, the Tecra R110-112, which came in bright white with a vast array of security features and reasonable power too.

Upping the resolution

Dell resurrected the 23in TFT, a size we thought had been well and truly killed off by the rising popularity of 22in and 24in rivals. The reason? The SP2309W sports a unique 2,048 x 1,152 “higher then Full HD” resolution which we found both liberating and a little bit baffling.

Not to be outdone, Creative launched its Vado HD, an upgrade to the pocket video camera we liked so much last year. Unfortunately Creative also saw fit to up the price, which puts it beyond what we’d consider reasonable for these low-budget consumer devices.

Making sweet music

Two music production suites reached the labs: Steinberg’s Cubase music suite reached version 5, and brought with it a swathe of inspired new features; while Cakewalk Sonar 8 Producer had the competition running scared with its wealth of features and plug-ins.

And finally, the Linksys Media Hub NMH405 was by far the most simple and intuitive NAS device we’ve ever used, not to mention stylish and well designed too. Unfortunately someone forgot to put the go-faster stripes on the side, as its read and write performance let it down quite badly.