Histor

Closed circuit TV monitoring at the Central Police Control Station, Munich Germany in 1973.

Desk in one of the regional control-rooms of the National Police in the Netherlands in 2017.

CCTV control-room monitor wall for 176 open-street cameras in 2017.

An early mechanical CCTV system was developed in June 1927 by Russian physicist Léon Theremin[12] (cf. Television in the Soviet Union). Originally requested by the Soviet of Labor and Defense, the system consisted of a manually-operated scanning-transmitting camera and wireless shortwave transmitter and receiver, with a resolution of a hundred lines. Having been commandeered by Kliment Voroshilov, Theremin’s CCTV system was demonstrated to Joseph Stalin, Semyon Budyonny, and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and subsequently installed in the courtyard of the Moscow Kremlin to monitor approaching visitors.[12]

Another early CCTV system was installed by Siemens AG at Test Stand VII in Peenemünde, Nazi Germany in 1942, for observing the launch of V-2 rockets.[13]

In the U.S. the first commercial closed-circuit television system became available in 1949, called Vericon. Very little is known about Vericon except it was advertised as not requiring a government permit.[14]