How long should I retain camera film? A new security camera is PC based and I am told that th ehard drive will only hold 3 weeks of video? this seems too short of a time period

My policy is six months. Three weeks is way too short. Consider this scenario: A cutomer gets their bank statement in the mail on the 5th of the month. The first thing they see is an ATM withdrawal on the 10th of the previous month. They file a claim and you go to investigate only to discover that you no longer have video. Now what?

And that assumes the customer was prompt. Reg E gives your customer 60 days from the time they get the statement to file a claim. When you consider that the transaction could have taken place up to 30 days prior to the statement date you're up to 90 days.

For good measure I doubled it and said 6 months. I had one forgery investigation where the tape I needed was the next one in line to be re-recorded when the complaint came in. The tape saved the bank $5,000 and saved a teller her job. Seems worth it to me.

I agree that three weeks is too short.

Check the options on your DVR to see if you can extend your retention time by changing some settings. If you have a means of recording based on activity (alarm or motion), using it could mean the difference between three weeks and three months of video.

Another option is to use whatever external archiving (CD, DAT, ZIP) your recorder is equipped to handle.

The new digital systems that are available retain scads of terabytes of data far beyond three weeks. Check other vendors. If you wish to know my vendor, please pm me.

Sorry that last post was mine!

Depending how many cameras your system is monitoring, it may just be a matter of buying more memory for the pc.

I believe that Greg's policy is the MINIMUM that this video should be saved. 3 weeks is way too short. I regularly pull video for law enforcement that goes back 2 and 3 months and our bank benefits from that ability.