LTS Cameras: Five Things to Settle Before the Purchase Order
LTS, from LT Security Inc., sells a broad catalog of surveillance hardware in the United States: HD-TVI cameras that run over coax, IP cameras, pan-tilt-zoom and license plate models, recorders and packaged kits, much of it carrying the Platinum name. It turns up constantly in Georgia bids because it undercuts the tier-one brands. Whether that gap is a real saving or a deferred cost depends on five decisions made before the order goes in, not after the truck arrives.
1. Coax or new cable
The largest line item in an older Macon, Columbus or Athens building is rarely the cameras. It is cable. HD-TVI lets you reuse existing RG-59 and send high-definition video down coax that was carrying analog, which is a genuine saving in an occupied building where pulling new Cat6 means ceiling work over tenants and after-hours labor. It is also a dead end. Coax gives you no Power over Ethernet, no camera network to build on, and a recorder architecture you cannot extend sideways. Reuse coax when the building has a short remaining life or the disruption is truly prohibitive. Pull cable when the system has to grow.
2. Power budget, not port count
On the IP side, count watts before you count ports. Heaters and blowers in outdoor housings raise a camera’s draw substantially, and you will want them on a loading dock in January and running against condensation for much of the rest of the year. Pan-tilt-zoom units draw more again. A switch with enough ports and not enough total power budget will brown cameras out intermittently, which is far harder to diagnose than a camera that simply died.
3. How it will talk to the software you already run
If the plan is to record LTS cameras into a third-party video management platform rather than an LTS recorder, check the exact model numbers against that platform’s supported device list and confirm which features survive the integration. ONVIF conformance gets you a stream. It does not guarantee analytics, audio, presets or two-way talk. Buy one camera, put it on the live system, and see what the operator actually gets before ordering fifty.
4. Warranty path, firmware and who answers the phone
Ask how a return authorization actually works, how long a replacement takes to arrive, and who supplies firmware once a model is several years old. Value hardware tends to have a shorter support tail than premium lines, and a camera that can no longer be patched is a camera you will replace on somebody else’s schedule rather than your own. In humid outdoor service, also ask what the housing and gasket warranty covers, because water ingress is the failure you will see most.
5. The supply-chain question, answered in writing
This is the one that catches Georgia buyers. Any organization touching a federal contract, and around Augusta and Fort Gordon that includes a great many subcontractors and the landlords who house them, falls under Section 889 of the FY2019 NDAA. That provision bars covered video surveillance equipment from federal procurement and from use by contractors performing federal work. Industry reporting has long linked LTS hardware to the same manufacturing base as brands named in those rules, and LTS has disputed that characterization. You do not need to settle the argument. You do need a written statement of manufacturer and country of origin from whoever sells you the equipment, obtained before it goes on a wall and kept afterward. Our page on the federal restrictions sets out what those rules actually say and where the line falls.
KSEDCO installs, integrates and services LTS equipment, and will say plainly when a building should not have it. Call (888) 360-0035 or reach the Atlanta office at 2700 Cumberland Pkwy SE, Suite 410, Atlanta GA 30339.
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