Can I upgrade my cameras without rewiring?

Usually yes, and in Coventry the more interesting question is whether you should. If the system is on structured network cable, the same cable carries a modern PoE camera. If it is older analogue coax, you can fit HD-over-coax cameras to it or convert to network cable. But on the post-war housing that makes up much of this city, a new run is cheap enough that keeping a camera in a position that was never right, purely to avoid re-cabling, is often a bad trade.

Is it worth converting from analogue to IP in Coventry?

More often than in cities with a lot of solid-wall stock, because the cost gap is narrower here. Cavity walls and accessible lofts make a new run straightforward, so the extra cost of converting is modest. On the pre-war pockets through Earlsdon, Foleshill and Radford the traditional advice holds and reusing the coax is frequently the sensible call. Anyone giving you a single answer without looking at your cable or your walls is guessing.

Will 4K cameras let me read number plates?

Not on their own, and this matters here because usable vehicle footage is what most Coventry upgrades are actually for. Plate capture is decided by lens choice and camera position far more than by resolution: a lens that reads a plate at four metres will not read one at twelve, whatever the pixel count. If plate capture is the goal, the camera probably needs to move as well as be replaced.

What actually gets better when I upgrade?

Low-light performance most of all, which matters because most of what you want footage of happens after dark. Infrared reach improves with it. Recording is the other real gain, since older recorders have small drives and short retention, which is why so many systems overwrite the thing you needed before you go looking. Daytime resolution improves too but it is the least valuable of the three.

How do I know if my existing cable is still good?

It is testable rather than a matter of opinion, and we test it at the assessment. The commonest fault on older outdoor installations is water ingress at the connector, and where that has been happening for years the cable can be corroded back some distance from the camera. We also check whether the existing runs actually go where cameras should now be, which is a separate question from whether the cable works.

Do upgraded systems need a subscription?

Not the ones we fit. Footage records to a recorder on your own property, so there is no cloud plan and no monthly fee. Worth checking closely when comparing quotes, because several modern systems are sold at an attractive hardware price with a subscription attached to the features that make them useful.

CCTV Upgrades in Coventry

Upgrading an older CCTV system in Coventry. The usual advice is to reuse whatever cable is already there, because re-routing is the expensive part. On most housing in this city that logic is weaker than it sounds, and it is worth knowing why before you accept a compromise.

By the Doberman install team · CCTV system designers & installers, Leicester · Last reviewed August 2026

By the Doberman install team

CCTV system designers & installers, Leicester

Last reviewed August 2026

What you get

System assessment
We test what is already there: cable type and condition, camera positions, recorder capability, and what is genuinely worth keeping.
Upgrade proposal
A written plan separating what gets reused, what gets replaced and what should move, with the reasoning for each and a fixed price.
Installation
New cameras and recorder fitted to existing infrastructure where that is the right answer, and new runs where a better position is worth the cable.
Night commissioning
Every camera checked and adjusted after dark. Old systems are usually worst at night, and that is where an upgrade should show.

How it works

Assessment

We drive down from Leicester, about thirty-five minutes on the M69, and test the existing installation rather than glancing at it.

Proposal

A written plan with what is reused, what is replaced, camera positions, recorder specification and a fixed price.

Upgrade

Fitting, configuration and night commissioning. Most domestic upgrades are a single day; commercial depends on camera count.

The reuse argument is weaker here than the trade admits

The standard line on a CCTV upgrade is that the cable is the expensive part, so reuse it and spend your money on the picture. That is genuinely true on solid-wall period property, where a new run has to come through the loft and down through the fabric of the house. It is much less true across most of Coventry, and the reason is the way this city was rebuilt.

A high proportion of the housing here is post-war, with cavity walls and accessible loft voids. On that construction, putting in a new cable run is not a major undertaking: it goes through the loft and drops inside the cavity. That changes the calculation. If the existing cameras are in positions that were never right, or that stopped being right when a conservatory went up or a driveway was relaid, reusing those runs simply buys you a sharper picture of the wrong things. In a city where re-cabling is comparatively cheap, accepting a compromised position to save cable is often a bad trade.

So the question we actually ask at the assessment is not "can we reuse this" but "should we". Sometimes the honest answer is yes and the upgrade is straightforward: new cameras, new recorder, existing runs, done in a day. Sometimes the cameras want moving and the extra cost is modest enough that it would be silly not to. The pre-war pockets through Earlsdon, Foleshill and Radford are the exception, and there the traditional reuse-first logic applies with full force, because a new run through solid brick is a genuine expense.

The two routes from an older analogue system

If your system is more than about fifteen years old it is probably analogue on coax, and there are two honest paths forward. You can keep the coax and fit modern HD-over-coax cameras to it, which is cheaper and avoids re-routing entirely. Or you can pull network cable and go to full IP, which costs more and gives you a system that will still make sense in ten years, with power and video on one cable and no separate supplies to fail.

Installers tend to push whichever suits them, so it is worth understanding the trade. On solid-wall property with cameras in awkward positions, keeping the coax is frequently the sensible call. On the post-war stock that makes up much of this city, the cost gap narrows considerably because the new run is easy, and converting is more often worth it. If you are being told there is only one option without anyone having looked at your cable or your walls, that is a guess.

A system installed in the last fifteen years or so on structured network cable is the easy case either way: the same cable carries a modern PoE camera and the upgrade is largely new cameras and a new recorder.

What actually improves, and what is oversold

The gains from an upgrade are not evenly spread. Low-light performance is the biggest and the one people notice immediately: a fifteen-year-old camera at night gives a grainy monochrome smear where a current sensor gives a usable image. Since most of what you want footage of happens after dark, that is where the value sits. Infrared reach improves alongside it.

Resolution improves too, and it is the gain most oversold. Going to 4K does not by itself let you read a number plate at twelve metres or identify a face across a yard, because those are geometry problems decided by lens choice and camera position far more than by pixel count. An upgrade that keeps every camera exactly where it was and simply makes each one sharper often disappoints for that reason, and in Coventry specifically that matters, because the thing most people want from an upgrade is usable vehicle footage. Our specs cheat sheet sets out what those numbers deliver at a given distance.

The recording side is the other real gain. Older recorders have small drives and short retention, which is why so many people discover their system overwrote the thing they needed. Modern recording lets you set retention deliberately and makes exporting a clip something a normal person can do rather than a support call.

When we would tell you not to bother

Sometimes the honest advice is to stop spending. If the cameras were poor at night to begin with, a repair or a partial upgrade only restores something that was never adequate. If a cheap system was fitted outdoors a decade ago and the connectors have been taking water, corrosion can run some distance back down the cable, and that is testable rather than a matter of opinion. We test it.

The reverse applies too. Where four existing runs are sound and correctly positioned, we would rather reuse them and charge you for four cameras than sell a full installation you do not need. The assessment exists to answer that question honestly, which is why we do it before quoting rather than after. If your system has stopped working rather than simply aged, CCTV repair in Coventry is the better starting point.

Hardwired, local recording, no subscription

Whatever gets reused, the upgraded system records to a recorder on your own property. There is no cloud plan, no monthly fee and no third party holding your video. This is worth checking carefully when comparing upgrade quotes, because a number of modern systems are sold at an attractive hardware price with a subscription attached to the features that make them useful, and the recurring cost outruns the saving quickly.

It is also worth asking whether the cameras you are being offered keep working if the company selling them changes its plans. A system recording locally to hardware you own does. Our PoE guide covers why we hardwire rather than moving an upgrade onto Wi-Fi, which on a property that already has cable in the walls would be a strange thing to do.

Pricing

Upgrades are priced after the assessment because the answer depends on what is reusable and what is worth moving. On post-war housing a new run is cheap enough that accepting a poor camera position to save cable is usually a bad trade. On solid-wall property through Earlsdon, Foleshill and Radford, reuse-first logic applies properly. Fixed price once we have tested what is there.

Why Doberman

We ask whether to reuse, not whether we can
On Coventry’s post-war stock a new run is cheap. Keeping a camera in a position that was never right, purely to save cable, is usually the wrong trade.
Both analogue routes put to you honestly
Modern cameras on your existing coax, or a conversion to network cable and full IP. Which one fits depends on your walls, and we look at them first.
Cameras repositioned, not merely sharpened
Resolution does not fix a bad angle, and in this city the thing people want from an upgrade is usable vehicle footage. That usually means a new position.
No subscription, ever
Local recording on hardware you own. No cloud plan, no monthly fee, and nothing that stops working if a company changes its pricing.

About Doberman

Doberman is a Leicester-based CCTV installation company fitting hardwired PoE systems for homes and businesses. We cover Coventry as part of a service area built around drive time rather than county boundaries, about twenty-six miles and thirty-five minutes on the M69.

We have no Coventry office and will not imply one, and we do not hold NSI or SSAIB accreditation. If an insurer or a tender requires an accredited installer, use one. What we do bring is our own team on every job, equipment you own outright, no ongoing contract, and a fixed price agreed after the assessment rather than adjusted once work has started.

For the city overview see our Coventry CCTV installation page, and areas we cover for the rest of our patch.

Areas we cover

We upgrade CCTV systems across Coventry, including Earlsdon, Cheylesmore, Coundon, Tile Hill, Foleshill, Radford, Stoke, Styvechale, Canley, Wyken, Binley and Walsgrave. If you are somewhere in the city we have not named, ask.

Frequently asked questions

Can I upgrade my cameras without rewiring?: Usually yes, and in Coventry the more interesting question is whether you should. If the system is on structured network cable, the same cable carries a modern PoE camera. If it is older analogue coax, you can fit HD-over-coax cameras to it or convert to network cable. But on the post-war housing that makes up much of this city, a new run is cheap enough that keeping a camera in a position that was never right, purely to avoid re-cabling, is often a bad trade.
Is it worth converting from analogue to IP in Coventry?: More often than in cities with a lot of solid-wall stock, because the cost gap is narrower here. Cavity walls and accessible lofts make a new run straightforward, so the extra cost of converting is modest. On the pre-war pockets through Earlsdon, Foleshill and Radford the traditional advice holds and reusing the coax is frequently the sensible call. Anyone giving you a single answer without looking at your cable or your walls is guessing.
Will 4K cameras let me read number plates?: Not on their own, and this matters here because usable vehicle footage is what most Coventry upgrades are actually for. Plate capture is decided by lens choice and camera position far more than by resolution: a lens that reads a plate at four metres will not read one at twelve, whatever the pixel count. If plate capture is the goal, the camera probably needs to move as well as be replaced.
What actually gets better when I upgrade?: Low-light performance most of all, which matters because most of what you want footage of happens after dark. Infrared reach improves with it. Recording is the other real gain, since older recorders have small drives and short retention, which is why so many systems overwrite the thing you needed before you go looking. Daytime resolution improves too but it is the least valuable of the three.
How do I know if my existing cable is still good?: It is testable rather than a matter of opinion, and we test it at the assessment. The commonest fault on older outdoor installations is water ingress at the connector, and where that has been happening for years the cable can be corroded back some distance from the camera. We also check whether the existing runs actually go where cameras should now be, which is a separate question from whether the cable works.
Do upgraded systems need a subscription?: Not the ones we fit. Footage records to a recorder on your own property, so there is no cloud plan and no monthly fee. Worth checking closely when comparing quotes, because several modern systems are sold at an attractive hardware price with a subscription attached to the features that make them useful.

Ready to get started?

We visit, map the blind spots, and quote one fixed price on the spot.