There are good reasons for this since it prevents tampering but a special effort has to be made by the supervisor to use good tapes and keep the clocks set ,daylight savings time changes are a REAL pain in the a** for 24 hour operations of any kind. (I hate that stupid idea.)
Many banks fail to buy enough new tapes and re-use tapes long past the point of recording clear pictures.
A good cctv can record detail between that of standard broadcast and the new hdtv but only if premium tapes and vcrs are used and maintained.
Too often, the only thing maintained is the warning sign; if the criminal comes in anyway, the cctv often is too grainy too help much.
My guess is that the security camera in the Pentagon was on International Dateline Military time which in Australia would be the next day (just a guess)