“HD displays are readily available and HDcctv cameras are being developed by all the major camera manufacturers. Development of HDcctv DVRs has been slow, but that will change in 2011,” he says. “A lot of installed coaxial cables are not adequate for HD. Technologies are under development to maximize the transmission distance over copper cables, and the use of fiber optics is another option.”
Once a wider assortment of equipment becomes available and the cabling restriction is conquered, Kim predicts swift and significant HDcctv adoption across a variety of end customers.
“HDcctv systems will spread throughout the industry rapidly,” he says. “Facilities that demand high security will be the first targets – casinos, airports, power plants, etc. HDcctv can provide real-time high quality video in mission-critical facilities.”
Lenses Critical to Image Quality
With so much attention placed on HD cameras, NVRs, storage capacity and so on, a vital element sometimes lost in the shuffle is the need for precise and high quality optics. Much in the way a sound system is only as good as its speakers, surveillance images are critically reliant on lens choice.
“The clarity of the images is very important and also that of distortion, especially in the case of the wide-angle lenses,” says Chuck Westfall, technical advisor for Canon USA Super Imaging Group. “When I’m talking about clarity, I’m not just talking about the center of the image, but all the way out to the corners. This is something that tends to get overlooked.”
The emergence of megapixel cameras has only served to make any lens shortcomings more glaring than ever before. Yet the overriding quest continues to be both extending the capabilities of the human eye to see farther and a larger field of view, while also trying to replicate the ability to simultaneously focus on subjects in a scene both near and far away. As manu
facturers like Canon continue to address these and other optic needs, making campus end users aware of such challenges helps keep expectations reasonable.
“Any time you’re looking at trying to answer customers’ needs, you have got to give them something they’re going to be able to see very, very clearly,” adds Westfall. “It’s a challenge in terms of resolution; it’s a challenge in terms of angle of view; it’s a challenge in terms of sensitivity. These are things that all make a difference in terms of the performance of the camera.”
As is typical with selecting a security solution, the most important consideration is the particular application. What is the specific need and how can the technology/system be most effectively used to solve it?
“The key point is that they need to be able to match the lens to the assignment they have,” says Westfall. “There are basically two major types of environments to deal with, one being the external environment where you need the power of a lens to be able to zoom in, and the other being a very tight space in an internal area where you need to be able to have wide-angle coverage to see as much as possible.”
VMS Makes Systems Easier to Use
As video surveillance systems have migrated to enterprise networks, become more sophisticated, expanded in scale and complexity, and more frequently integrated with other systems such as access control and intrusion, the need for a unified user interface has become paramount. These trends have led to the emergence of video management systems or software (VMS) and the open or nonproprietary platforms to facilitate interoperability.
“Capabilities of video management systems continue to expand, many of them driven by the benefits of open architecture,” says Gadi Piran, president of OnSSI. “Collaboration with third-party vendors helps to extend the core benefits and functionality of video management software to include cutting-edge technologies such as video analytics, and to expand networks using wireless mesh and broadband networks to enable viewing of live video anywhere from a mobile device.”
Campus end users find VMS appealing because it simplifies using and interacting with the video surveillance system. In addition, many are discovering the wealth of operational efficiencies beyond traditional surveillance or security that can be gained by allowing the VMS to facilitate overall enterprise management tasks.
“Video systems can provide a new and effective management tool useful throughout modern companies,” says Piran. “Video can be easily made available from anywhere the corporate network extends. Video can help with process control, personnel management, inventory tracking, quality control, customer service and a range of other uses.”
More specifically, VMS-based solutions play especially well into several vertical markets. These include education, government, healthcare, transportation and homeland security.
“Real-time video coupled with the reach of corporate networking are a powerful combination for a diverse range of organizations that are only now beginning to understand and embrace these expanded benefits,” says Piran. “This exciting, untapped potential also relates to another challenge in the enterprise environment, which is the need to show a return on investment [ROI] for any technology purchase.”
Edge Devices Cut Network Load
One of the most substantial wrinkles since IP-based video came into vogue has been moving away from centralized system architectures toward so-called “edge” devices, especially the cameras. Where cameras had been little more than image conduits networked to NVRs or DVRs, decentralized topologies include intelligent cameras with built-in features like recording, storage, analytics and more.
