Leaving a Legacy

Industry ready to embrace IP surveillance technologies

  • By Dave Underwood
  • Feb 01, 2008

The security industry is clearly ready for IP video surveillance. Network cameras have been around for more than a decade, and they can now be found everywhere. Furthermore, the latest megapixel cameras offer image quality that is not available with standard analog cameras. Network bandwidth is already faster today than it was just a few years ago. Processing speeds on PCs continue to get faster while hard drives and other storage options continue to get bigger— all with the cost of computers, generally, decreasing.

Recent independent studies have indicated that the long-term cost of an IP system is actually lower than an analog-based DVR system. The big question for security integrators is, “What’s keeping you from upgrading your customers to IP

Key Considerations
There are three hurdles to face when contemplating making the switch from analog DVRs to IP video.

Price. Although the overall cost for an IP system is lower, according to recent reports, many people balk at the price of new network cameras. While it’s true that in the long run an IP system can cost less, customers initially may not see it that way.

Familiarity and the learning curve. Let’s face it. People are comfortable with what they know—and you’re familiar with analog DVRs. It was just a few years ago that you were installing time-lapse VCRs and then switched your customers to new DVR technology. It required a lot of work and precious time to get up to speed on the latest innovations in video surveillance and to get customers there as well. Now, faced with adopting new IP video technology, you’re still just as busy— perhaps even more so than before—and you’re not sure if you can justify the time it will take to learn a new technology.

Legacy analog installation. Some customers may wish to install a new, IP-only system from the ground up. They may be ready to replace analog cameras and coax cables with network cameras and CAT-5 cables. However, other customers may not have the budget to do this and may wish to leverage existing investment in analog surveillance. They want the technology that’s available without ripping out what they already have. Is there a solution for them?

IP video is here to stay, and customers will benefit from it. Dealing with these hurdles is not as difficult as you might think—and you don’t have to rip out your existing analog cameras and wiring to create a future-proof solution.

Creating a Solution
First, you can create a system using existing legacy equipment with commercial, off-the-shelf servers, network hardware and an encoder. The encoder will turn the signals from analog cameras to a network stream that can be recognized by the server. Many of the major IP camera manufacturers also offer encoders.

A single device can encode video from multiple analog cameras. Combine this with powerful NVR software, and simply add IP cameras where you need them the most or where you couldn’t previously place an analog camera. With most commercial installations, it is highly likely that you will already have network wiring in place, which you can use immediately. In addition, many of today’s IP cameras are PoE and do not require a separate wire for electricity.

Hybrid Servers
While a commercial off-the-shelf solution can meet all of your needs, you may wish to purchase something that can handle analog and IP video right out of the box. A hybrid server takes in video from traditional analog cameras and IP cameras. Many of these machines resemble DVRs. The BNC inputs will allow you to simply plug in your existing analog cameras. You also can add analog PTZ cameras and alarms— just as you would with a DVR. The hybrid server will allow the addition of IP cameras to the system as well. Depending on the server and client software, there should be little to no difference in how you can utilize video from both analog and IP cameras.

The NVR software you choose is important for many reasons. Not only do you need software that is powerful enough to handle the latest IP video technology, it also needs to be easy to install and use.

This will lessen the learning curve for you and the customer. Additionally, it is desirable for your NVR software to connect to multiple hybrid NVR servers and commercial servers using the same client interface. This type of flexibility, scalability and power allows you to make the most of the resources you have available with each installation site. Both of these solutions—commercial and hybrid—can be very cost-effective methods to make the most of the technology available today while still using existing, useful legacy equipment.

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