The Future is Here, You Just Have to Find It
- By Martin Gren
- Feb 01, 2013
Network video has come
a long way. Almost two
decades have passed
since the world’s first
network camera was
launched. Back in the mid-90s, we
wouldn’t have anticipated some of the
installations in operation today. From
transportation and city surveillance to
bank and retail applications, network-based
digital surveillance continues to
live up to its great potential, and new
applications are opening up even more
exciting possibilities for the future.
I wanted to share some of our technology
visions and the IP video trends
we see shaping up in the near future.
What might some of the most forward looking
real-world security installations
look like five years from now?
In the Cities
One of the toughest surveillance challenges
in cities boils down to one question:
Do you know what’s going on in
your city right now? City surveillance
covers traffic problems, personal and
property safety, crime deterrence and
crowd control. Lower Manhattan’s
“Ring of Steel” is an example of how law
enforcement, public agencies and private
businesses can pool together resources
to fight crime when using networked
video. In places like
the southwest of Holland and
Toronto, IP cameras at critical
factories handling hazardous
items, such as refineries and
other chemical plants, are
connected to the
cities’ monitoring
centers.
Having such
an infrastructure
can save
a lot of lives if
a disaster were
to happen.
City surveillance
cameras
are often used
by the police,
monitoring them
live, in addition to
laptops in cruisers. Smartphones and
tablets have made tremendous enhancements,
leading to higher demands on the
cameras. They must provide images that
are as clear and detailed at night as they
are during the day. An example of this is
the ability of IP cameras to now see color
even when it is dark—called Lightfinder
technology—something that analog
could never do.
Critical needs like these also affect the
user’s total cost of ownership. It is important
that network cameras in essential
places are reliable and rugged. As installation
costs are often higher than the cost of
the cameras themselves, purchasing high
quality cameras with limited maintenance
pays off in the long run. For instance, easily
integrate-able thermal IP cameras have
now made their way into cities as an affordable
long-term detection option and
are no longer restricted to military or super
critical applications.
Technologies, such as thermal and color-
at-night Lightfinder, will progress significantly
in city surveillance usage over
the next five years, but other hot trends
may take a bit longer. Edge storage is
one. IP cameras with edge storage can
be used today to augment a city system
and cover areas where bandwidth is limited,
but the vast deployments will require
larger amounts of memory than we have
today, though Moore’s Law will help us
get there sooner than some might think.
Proactive Surveillance
in Public Transport
Transport is also an important part of
city life, but presents its own unique challenges.
Stations and transit systems are
exposed to a number of security incidents
every day, ranging from vandalism and
graffiti to pick-pocketing and violence. A
traditional, analog surveillance solution
is mainly used forensically to investigate
incidents after they have occurred. In a
network-based solution, the video should
play a more crucial role, offering new possibilities
for efficient monitoring and responding
to real-time incidents.
A huge number of IP cameras have
been successfully installed on buses,
trains, in stations, terminals and depots
in different parts of the world. Madrid,
Moscow, Oslo, Prague, Stockholm and
Sydney have network video solutions installed
in their transit systems. The Sydney
airport was the first major airport in
the world to install networked video and
continues to add network cameras by the
day, proving what we said all along about
the scalability benefits of IP.
Today, most airports have realized the
lower cost of ownership they get from
network cameras, and here the market
has gone away from analog. Instead of
a couple hundred analog cameras covering
an entire airport five years ago, that
same airport may have thousands of IP
cameras today. On top of the sheer increase
of eyes on the scene, there are new
applications emerging beyond the typical
centralized camera management.
Think of cameras at security checkpoints.
For instance, the operators can
immediately identify if someone takes
the wrong bag, phone or wallet. Digital
cameras with intelligent analytics are
able to count people and luggage to better
manage traffic flow, like what’s being
done at Saint Exupéry Airport in Lyon,
France. With the ability to watch live
video from security cameras at any location,
decision making, prioritization and
response becomes much more efficient.
Here the demands on the cameras are
similar to those of city surveillance. After
all, a transportation network is part
of the community.
Cash is King
Within our cities, some might argue—or
at least believe privately—that the most
important buildings are the ones housing
cash. Banks were among the first institutions
to install surveillance cameras back
in the 1970s to deter crime. However,
crime has evolved since then to where not
only bank robberies are a threat, but also
ATM-related fraud is on the rise.
Unfortunately, the development of
surveillance equipment used in banks has
not kept the same pace as crime. It is a
vertical that still employs analog. Fortunately,
we see this as one of the major
growth markets for networked video.
One of the challenges for bank surveillance is image quality. As banks traditionally
have a lot of glass windows
and polished, marbled floors causing
reflections and backlight situations, the
image quality needs to be excellent in
varying light conditions. The surveillance
system also needs to be reliable.
Out of 5,000 U.S. robberies in 2011,
less than one camera was activated
and actually functioning per robbery,
suggesting outdated systems. Properly
configured network-based surveillance
systems, on the other hand, would be
augmented with an active-tampering
alarm so the cameras/encoders can tell
the security team if the video view is
blocked, out of focus or if there is no
signal at all before an incident takes
place. We see several examples of financial
institutes around the world now renewing
their systems for these reasons,
such as Banco do Nordeste in Brazil or
Liberty Life in South Africa.
Another area that will grow is ATM
surveillance with the possibility to use
IP video capabilities to more efficiently
combat fraud. ATM manufacturers are
constantly investing in research and development
for new anti-skimming devices.
The combination with networked
video will be one way of improving the
anti-fraud solutions. This is an efficient
way of retrofitting ATMs with modern,
digital HDTV-quality surveillance
equipment—even pinhole-sized, all-digital
covert cameras—combined with different
applications for combatting fraud.
Beyond Loss Prevention
in Stores
Speaking of ATMs, retail stores likely
house the highest number of cash machines
outside of banks. This market
will be another area of massive growth
for network video, thanks in large part
to video analytics that offer a range
benefits beyond increased security.
In both retail operations and on the
sales floor, competition is fierce and
profit margins are slim. Retailers have
to seize every opportunity. This often
means adopting the latest technological
advances. That’s why nearly every aspect
of retail operations, from inventory to
hiring, is computerized and networked.
Many retailers have added video surveillance
to this list of going digital.
In 2011, the total video surveillance
market hit $10.5 billion. By 2016, IMS
Research estimates the same market to
reach $20.5 billion. The market specifically
for retail security video—analog
and digital—is around 25 percent of
the total surveillance market. Yet, less
than 35 percent of retailers use IP video,
making retail a major factor in IP
growth and opportunity.
Loss prevention is the main motivator
for cameras but other aspects are
now getting more focus. In the United
States, slip-and-fall related accidents
cost a lot of money and justify spending
on higher-quality cameras. Once these
higher-quality network cameras are in
place, there are many other things retailers
can do to turn the cameras from
a cost into a revenue generator. Think
of the ability to do accurate people
counting and heat mapping as a way of
increasing the top line. Video data gathered
from the store floor can be used
to negotiate better rates with product
vendors. Customer service and store
efficiency will also see a boon. Lacoste
and Neck & Neck stores in Spain have
already found the secret to intelligence
for operational efficiency in retail, and analytics will evolve to play a major role
in stores over the next five years.
In spite of the recession, there has
been an increase in business-related applications
and an increased interest in
moving from analog to network/IP video.
Through the use of video analytics, retailers
can not only prevent loss by monitoring
their stores, customers and staff,
but they also have a valuable business
intelligence tool at hand. This solution
has cross-functional appeal in providing
business intelligence for marketing, merchandizing,
operations and PoS. The
cost of the system can be spread across a
number of company divisions.
Retailers’ use of applications is
mainly loss prevention-based, but
there are many indicators that this will
change. As retailers continue to expand
usage of security applications, they will
add business applications. A recent survey*
states that more than one-half of
retailers are aware of hot/cold zones/
heat map applications and may use
them in the future. More than two-fifths
of retailers have said they may
analyze dwell time in the future. This is
only the beginning.
Smaller stores—independent or organized
as a chain/franchise—will take
longer to evolve since it’s where analog
technology has its largest stronghold.
But IP is going to transform this market
during the coming years with edgebased
storage and hosted video.
When hosted video is combined
with edge recording, bandwidth will no
longer be a limiting factor for as-a-service
video solutions. Since edge-based
storage takes away the need of a DVR,
we will hopefully see a major shift away
from analog. In five to 10 years, most
cameras will come preconfigured with
recording and will operate on its own,
out of the box, which will be perfect
for small installs. Of course, you will
need high-quality software to operate
the system in all levels, from an entrylevel
basic view/record solution to an
enterprise-sized one where thousands
of retail outlets are connected.
Let’s not forget those retailers that
have existing analog CCTV. They can
expand the system in the near term using
video encoders to create a hybrid
system, and there is no need to fully
replace the old equipment in order to
take advantage of the benefits of network
video.
Five Years Ahead, Today
Much of the advancements in IP video
surveillance over the next five years are
being successfully deployed in small
pockets around the world today. To
make this vision come true for all, we
have a big job in educating the market
of all the possibilities that network
video brings because the ecosystem
evolves daily. Keep your eyes, ears and
minds open to learn from those colleagues
who have already installed innovative
solutions and are five years
ahead today.
This article originally appeared in the February 2013 issue of Security Today.