IP Video Breaks Out

• By Steven Titch
• Jul 23, 2007

Video surveillance technology has reached a key tipping point. Just as the capabilities of analog closed circuit cameras have reached their limit, prices of Internet Protocol cameras have dropped to where they can offer sufficient payback in value and cost of ownership. Meanwhile, a new spate of video servers is about to hit the market that will ease integration of analog and digital cameras into corporate IT networks.

Manufacturers of video servers, NVRs and IP cameras say 2007 will be a breakout year for IP video surveillance, driven in particular by solutions that allow images from analog cameras to be converted to IP data streams that can be readily accessed, stored and manipulated within an open systems environment.

Such developments stand to allow users with a sizable deployment of analog cameras to begin a transition to digital video surveillance networks. Even with the steady introduction of digital cameras, many users, especially large enterprises, have been reluctant to make large-scale commitments to digital and IP video until the costs of their analog CCTV systems could be fully amortized.

Video Over VPNs

The primary benefit of IP cameras is that they can readily connect to local area networks. IP is an open standard—the common networking language used by devices connected to the Internet. IP is also the protocol used in Ethernet and virtual private networks (VPNs). VPNs use the public Internet infrastructure as a medium for corporate networking. VPN data, however, is encrypted and partitioned from pedestrian Internet traffic, and transmission is enhanced and prioritized through quality of service (QoS) techniques.

IP lets any video feed be routed to any IP device -- be it a PC, PDA or cell phone. This can occur over a proprietary corporate network, a VPN or the conventional Internet. The worldwide connectivity dimension adds tremendous value above proprietary CCTV systems, vendors say. Corporate IT departments have been committed to IP for years, and its application in video represents another aspect of its convergence with security systems.

“IP moves the surveillance industry away from vertically integrated solutions with one vendor and opens up the user to ‘best of breed’ cameras,” says Eric Fullerton, president for the Americas at Milestone Systems Inc., the U.S. unit of Milestone Systems A/B, Brandby, Denmark. “Users can choose the camera that fits the application.”

This month, Milestone is introducing XProtect Corporate, an IP video surveillance management software package designed for Fortune 500 companies. It represents a new top-end product for the company.

Part and parcel with connectivity, says Fullerton, is scale and integration. IP allows easier integration with data associated with other security processes, from access card entry to point of sale. For example, IP solutions make it much easier for controllers to program video cameras to record in tandem with other data events. For example, a video recording of a large transaction at a casino cage can be logged with data that records the amount of the transaction, the time it took place and the player’s account number. While casino systems routinely collect this information, when IP extends to surveillance, it can be instantly matched with video should there be an error or dispute regarding the transaction.

Moreover, IP can integrate with more sophisticated processes, including facial recognition and analytics. “Existing customers can do the integration and new customers can future-proof themselves,” says Fullerton.

Analytics And Other Processes

Analytics can be slow with proprietary systems, notes Gadi Piran, president and chief technical officer of On-Net Security Systems Inc. (onSSI), Suffern, New York, which manufactures NVR software as well as associated software for content analytics and video clients, including PDAs. “IP can integrate different manufacturers,” he says. “IP video can be formatted and manipulated in more complex ways. Video can be delivered anywhere in the world using off-the-shelf operating systems. The user gets video anywhere, anytime by request or by push.” For example, a security director in the field who needs to be brought in on a problem can view video using a cellular connection or via public WiFi.

But above all, prices are dropping. “IP cameras were once expensive,” says Dave Underwood, president of Exacq Technologies, Indianapolis, another supplier of NVR software. “The cost is coming down.”

Although when compared heads-up, the price of an IP camera can still be $200 to $300 more than an analog CCTV counterpart, total cost of ownership is lower.That IP cameras do not require their own cabling, but can operate on common Category 5 cable or via wireless (see box) is one way they offset the cost of proprietary analog, says Fredrik Nilsson, director of business development at Axis Communications, Lund, Sweden, a camera manufacturer. They also run off the new Power over Ethernet capability, further reducing user costs.

Add to that the value they offer through higher resolution and ability to supply images in low-light conditions, “why would you buy analog?” asks Underwood.

Integrating Analog

Yet the large installed base of analog cameras -- and the comfort level users have with them -- still proves a barrier to IP migration. Milestone, Exacq and onSSI all provide video encoders that can convert analog video feeds into digital IP streams. Once encoded, the analog-turned-IP can be managed and manipulated with other digital video images.“Once you can encode analog video to digital, you turn the analog camera into a network device,” says Nilsson.

Likewise, storage solutions can be very flexible. While some vendors centralize storage at a single server, others, such as Bob Banerjee, IP video products marketing manager at Bosch Security Systems, Fairport, New York, say distributed server architecture can work just as well. “Where you store video is not as important as the design.” Banerjee goes as far to suggest that the days of NVR may be numbered -- more intelligence will be placed in the camera, which will link to standard redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) schemes using iSCSI, or the Internet Small Computer System Interface, a transport protocol that operates within IP networks.