Peek Into 2009
Industry executive points to IP video surveillance as ongoing direction
- By Steve Walin
- Jan 01, 2009
Yes, 2009 will continue to reveal that IP/digital
video is the direction that the industry is heading.
There are specific markets—education, law
enforcement, transportation, water treatment and new
construction—that will specify nothing but an IP/digital
video solution. Why? They all need better identification,
although for different reasons.
At both K-12 and higher education environments,
the network infrastructure is already in place. K-12,
especially, has fewer restrictions on bandwidth use than
corporate accounts. Education users want the clearer
images IP/digital video provides. With IP/digital video,
administrators find it much easier to zoom in on
images, track particular scenes and enhance features.
Plus, they can easily cover an entire campus from multiple
locations.
Likewise, law enforcement—especially corrections
departments—insists on using IP/digital video. Guards
can conduct surveillance live over the Internet or on a
closed network and obtain clearer, crisper images that
can be tracked and transmitted easily. IP/digital video
gives guards better tools to intervene and stop incidents
before they get out of control.
Almost all airports and seaports implement IP/digital
video surveillance systems because they are easier
to install and provide enhanced remote viewing access,
which is especially important when monitoring multiple
sites spread across large areas. With IP video, ports
can deploy the latest video analytics, providing solutions
from searching for lost luggage to looking
for discrepancies in terminal traffic. With the higher
resolution and image quality, ports can more easily
identify incidents and their participants. Often relying
on some type of government funding, they need to be
able to show that they are installing a system that is
future-proof.
Many new construction projects include Cat-5e
cabling, the ideal infrastructure for IP/digital systems of
any and all types, including video. Once Cat-5e cable
became available, the rest was easy. True IP-based digital
surveillance employs cameras using signal processing
to send video streams over the LAN through a Cat-
5e cable rather than a coax cable network, using greater
bandwidth and standard TCP/IP communication. With
IP/digital-based video surveillance on Cat-5e, a user
can connect surveillance cameras to any network or
wireless adapter, which allows for flexibility in the
placement of the camera.
It’s an Analog World
In real-world applications, fewer than 15 percent of
video surveillance environments in the Americas are
buying or using IP/digital video. Here’s why.
First, there are many analog video systems running on
coax and, in many cases, their users are simply upgrading
components. In other instances, security managers are
leery of moving beyond what they already understand and
what works for them. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
attitude is prevalent among casinos, for instance, one of
the largest users of video surveillance, albeit predominantly
analog.
Many end users and resellers, including dealers and
integrators, also are uncomfortable with IP/digital surveillance.
The “If I don’t understand it, I’m not going to
propose it” mentality is a strong motivator for keeping
present systems intact.
Finally, one key advantage of IP-based video also is
its Achilles’ heel: the ability to use present network
infrastructure rather than coaxial cabling. Running
bandwidth-intensive surveillance video over corporate
data networks is a point of organizational contention,
with its potential impact on network performance. Too
often, it is easier to default to the security department’s
traditional way than to fight new battles.
With all this in mind, pre-sales and post-sales support
programs via manufacturers and their integrators become
especially important in IP video solutions and sales.
Premium Products
The key to helping integrators deploy IP video solutions
takes a combination of premium-quality hardware and
in-depth servicing, on both the front and back ends of
the sale. This is especially imperative on big orders, such
as the 14,000 cameras we now have working at Latin
America’s largest banks or the immense system installed
at one of the world’s largest retailers, covering both
Mexico and the United States.
It is our goal, and that of Samsung Electronics, to
double market share in the Americas in the upcoming
years—a commitment by Samsung that is borne from its
$1.5 million investment in our marketing and sales operations.
In addition, our seven straight quarters of profits
have provided a solid financial base to expand our sales
and marketing efforts. The growth in revenue demonstrates
that our expanded sales efforts are delivering
positive results.
In addition, Samsung Electronics has announced that it
wants its security portfolio to grow quickly. In comments
at the Security World Expo 2008, held in Seoul, South
Korea, on June 25, Park Jong-Woo, president of digital
media at Samsung Electronics, said, “We will further
enhance security business among promising solution
business to nurture business with more than $1 billion in
three years.”
We are comarketing Verint’s Nextiva portfolio of
video systems with our analog, digital and IP technology
to offer enhanced value to our customers in the
Americas. Verint’s video management software and
wireless IP systems perfectly complement our newly
introduced IP camera line and enhance our ability to
drive growth in very large enterprise level projects,
particularly in Latin America. The software and
systems are fully compatible with our analog
products and provide us with an important tool to
leverage our customer’s investment in analog technology
to provide a fully compatible transition to expanded
IP installations.
We are using a variety of programs to serve our integrators
and their customers. For example, we are using
inventory as a competitive tool so we can deliver products
quickly. We continue the process of introducing and
rolling out a series of IP products, including cameras, to
meet the emerging technology shift in the video surveillance
market to an IP focus. With Samsung Electronics
as our engineering partner, we look forward to bringing
to market the types of IP surveillance products that
customers are demanding.
This article originally appeared in the issue of .