A network CCTV solution makes not only technological sense, but commercial sense, an IFSEC seminar heard.
CCTV over your organisation’s network can bring big savings, a consultant told an IFSEC audience on May 14. Simon Lambert, presenting four scenarios at an IndigoVision event, concluded that a network solution favoured sites with more than 25 cameras; multiple sites; where a high frame rate or real-time video is required; and where a network already exists. His other conclusions included:<br>
– live networked video allows full frame rate (real time) video viewing and recording at comparable or lower costs than time-lapse technologies;<br>
– with a network, the capital spending and running costs for a hybrid analogue solution using digital video recorders is consistently more expensive;<br>
– and networked video is commercially attractive for CCTV systems that need to grow or are complex – ‘if the schematic diagram looks like a spider is running across the page with inky feet’, as Simon Lambert put it. Summing up, consultant Eric Arnold said that digital CCTV will not replace analogue, but it gives options, and can give substantial savings over a system’s lifetime – even a short lifetime of five years.
Simon Lambert began by outlining what live networked video is: the capture, display, storing, retrieving and analysing of video over internet protocol networks (such as the internet, or ethernet); the ability to view and analyse live and reocrded video from networked cameras, anywhere; the ability to view live or recorded video simultaneously, from any number of places. He agreed that his scenarios were selective, and that there could be scenarios showing analogue and digital recording systems as cost-effective, given that for the time being networkable cameras will be more expensive than analogue cameras, and that a small analogue system could do a cost-effective job, where there were not many lines on the schematic diagram. His four scenarios were:
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1) a car dealership with one headquarters showroom and two satellite showrooms, each equipped with 10 cameras. The corporate data network is quiet at night and can be safely given over to video transmission for a security guard monitoring at HQ. All the cabling is new, apart from the existing wide area network (WAN) between the sites. Over ten years, a network video solution is five per cent cheaper to own than analogue – the cross-over coming at five years – and far cheaper than digital.<br>
2) a single site corporate office, with 75 cameras, capturing four images per second. With new cabling dedicated to CCTV (appreciating that the network manager might object to security using bandwidth already used by the rest of the office for its everyday business communications), the cost of ownership of networked video over five years is 30 per cent cheaper than an equivalent analogue solution.<br>
3) a European airport with 700 cameras on a single site, with all CCTV and cabling newly installed. Using the existing local area network (LAN), the system covers six departments – not only security but baggage handling, emergency services, health and safety, immigration and the police. Cost of ownership over five years would be about 57 per cent cheaper than an equivalent analogue or digital system. While it was technologically possible to have a matrix to send so many images in and out of an aiport (to the police for example), the airport would need deep pockets to do so, Simon Lambert said.<br>
4) A utility with 200 sites as satellites to its HQ, each equipped with a low-bandwidth WAN (such as an ISDN line) for its telemetry systems. Each site would have one camera, for alarm verification, centrally recorded and monitored at HQ. Over ten years, savings of around £1m were possible, Simon Lambert said.
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Earlier, introducing the event Julian Knight, Director of Surveillance and Monitoring at IndigoVision, described network video as freeing CCTV users from ‘the tyranny of coax’. He predicted that the likes of IBM, Oracle and Cisco would have stands at a future IFSEC (given those IT companies’ expertise in using and securing data networks).
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Will security managers be left with the choice of becoming a security-IT hybrid, or relegated to managing minimum-wage guards’ Professional Security asked the seminar speakers: Julian Knight; consultants Simon Lambert and Eric Arnold; Steve Rice, surveillance programme manager at US digital video archive firm StorageTek; Peter Fry, Director of the CCTV User Group; and Andy Cotton, head of digital security at Securicor Information Systems. They gave upbeat replies. Andy Cottons saw opportunities in the digital age, and value in security people coming closer to IT – ‘that has happened since September 11’. Simon Lambert said that people with security in their title put people, technology and procedures in place to manage risk. That did not mean those people were specialists in analogue CCTV; rather, security managers could look to sales people to go over quotes for CCTV systems. Simon Lambert did not see a move to digital as changing that arrangement, although there remained a huge need for education. Giving the American view, Steve Rice spoke of emerging chief security officers in the US, taking responsibility not only for the corporation’s network but physical security, and reporting directly to the chief executive. Such corporations were recognising that asset protection mattered in terms of the bottom line.
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Consultants gave the speakers a grilling. First out of the blocks was Mike Constant, whose point was that Simon Lambert’s graphs showed the costs of digital CCTV as higher than analogue and networked video. He added that he did analysis of 250-camera systems and found that at a certain point digital recording far bettered the cost of analogue recording. Simon Lambert replied that in his scenarios he tried to compare like for like: that is, if an image was put onto a videotape, an image would be put on a hard drive, so that the cost of storing digital images was higher. Gordon Herrald asked what are the limitations of networks. Julian Knight replied: bandwidth. He added that up to a few years ago, or even a few months, lack of bandwidth was a realistic concern, but argued that the technology of networks is evolving dramatically, so that bandwidth is much more available. Andy Cotton gave examples of how network video might apply to the police: providing video footage of interviews of suspects, besides audio recording, to meet PACE (the Police and Criminal Evidence Act); and automated witness viewing parades, which could do away with expensive identity parades in person. Bob Allen and Steve Richins of WS Atkins raised the issue of networked video image quality. Bob said that a network had finite bandwidth and to transmit lots of cameras real-time eats up bandwidth. Although there was a case for using a network, so there was a case for using point to point coax to transmit very high quality images, simultaneously. Steve Richins queried whether Simon Lambert’s models would deliver real-time frame rates, and wondered whether the model either settled for high-quality with low frame rates, or low quality video with a high frame rate. At an airport, for instance, some CCTV footage would be constantly changing, rather than unchanging fence lines. Simon Lambert defended his model, pointing out that some of the (say) 700 cameras at an airport would monitor unchanging scenes such as fire doors. Peter Fry pointed out that members, who mainly run local authority control rooms, are looking to get added value from their 24-365 control rooms – staff costs being relatively high, and fixed. Going digital made the managing of other services – such as alarms – easier. Most members however are not boffins, he added, ‘and there is confusion’. The need for industry-wide education was picked up by Andy Cotton. What of industry standards’ Consultant Mike Constant related how despite a forum of police and end users there was little possibility of arriving at a common output standard. Every manufacturer wants a unique selling point, and has different views and systems, he added.
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Securicor Information Systems has selected IndigoVision’s VideoBridge live networked video technology for integration into SIS’ digital security solutions. The networked video technology will let SIS customers view live or recorded video from anywhere on a network-connected PC besides monitors in central CCTV control rooms. Under the agreement SIS will develop systems using IndigoVision’s networked cameras, networked camera servers, Networked Video Recorders (NVR) and live networked video software development kit.
