Ten applications of network video surveillance technology

IP surveillance solutions have transformed some long-standing misconceptions surrounding network video surveillance.

What is IP surveillance?

IP is an abbreviation of Internet Protocol, which is one of the most commonly used protocols for communication through computer networks. The IP surveillance solution is to transmit video information in a digital form through a wired or wireless IP network. As long as the network can reach the place, video monitoring and recording can be achieved, and this monitoring can also be perfectly combined with many other types of systems.

According to analysis by industrial analysts JP Freeman and Co., Inc., there are 20 million analog cameras installed in the United States alone. Of these 20 million units, more than 15 million units were sold in 2002. Against the background of the rapid sales of analog cameras, it is a new generation of products that gradually surfaced and developed rapidly-network cameras. Looking at its development momentum, it is not difficult to foresee its glorious prospects; as the concept of digitization gradually gains popularity, it will definitely replace analog products in the near future.

The network camera is a new generation product directly connected to the IP network, which enables users to realize video viewing, storage and analysis of the collected image information on the remote network to take corresponding measures. Network cameras are expected to account for half of the market in 2007, and by 2005, the global network video market is expected to reach US $ 790 million.

Whether it is a solution consisting solely of a network camera, a solution consisting of an analog camera plus a video server, or a solution consisting of a mixture of the two, IP surveillance has proven to be an attractive solution. In more and more original industry applications, this revolutionary technology is gradually replacing the traditional monitoring system, while improving safety and further reducing costs; and in many new applications, it is still the first Once used, it has created and stimulated many new markets.

Because of the scalability of its system, IP surveillance has gradually consolidated its position in the existing surveillance and remote surveillance industry, and has also accelerated its application in other emerging industries, including:

Education: remotely monitor school playgrounds, corridors, halls, and classrooms, as well as monitor some buildings;

Traffic: remotely monitor the security of railway stations, railway tracks, highways, and airports;

Bank: It is applied to all branches of the bank or ATM cash machines on the street to replace the traditional traditional security monitoring methods;

Government: Security and surveillance applications, usually integrated into existing systems;

Shopping malls: conduct security monitoring and remote management of branches of large supermarkets to facilitate fast and efficient management;

Industry: Monitor production lines, logistics departments, and warehouse storage systems to improve plant safety.

Why is there a misunderstanding about IP surveillance?

The emergence of any new technology and its subsequent promotion will have a period of market unfitness, also known as the market education period. The more complex the new technology or the greater the distance from the existing technology, the longer the period of market education. During this period of market adaptation, it is necessary to adopt step-by-step means to gradually build up the defected knowledge structure and make up for the misleading market. Only in this way can some wrong ideas and some confusion be eliminated.

Undoubtedly, IP monitoring technology is a highly complex new technology, especially the IP part inside it has really raised the traditional security concept into the IT field. In this sense, new technologies and the entire market environment are faced with opportunities and challenges. In fact, you will see that the direct competitors faced by IP surveillance are DVR products. The illusion caused by DVR is to make people mistakenly believe that DVR technology has represented the most mature technology on the market. Let's face the analysis. Why analyze? Because from top to bottom, from the manufacturer to the system integrator to the end user, it seems that there is an almost fanatical interest in DVR products. And we will use professional interpretation to reveal the mystery.

Secret 1: DVR is currently the best and greatest CCTV security technology

fact:
Not only do some people think that digital hard disk video recorder (DVR) is the latest and best technology, but some people mistakenly think that DVR is already a fully digital network technology-in fact, it is not.

Compared with the traditional video cassette recorder (VCR), DVR does have many advantages, such as: no need to change the tape, continuous image guarantee and fast search function. But you still can't get rid of the complicated analog video cables, they will greatly reduce the quality of the image, and the price of the entire system is quite expensive. IP surveillance has all the advantages of DVR and there are more advantages that DVR does not have.

Scalability:
IP surveillance does not have 16-channel restrictions like DVR, and can be expanded from one to thousands of units. IP monitoring can provide real-time user-selectable frame rate output without limitation.

More cost-effective infrastructure: Most of the existing equipment is accessed by twisted-pair cables, which provides a good preparation for IP monitoring. You only need to access the network cable to get everything done. Because all data, video, sound and others are transmitted and managed through the network line.

Remote controllability: All video information, whether real-time or recorded, can be safely obtained from any corner of the world.

Smart cameras: dynamic monitoring, emergency handling, alarm device input, delayed output, log management, and other built-in functions allow the camera to intelligently choose when to send information and to whom, and even at what frame rate And the resolution can be selected.

Lower system cost: IP monitoring system is the most economical choice among all installation methods. It is based on an open standard network protocol, which makes its advantages over DVR stand out. Need to store image information? It's just a problem with a hard drive. And its simple installation and simple maintenance are far beyond DVR.

DVR is not a final solution, it seems more appropriate to say that it is a milestone on the way of CCTV surveillance technology. As the market further understands DVR, people will gradually realize that DVR is an outdated technology, the narrowness of its system will make it gradually withdraw from the historical stage, and the aspect of IP surveillance technology superior to DVR will gradually Recognized by people. These are two very different technologies, and the market has gradually come to realize this.

Secret 2: IP technology is an immature technology. If it is mature, it should have occupied the market long ago.

Fact: This question touches more on issues related to the security market structure and users ’buying habits, and has nothing to do with the performance and reliability of IP monitoring solutions.

IP surveillance is a relatively new technology, and it currently has a strong competitor, DVR. Many people will want to keep their existing equipment, which is a common sense of people, and DVR gives customers the illusion that they do not waste existing investment. We have to say that this is natural. Correspondingly, as a brand new digital concept, IP technology also needs time to instill this concept to system integrators and consulting service providers to gradually overcome the traditional ideas inherent in people's hearts. I believe you still remember how long ago the Word word processing program replaced the traditional WPS word processing program, isn't it a long time ago? How long is it that the video cassette VCR is replaced by the latest DVD? This shows that the technological gap needs to be overcome over time.

In fact, there are more and more cases of IP monitoring solutions, and the number of system integrators is growing rapidly. We believe that in the near future, the market will certainly recognize the superiority of IP surveillance, and by then we will certainly see a large number of demands emerge.

You may think that our argument is not convincing enough, so well, just look at these giants such as IBM, Cisco and Proxim have recently entered the field of network monitoring, you may understand the direction of the market.

Secret 3: IP technology cannot meet enterprise-level application needs

fact:
The larger the installed project and the higher the user's needs, the more it can highlight the advantages of IP monitoring. IP monitoring has proved to be a very competitive and attractive new concept. In fact, among the many advantages of the above IP monitoring, scalability is its biggest advantage, and it is also the most important point for high-end users. Receiving orders for 200 to 300 units is a very common thing for us. So such a misunderstanding is easy to be corrected: IP monitoring must be able to meet enterprise-level applications. In fact, we have received more and more government and airport surveillance orders, and they all agree that IP surveillance is the best architecture. This concept has changed dramatically just 12 months ago. This seems to be enough to explain something.

Secret 4: The image of the network video is not as clear as the simulation

fact:
High-quality network cameras also have image sensors (CCD) and lenses that are comparable to analog cameras. Moreover, by integrating the analog camera and the video server, the image information collected by the analog camera can be directly transmitted to the network. A high-quality network camera is for professional use, and it must be distinguished from a simple low-end Web camera.

Moreover, with the development of technology, network cameras and IP surveillance technology can achieve megapixel resolution, while analog cameras can only reach a resolution of 40,000 pixels at most due to the limitations of their technology.

Secret 5: IP cameras are much more expensive than analog cameras, IP surveillance is too expensive

fact:
In terms of price alone, network cameras are more expensive than analog cameras. But you should also see that its functions are unmatched by analog cameras, the digitalization of analog signals, image compression transmission, and intelligent control functions. Compared with all the costs of the surveillance system based on the DVR architecture, IP surveillance is cheaper than it. For analog systems, it ’s not that you buy a DVR and everything is fine. You also need to buy many related equipment such as a large number of analog video cables. Moreover, if you want to implement PTZ control, you also need to lay a lot of additional video cables, and the realization of PTZ function in IP monitoring is still through the network line, and does not require additional cables.

In 2002, he worked on a project of 300 network cameras. This is a project that requires extremely high security and high frame rate recording. The cost of this project is 800,000 US dollars, an average of 2,700 US dollars per route. To achieve the same function, the DVR monitoring system requires 1.8 million US dollars, an average of 6,000 US dollars per channel-more than twice the cost of IP surveillance.

Secret 6: I am currently installing an analog surveillance system. It seems that I ca n’t use IP surveillance. I only need to buy a DVR.

fact:
Perhaps DVR providers want people to believe this, but in fact, the development of video server technology has bridged the seemingly insurmountable gap between analog surveillance and digital surveillance. Just connect the analog camera to the video server, you can convert the video signal collected by the analog camera into a digital signal and compress it for transmission on the network. In other words, the video server allows the analog camera to have the function of a network camera. In fact, for most users who already have analog surveillance systems, they tend to choose this way to build their own IP surveillance system, or a hybrid IP surveillance system composed of network cameras and video servers. In short, your existing analog monitoring system will never stop you from moving towards IP monitoring.

Secret 7: If all video information is transmitted through the network, would n’t it cause network congestion or even network collapse, so it is not a mature technology

fact:
If there are only a few monitoring points, then the existing Fast Ethernet (100Mbit) can meet the transmission bandwidth requirements. Users can adjust the bandwidth independently according to the compression ratio and frame rate. If there are multiple monitoring points, we recommend that you lay a dedicated network cable. This is quite similar to railway rail transit-once the existing track lines become congested, some new track lines have to be built to ease the strain on the lines. Moreover, for large-scale enterprise-level applications, the local network is usually a gigabit LAN, using switches and routers, the network can be divided into different network segments.

Moreover, the intelligent function of the network camera can already choose which frame rate to send video according to the conditions of event triggering, dynamic detection and preset time. There is not much video information that needs to be transmitted, almost only 10% of the time the information needs to be transmitted, and 90% of the time no video information is transmitted on the network.

Secret 8: It seems that transmitting video on the network is not safe enough

fact:
Although the original purpose of the network is to make the information public enough, it can also be used to transmit some highly sensitive information as long as the correct security measures such as firewall, VPN or password protection technology are adopted. In fact, many banks and some financial institutions use the Internet to handle some global financial affairs. There is no doubt that it must also be a reliable medium for security surveillance and remote surveillance. Compared with digital surveillance, the confidentiality of analog surveillance is much worse, it has almost no confidentiality. Anyone can see the so-called security information under the simulated system, and even tamper with the information, causing huge losses. IP surveillance will never happen.

Secret 9: If there is network congestion or even a sudden disconnection, IP monitoring will instantly collapse, so it is very unreliable

fact:
At the beginning of the development of the IP network architecture in the 1960s and 1970s, it has always been a huge demand to provide redundant backup functions. Today, various storage servers, network switches and optional routers have been providing this kind of simultaneous backup function. The function of the storage server is to ensure easy access to data after offline. The application of backup power, hot-swappable RAID disks, fault-tolerant storage, and dual network cards can help achieve redundant backup functions. Although a small network structure may not require all these complex security measures, choosing a high-quality IT component is in any case much more reliable than the VCR or DVR in a traditional CCTV solution, and is urgent when there is a problem Processing is also much less time-consuming than DVR solutions.

Secret 10: IP monitoring is good, but it seems to be some time away from us, at least 5 years

fact:
I think that it is not the era of IP monitoring that seems to be the crux of all problems! Let us explain with specific data. Since the launch of the first network camera in 1996, 200,000 network cameras have been successfully sold and installed, and this number is also rapidly increasing year by year, which fully shows that people's interest in IP surveillance is also increasing. Because people are gradually discovering that IP surveillance has proven to be a mature solution that is suitable for both the present and the future, whether it is in terms of cost performance, reliability, or any other aspect.

Here, we have uncovered a large number of misunderstandings and misunderstandings around IP monitoring, hoping that people can see that IP monitoring is indeed a highly scalable, effective, and efficient solution that uses existing networks.