By Robert Siegel

Robert Siegel is General Manager of Video and Software Solutions for GE Security (www.gesecurity.com).

Sophisticated asset protection executives know that the future of both surveillance and security systems lies in an open architecture foundation. In a perfect world, companies or organizations could purchase brand-new, complete digital packages that include every aspect of security, from the cameras to the DVRs to the access control, fire and intrusion systems. They would all work harmoniously together over the IT network because they were all created to the same standards.

Unfortunately, reality is more complicated. Reality is where cameras are one brand, perhaps the favorite of the previous security director. The analog video recorders were another brand’s top of the line...a decade ago. The access control system doesn’t talk to the cameras or DVRs. It also doesn’t talk to the fire or intrusion systems, either.

Many security experts believe that, one day very soon, security and surveillance systems will be highly flexible, open and integrated, because customers are demanding it. Though some manufacturers want to control all aspects of their security systems, that is not where the security industry is ultimately headed. End users want a totally integrated solution, not isolated bits and pieces. The only way to achieve that is with open systems…open architecture.

A total, integrated surveillance solution brings together disparate hardware left over from legacy systems and lets all the pieces communicate, not only together, but with other security systems. It is integrated with other systems, including access control, fire and intrusion, and trace detection.

For example, once smoke is detected, cameras start rolling, doors unlock, digital video recorders record in high resolution and security managers are alerted via video monitors, PCs, PDAs, pagers or text messages on their cell phones.

By further integrating their surveillance system and access control systems with a Central Station package, users can monitor and respond to all alarms, whether generated from a standard burglary or fire panel, or through the card access system, in a single interface. The video surveillance integration provides users with instant access to any associated video information. This integration allows security staff to quickly get high quality photos emailed to the proper authorities.

As noted, open architecture is the only way to make highly integrated surveillance and security systems a reality. Savvy security directors are already looking for systems that work together smoothly, rather than consisting of isolated components that refuse to communicate with each other. Whatever the state of the system you’ve inherited, keeping an eye toward open architecture will serve you well now and in the future.

Of course, different segments of the market have varying needs. Working with their dealers and integrators, leading manufacturers are creating a series of surveillance solutions. Many of these new applications incorporate and leverage economies of the computer industry.

For instance, the lower and middle market segments can take advantage of new price/performance points that only IT solution technologies, such as MPEG-4 compression and Wi-Fi transmission techniques, can provide.

At the higher end of the market, video-oriented software plugs in needed features, advantages and benefits that provide increased security solutions. Importantly, todays video surveillance system can be shared with marketing and other departments to amortize its overall cost by providing productivity and business information tied into other systems such as POS solutions in the retail environment.

Software Taking Over the Rein

Security directors at the forefront of the market want transition from analog components to true digital networks that create virtual security systems to meet the changing infrastructures and security needs of 21st century organizations, with new threats to organizations appearing month after month. To meet these challenges, they need seamless solutions that dramatically improve the effectiveness of their employees and systems that are as close to plug-and-play as possible.

Yet, at the same time they are being asked for dramatically increased security, budgets remain flat. As a result, their new systems must be able to leverage the use of their legacy analog products. Although it would be nice to cast out the old system and replace it with one that is completely new, digital, and intelligent, this reality does not exist except for the lucky few.      

With the advent of software solutions becoming the backbones for network systems, there is an impending requirement for open systems that work with a myriad of standards. Proprietary is simply no longer acceptable and will not stand the scrutiny of the IT department. In such a world, hardware becomes co-dependent on software solutions. No longer is software simply relegated to being the glue that brings disparate hardware components together. Software is now becoming the king while hardware takes the role of the serfs.

According to Frost & Sullivan, by 2011, software will account for 45 percent of total end-user sales.

In the near future, with IT departments making more security decisions, current and future security products will require network environments to operate. This means that security directors will need to create network platforms that support intelligent video, POS and other vertical productivity tools. As the video surveillance system is being used to observe threats and fraud, it must also be available to marketing, human resources, quality control and other departments who are facing the same infrastructure and virtual systems challenges as the security department.

Integrating Analog and Digital

Despite a spate of recent digital video product introductions -- wide dynamic range cameras that process each pixel of a frame to surmount lighting problems of shade and brightness and rugged PTZ camera domes offering dry nitrogen pressurization for protection in harsh environments, and many others -- the currently installed video system of today remains primarily one of analog-based components.

Older cameras and domes have no IP-connectivity. Video switching products continue to be limited to commercial and local site applications and only interface with similarly proprietary branded products. Although digital video recorders provide analog to digital conversion, they act as a local site device with limited remote access. Software solutions offer limited functionality and low integration opportunities among platforms.

Generally speaking, these systems do not provide security management with the types of solutions needed today. Specifically, they do not give asset protection executives the tools needed to meet the new mandates of a post-9/11 world.

For instance, analog video does not provide data for intelligent video, an evolving requirement for improved security. Present systems are difficult and expensive to configure on a network, creating problems with the IT department, which is becoming more and more involved in the selection of security systems. They cannot adequately compress video for management and reporting authorities who demand the storage of increased frames per second from an explosion of cameras on the system. In a global world of multi-campus users, present systems tend to be local and single-site focused.

The Digital Video Recorder (DVR) is a much more effective and efficient device for achieving what the market has wanted out of surveillance, the increased protection of people and property, in two significant ways.

First, the only real similarity between the DVR and

analog recorders is that both record. However, with the DVR, one can make very quick searches on hard drives much faster than scanning yards of analog tape to find the image needed. Not only is it significantly easier to get images off the DVR, it is much easier to disburse them. Using already-installed, IT-based transmission systems, one simply transmits images to law enforcement or any other reporting agencies and organizations that might request or need them. For instance, a picture of the bad guy can be at the local TV station in seconds.

Secondly, the DVR performs at a lower cost and higher quality. DVRs cost less and are dramatically more efficient to maintain. Discs are much easier to store. There is virtually no degradation of quality and a hard disk can literally hold months of images.

The same can be said of other digital video components or of the systems themselves. Digital video solutions increase scope.

The New Role of Recorders

For larger enterprise-sized security installation, Network Video Recorders (NVRs) are becoming an increasingly viable option. Currently in the ?arly adopter?phase, NVRs are becoming increasingly more important in security systems.

Network video recorders tend to benefit installations with multiple sites and locations, such as a large transportation system. For these spread-out organizations, the flexibility afforded by remote access and retrieval, and the ability to bring data back to a central location, make NVRs an attractive choice. NVRs also offer enhanced flexibility as far as programming and moving video between several sites. A general guideline is that the bigger the installation, the more cost-effective NVRs are. Although they clearly give large organizations more programming flexibility, they could potentially offer less reliability than an embedded system in which data is kept on a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) at the camera site. Many end users want to ensure they can keep recording even if the network goes down, and thus might prefer these isolated DVRs. Images can be retrieved via remote monitoring. However, the technology used by NVRs to retrieve video remotely will eventually migrate down to embedded DVR platforms. When that happens, end users will not have to choose between flexibility and reliability -- they will have the best of both worlds.

Combining the New with the Old

Today, users can begin implementing strategies that let them take their already invested-in legacy analog systems and create an IP-based video network while still continuing to use their existing analog equipment. 

With fully-featured network video solutions systems, users can now plan how to bridge the gaps between analog and digital systems by connecting IP platform cameras, digital video recorders, PCs and servers directly to their networks. New encoders/decoders are now available to provide network access for currently used analog cameras and monitors. Such innovations provide high scalability and solve complicated security issues in small commercial to large enterprise business environments.

Beyond Simple CCTV

With the convergence of physical access control and other security and IT systems, new open system architectures are providing smaller users as well as global enterprises with the solutions they need. 

However, as today’s systems are becoming more and more computerized, they are creating the same problems that the IT industry has been facing for some time. Incompatible hardware or proprietary, unsynchronized databases or completely inconsistent user interfaces compete for space and attention. These systems become inefficient, requiring too many people to manage -- and constantly repair -- these systems.

Such solutions increase employee and training costs, foster unnecessary equipment expense, cause security and safety breeches and produce mission-critical downtime.  Since their budgets and management are beginning to dictate what will be used, access control systems must conform.

The same can be said for video systems. When companies switch from analog to IP video systems, they are moving to a networked world where video can be accessed and retrieved easily across distances. Exciting advances in digital technology make possible many new features and capabilities that could only be imagined before the advent of digital video. As costs come down and technologies improve, surveillance system customers today have more options than ever before. For instance, they can interface with other security components and systems, such as:

Digital Video. They can work with video surveillance systems from multiple manufacturers. From the console, users can view live images from surveillance cameras, control pan/tilt/zoom cameras or search for video clips stored on digital video recorders (DVR) by time, date, event, event type, camera or DVR.

Virtual Switching. Advanced video software eliminates the need for a matrix switcher all-together and simplifies video coder/decoder operations. IP addressable cameras are connected over a LAN to a digital virtual switching system with video displays and then to digital video recorders.

Intrusion System. From the console, users can arm or disarm an intrusion area. When an event or alarm is triggered, a pop-up alarm function displays a map of the alarm location and links it to the digital video system to begin recording at that location. Users can retrieve video clips by associating them with alarms to investigate and resolve incidents more quickly.

Intercom System. When a call comes in from an intercom, the system can automatically trigger an Event Action Mapping function to display the intercom call station on the console. The intercom can be connected to the video system to show live video from that call station. Users can also link the intercom to the access control system to unlock or lock a door at that location.

By integrating with other security functions, a more total, automated solution is born. If the access system or alarm sensor detects unwanted activity, the DVR or combination Digital Video Multiplexer/Recorder (DVMR) can be programmed to capture more images of the incident. In addition, security guards, managers, administrators, business owners and even law enforcement can be notified upon an alarm. They immediately know the location and nature of the alarm so they can remedy the problem immediately. They don’t need to waste time by first checking the surveillance system for such details.

Without having to physically verify what is happening on their surveillance system, they can immediately respond to the alarm and take immediate action. No matter where those needing to be alerted might be, the DVMR sends them a message via their PC, laptop, PDA, cellphone or pager, notifying them of the type of alarm and where it is located.

Alarms can be emailed in response to alarm situations or external alarms. For instance, during set-up, the user can program the DVMR with conditions that count as alarms, based on object size and object location within a scene. Then, the surveillance system employs video motion detection to look through the camera, detect any changes within the scene and recognize them as alarm conditions. Users can additionally set detection sensitivity and false-alarm-rejection levels.

Once the alarm is triggered, the DVMR displays images from up to four cameras associated with the alarm area and sends a message to pre-selected email addresses. Hardwired alarms such as door open or window open can also activate such email messages.

Super-sized Surveillance

For extremely large surveillance systems, there is a futuristic security solution that ties everything together into one system -- and it is here now. It’s being used to protect the subways of Paris, Canada’s largest airport, and massive motorways in Europe.

What has been needed for such immense, complex applications is a large-scale, intelligent video platform that provides optimal networking performance. This advanced Intelligent Video Platform (IVP) handles more than 10,000 cameras on one contiguous system with streaming and storage at different data rates.

This solution provides a fully distributed, high quality digital video surveillance system with advanced video switching and recording, integration of audio features, alarm management, video processing, integration and protection of existing equipment and intelligent leveraging of network capabilities.

The system integrates smart software, built-in intelligent video content analytics and precision-engineered hardware for installations that need integrated transmission, management, analysis and storage of extremely high-quality digital video.

With its unique open architecture and with optional embedded advanced Video Content Analysis (VCA), the system can monitor system health and analyze live or recorded video streams to automatically report camera performance across the network -- alerting security personnel to displaced cameras, obstructed views, cameras out of focus, blocked cameras, or video loss.

It can also tell when a box has been left on at a boarding station too long, if a retail clerk is about to steal from the cash register and if someone is drowning in a swimming pool.

Ask a CCTV system to do that!

For more info., contact to email swm@infothe.com

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