Terrorism and highly publicized domestic attacks have contributed to the increased awareness of security as a priority market.  Events such as the recent school violence in North America have called attention to the need for new video surveillance applications in transit, educational institutions, city centers, and border crossings.  These security concerns currently drive the growth of the video surveillance software market.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, North American Video Surveillance Software Markets, reveals that the market earned revenues of US$139.76 million in 2006 and estimates this to reach US$826.65 million in 2013.

Bolstering homeland security with the latest access control and video surveillance technology

has encouraged other application markets to improve their security solutions.

Lower cost hardware and improved detection capabilities of the latest video analytics software have led to the growth of IP surveillance.  Additionally, the added advantage of integrating various security systems also drives the growth of the IP surveillance market.

“The convergence of security with the IT infrastructure is providing the necessary business case for security managers to shift from analog to IP surveillance,” notes Frost & Sullivan Senior Research Analyst George C. Paul.  “This convergence not only reduces the cost of deployment, but also helps build a unified database that can increase interaction among the various security systems.?

The integration of security and IT has created a host of new products and has led to IP surveillance becoming the standard technology for most of the Greenfield security projects.  New opportunities arise from the advantages of digital technology in analyzing and providing real time feedback for preventive action.

Advanced compression techniques have improved the quality of the images for lesser bandwidth requirements, thereby reducing the network cost to support IP cameras.  In addition, the ease of integration with video analytics and low-cost server-based video management systems further demonstrates the advantages of IP surveillance.  However, this convergence will not be easily achieved due to the differences in technologies between traditional security products and IP products.  The restraint is more from educating the integrators and consultants rather than the actual technology.

?ence, integrators, consultants, and vendors coming from the traditional security background must remain up to date with regard to the latest technologies in the IP surveillance market,?says Paul.  ?his can be achieved only through increased education and experience on live projects as well as pilots.”

In the past, live video feed was sent through coaxial cables and stored on a tape drive, or encoders would convert the feed and store it on Digital Video Recorders (DVR).  However, with the emergence of IP surveillance, video now transfers over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/IP networks, and persons implementing these solutions must understand IT standards and technologies.