I just read the 2009 Video Surveillance Guide, written by John Honovitch.
Let me be frank. If your mortgage payments and grocery bills depend on your selling IPVS systems to people, you need to read this book, right now.
IP video surveillance is a teeny tiny little itty bitty market segment, and it is also the future of our industry. If you just do analog surveillance video, you are obsolete. Other companies will leave you in the dust and you will be forced to sell out or go under. I believe in 2 years over 51% of video installations will be IP based, because the price and capabilities of IP based video will blow analog out of the water.
For those of you who are already in IPVS- either as a distributor, manufacturer, dealer, or integrator, you need to know some specific things about our industry. You need to know who the major players are and which minor players are coming up from behind. You need to know about which side of the standards war to bet on. You need to know who will grow and who will fail and whose product to back.
Most importantly, you need to know how to market IPVS more effectively.
This book is not an introduction to IP video. John has already put out an introduction to IP video. This book is not for amateurs and trunk slammers. This book is for anyone who wants to be a player in IP video. Clearly written with so few technical terms the Marketing department can read and understand it. For those looking to break into IP video, John has written a free book called The Security Manager's Guide to Video Surveilance, which I also highly recomend.
Cost of this book is $40 for a single download, $100 for a 5 user license, and $200 for an unlimited license, through electronic distribution. My company spends more than that on name tags. John promises to update the book in March, in time for you to prep for ISC West. I don't think I'm going too far hyperbolic in calling this book "invaluable".
You need to know this information.
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
ASIS NYC Trade Show
ASIS NYC had a little shindig today. I headed over, even though I'm not an ASIS member, because the Javits Center is just two blocks away. I shook hands with my three biggest suppliers (word up to Ritz, Ernie, Dean, Ivan, and Fred, in no particular order), which is always nice, and I saw a IP Video manager that can accept signal from cameras from different manufacturers, and a facial recognition system that didn't totally suck.
I'm thinking of joining ASIS. Any one care to comment one way or another?
I'm thinking of joining ASIS. Any one care to comment one way or another?
ISC West Report
This was my first ISC West. Being based in New York City, with my office being a 5 minute walk from the Javits Center, I usually attend ISC East. That show takes up most of a day. ISC West is a good day and a half. So I didn't get to see everything on my list- I had to skip Bosch, DVTech, and Fujinon, as well as any booth that wasn't outright CCTV related. Any booth that I did get to was a hit and run, with me asking the show personnel "what's cool?" Booths that responded well to the question "what's cool" as well as having something that actually is "cool" are as follows (warning- the term "cool" is defined by me):
Axis has an H.264 single channel encoder. Streams 30 FPS at D1 (720x480). Supports numerous PTZ protocols. 2 way audio. With PoE, SD card slot, motion detection, tamper alarm, audio detection. 9MB buffer for pre and post alarm recording.
Marshall has two incredibly impressive lenses. They aren't on the website yet, but there is one 300mm, f3.75 lens, and one 140mm, f1.0 lens- the 140mm is practically a starlight lens! The 140mm has a field of view of 3 degrees H by 2 degrees V (using a ½" chip). They should be out in the summer. Special order only. Use a good tripod, these lenses are humongous. Marshall had these lenses mounted 503HDV, 351MVB2K kits. MSRP may or may not be $2499 on the 140mm.
Speaking of starlight, Bolide will have a starlight box camera- 1/3", 0.001 lux, 560 VTL in color and an incredible 620VTL in b&w. Digital noise reduction, and variable power from 8VDC to 30 VAC. I recommend Tamron IR coated lenses for this one.
Arecont Vision has a line of mega pixel cameras that compress video in H.264 right in the camera. Streams 1920x1080 in 16:9 format, in 30, and 15 FPS, with 1.3, 2, 3, and 5 mega pixel versions. The company says "The new cameras will also support RTP protocol for direct streaming of H.264 video into third-party software players, such as Apple's QuickTime, as well as custom TFTP protocol for streaming into Arecont Vision's own AV100 software, and other custom software applications developed using Arecont's SDK." I think that means you can use this camera for custom apps like traffic watch.
Everfocus has a new Wide Dynamic Range version of their famous vandal proof domes, the EHD 650. 480 VTL, and 0.08 lux. As usual it has a heater and blower, and comes with a varifocal lens.
Panasonic has a high definition video decoder with HDMI out called the WJ-GXD400. Supports 1 video at 1920x1080 with audio. Use with a mega pixel camera. They also announced the WJ-ND400 NVR, replacement for the ND400. It will ship with 500GB storage, expandable to 4.5TB onboard or 27TB with external units. No info on the Panasonic site yet. This is part of their new megapixel line.
Probably the most astonishing thing I saw at the show was the super wide angle lenses fromTheia. 1.3mm mega pixel pan focus lenses… with no distortion! It needs to be seen to be believed. I, personally, love lenses, and this goes against everything I know about lenses. It requires no power- all correction is done optically. Good for dPTZ and video forensics.
Of course, there is the SV35.3 series of hard drives from Seagate. Drives are the least visible, least glamorous, most important part of the CCTV system, and buying good drives are important. Available up to 1TB.
Some company I never heard of called Dotworkz has a line of wireless IP housings. Very nice.
Nothing I saw seemed very revolutionary. Everyboday was talking "H.264" and "storage" and "IP". Seems some companies are abandoning analog cameras entirely, and focusing on IP cameras and networking. Good thing too, except the security industry seems a bit lost as to this whole IP thing. It requires a whole new way of thinking, and some people just don't get it. For example- storage. We're all used to thinking of video storage as something expensive, so we compress video as much as possible to fit as much time as we can on the same amount of space. Video tape is expensive to buy and bulky so it's difficult to store. But we don't use video tape anymore, we use hard drives. And hard drives are so cheap nowadays it's virtually free. A 750GB SV35.3 Seagate hard drive is only $200 more than a 250GB hard drive (retail!) but the difference between a DVR with 160GB onboard and 1TB onboard is $1000 or more. There's no good reason why any DVR from any manufacturer should ship with less than 500GB of space.
The H.264 revolution could have gone in one of two ways. Either the DVR manufacturers could have decided to use the same resolution and just saved more video, or they could have saved the amount of video we're used to at a far higher resolution and frame rate. I applaud the companies that have decided to go in the second direction.
On a personal note, I got to meet Geoff Kohl at securityinfowatch.com's booth. I told him how much I appreciate this forum, which allows me to get a glimpse into the minds of the most imoportant users of CCTV- security guards and managers. Kudos.
Axis has an H.264 single channel encoder. Streams 30 FPS at D1 (720x480). Supports numerous PTZ protocols. 2 way audio. With PoE, SD card slot, motion detection, tamper alarm, audio detection. 9MB buffer for pre and post alarm recording.
Marshall has two incredibly impressive lenses. They aren't on the website yet, but there is one 300mm, f3.75 lens, and one 140mm, f1.0 lens- the 140mm is practically a starlight lens! The 140mm has a field of view of 3 degrees H by 2 degrees V (using a ½" chip). They should be out in the summer. Special order only. Use a good tripod, these lenses are humongous. Marshall had these lenses mounted 503HDV, 351MVB2K kits. MSRP may or may not be $2499 on the 140mm.
Speaking of starlight, Bolide will have a starlight box camera- 1/3", 0.001 lux, 560 VTL in color and an incredible 620VTL in b&w. Digital noise reduction, and variable power from 8VDC to 30 VAC. I recommend Tamron IR coated lenses for this one.
Arecont Vision has a line of mega pixel cameras that compress video in H.264 right in the camera. Streams 1920x1080 in 16:9 format, in 30, and 15 FPS, with 1.3, 2, 3, and 5 mega pixel versions. The company says "The new cameras will also support RTP protocol for direct streaming of H.264 video into third-party software players, such as Apple's QuickTime, as well as custom TFTP protocol for streaming into Arecont Vision's own AV100 software, and other custom software applications developed using Arecont's SDK." I think that means you can use this camera for custom apps like traffic watch.
Everfocus has a new Wide Dynamic Range version of their famous vandal proof domes, the EHD 650. 480 VTL, and 0.08 lux. As usual it has a heater and blower, and comes with a varifocal lens.
Panasonic has a high definition video decoder with HDMI out called the WJ-GXD400. Supports 1 video at 1920x1080 with audio. Use with a mega pixel camera. They also announced the WJ-ND400 NVR, replacement for the ND400. It will ship with 500GB storage, expandable to 4.5TB onboard or 27TB with external units. No info on the Panasonic site yet. This is part of their new megapixel line.
Probably the most astonishing thing I saw at the show was the super wide angle lenses fromTheia. 1.3mm mega pixel pan focus lenses… with no distortion! It needs to be seen to be believed. I, personally, love lenses, and this goes against everything I know about lenses. It requires no power- all correction is done optically. Good for dPTZ and video forensics.
Of course, there is the SV35.3 series of hard drives from Seagate. Drives are the least visible, least glamorous, most important part of the CCTV system, and buying good drives are important. Available up to 1TB.
Some company I never heard of called Dotworkz has a line of wireless IP housings. Very nice.
Nothing I saw seemed very revolutionary. Everyboday was talking "H.264" and "storage" and "IP". Seems some companies are abandoning analog cameras entirely, and focusing on IP cameras and networking. Good thing too, except the security industry seems a bit lost as to this whole IP thing. It requires a whole new way of thinking, and some people just don't get it. For example- storage. We're all used to thinking of video storage as something expensive, so we compress video as much as possible to fit as much time as we can on the same amount of space. Video tape is expensive to buy and bulky so it's difficult to store. But we don't use video tape anymore, we use hard drives. And hard drives are so cheap nowadays it's virtually free. A 750GB SV35.3 Seagate hard drive is only $200 more than a 250GB hard drive (retail!) but the difference between a DVR with 160GB onboard and 1TB onboard is $1000 or more. There's no good reason why any DVR from any manufacturer should ship with less than 500GB of space.
The H.264 revolution could have gone in one of two ways. Either the DVR manufacturers could have decided to use the same resolution and just saved more video, or they could have saved the amount of video we're used to at a far higher resolution and frame rate. I applaud the companies that have decided to go in the second direction.
On a personal note, I got to meet Geoff Kohl at securityinfowatch.com's booth. I told him how much I appreciate this forum, which allows me to get a glimpse into the minds of the most imoportant users of CCTV- security guards and managers. Kudos.
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