Reviews all week.
As we go through the week we will be looking at the manufacturers and suppliers that caught our eye at IFSEC this year. Today however we focus on IFSEC itself and how our day went.
Getting there.
It was a bit of an early start, the traffic on the way down to the NEC was light and we made easy going of it. We arrived full of enthusiasm about what we might see at the exhibition this year and had mentally planned our route round some of the stands we wanted to visit.
Getting in.
The automated check in went like a dream. We walked into the main hall looked around , got our bearings and then checked the exhibitors map we had been provided with. Here though we had a problem!! I had a bit of a laugh as my colleague struggled to read the stand numbers on the map, no matter what distance from his eyes he tried to hold the floor plan, he said it was illegible. He then challenged me to try to read the “small Print” and very quickly I had the smile wiped off my face as I realized that I could not read it either. Were we both getting short sited?? Feedback to the organizers published here .
Arecont IP camera.
Not to be deterred by the fact that we had no idea where we were going we made our way into the show. We chose Arecont as our first stop. The main reason for this is we were looking for a megapixel camera that performed well in challenging light conditions. Arecont have just such a camera. The Av10005 1o megapixel 1080p. They use very clever ways of getting it to perform at night, this is known as binning. When the camera senses low light it changes mode to allow it to use 4 pixels instead of 1, to increase the amount of light onto the camera chip. We left very impressed. More on this soon.
Dallmeier.
We then moved on to the Dallmeier stand to take a look at their new video Netbox. Dallmeier have always produced quality goods and the build quality of the Netbox was certainly robust. This one box solution is a hybrid unit aimed to bridge the analogue IP gap and is very flexible. It would be very suited to temporary installations or construction sites. We were also eager to learn that Dallmeier has released Pview 7. This is their main software integration package full of new features. Again we left the stand impressed.
Avigilon.
Avigilon was next. Their range of high definition surveillance systems had attracted our attention. Lots to look at here but the most impressive part for us was the build quality of their Megapixel cameras. No plastic here, the cameras were solid, heavy and extremely well put together. The picture quality was equally impressive especially from the 16 megapixel version.
360 vision technology.
We had heard that 360 vision technology had released a new dome for the show and we were not to be disappointed. A very enthusiastic member of the team demonstrated their new IR dome. It has all the features you would expect and night time vision of up to 100m is very impressive. Light being generated from the strategically mounted IR leds ensures nothing is missed by this brilliantly designed camera. This dome is a different animal though from the 360 dome we have been used to. It is heavier and much more robust. Something we look forward to testing.
March Networks.
March networks were demonstrating the Predator camera or is it the Shield? However it is branded this camera stands out from just about everything else at the show. The auto tracking had been set up brilliantly and you could view the meta data as it followed people around the show .The accuracy was stunning . This camera has just about everything you could wish for and the Predator will be coming out in lots of different versions in the near future. We will be doing a special feature on it later in the month, keep watching.
The best of the rest.
Time was moving on and we still had plenty to see. We paid various visits to Samsung, Redvision, ACTi, Emizon and Paxton. All very interesting and each will be reviewed later in the month.
Home.
Well it was time to go , the overall feeling was one of enthusiastic excitement. All the people we saw had something new to offer and it is blatantly apparent that analogue CCTV is very shortly about to become condemned to the history books. Standard IP cameras are starting to look dated with all the emphasis at the show on HD and Megapixel. As the number of pixels and picture quality increase in the cameras the frame rates they can deliver decreases dramatically. In addition the storage required can be prohibitive. Neither of these problems though are insurmountable and in a very short space of time the quality we will see from IP CCTV is going to leave the end user in a position where hopefully they are left with little choice but to upgrade. The future looks bright.