Category Archives: Analytics

CCTV footage will be good enough to secure convictions with IP CCTV

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IP CCTV cameras supply the solution.

The police and courts are being encouraged by the picture and recording quality that is now available from both HD CCTV and Megapixel IP cameras. For too long now we have had recorded images that simply are not good enough to secure convictions.

Highlighted in recent report.

This was recently highlighted in an internal report from the Metropolitan police who have compiled figures to prove that for every 1000 CCTV cameras that are positioned across the capital just one crime is solved. Add to this the comments made by a representative of Scyron the company who help the police analyse footage, as he said, as many as half of all of the CCTV cameras across the UK are of no use whatsoever.

Analytics.

Police are also encouraging the use of analytics on existing analogue cameras to ensure that only images are recorded when required ie. when loitering is taking place in known drug dealing areas or fighting outside drinking establishments. This encourages the public that they are not being watched constantly by the Big brother state.

Things must improve.

All the above will help improve every aspect of  CCTV and surveillance in the UK customers will finally get the picture and recording quality they deserve and criminals will find themselves faced with indisputable CCTV evidence to convict them in court. Once people realize the clarity and usability of the pictures then ultimately crime will be reduced . A benefit to us all.

Bad day for plane spotters but a great day for maintenance.

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All UK airports closed.

 Airports across the UK are saturated with security measures from access control CCTV biometrics and so on. Normally the on going programme of maintenance for all this equipment has to be carefully scheduled to fit in with passengers and staff to ensure that when tested it causes the minimum inconvenience and disruption .

Icelandic volcanic eruption.

 A unique opportunity for security installers arose yesterday and today however when a volcanic eruption in Iceland over 900 miles away from the UK grounded every single aircraft in the country. The situation is not expected to be resolved until at least tomorrow and with this information very well publicized it means that the airports for the first time ever are deserted. What a great chance for security installers to get on site and carry out all those jobs that normally mean either working at night or working around many hundreds of people.

Unique testing opportunity.

It also offers a unique opportunity to carry out testing on analytics in an almost a completely sterile environment. With the runways effectively reduced to parking lots day light testing with no movement has never been able to have been done before and the smart installers will be using this very rare window of oppotunity to carry out some experimentation.

How long have they got?

No one is able to tell for how long the eruption will continue but it seems certain that the combination of  the weather patterns and a local volcanic eruption are highly unlikely to ever occur again. So our advice would be to all installers of CCTV, access control or any kind of security device get on site today and make the most of it!

Moving sales forward with IP camera solutions

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A new sales opportunity.

So how do we pursued customers to upgrade to new camera systems? . Well of course firstly we have the lever that no forward thinking business is gong to want  to get left behind with their security solutions. With the advent of HD CCTV we have a consumer led technology that people want to jump on board with, this technology is good  but megapixel technology offers some even more amazing picture quality as long as the network that is is in place has the ability to handle the amount of data that is going to pass through it.

So much to offer but who is ready?

It seems that we have cameras that can do more than we could ever imagine but customers generally don’t have the bandwidth to handle it. Add to this the hundreds of different and incompatible recording solutions and we find that on many occasions we have to compromise on the  CCTV software. We need CCTV software that  can handle most if not all the  manufacturers cameras. Analytics will only work with analogue cameras that have been converted by codecs, we see this as a completely unsatisfactory scenario. Analytics for HD and mega pixel cameras are a must.

What the industry wants.

What we want is a recorder/CCTV software that can do analytics, record the best quality that the best cameras on the market can supply and no network restrictions , This is still a long way off  but without doubt within the next 3 years an IP solution will emerge that will take the market place by storm . If the manufacturer who can fulfil all the above criteria does emerge then  they will dominate the market for many many years to come.

IP CCTV. Who is to blame when it fails?

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Who takes the wrap when the network goes down?

It seems a fairly simple question. A break -in has occurred, there is a very large loss and someone needs to pay up. Well of course it must be the installer who is to blame? Perhaps in the old days of analogue CCTV systems it generally was and often quite easy to prove that this was the case.

Integrated IP solutions means things are different now.

IP security solutions mean that by the very nature of the product there are lots of different technologies integrated into one holistic solution. We now have an installers cameras going onto to a customers network , linked to a router (sometimes wireless) connected to an unmonitored broadband connection. Then we send the data through countless different routes in the Internet cloud, to be finally viewed by a third party monitoring station. Lots to go awry i would suggest and no real way of finding out who is to blame when things go wrong.

Emizon IP monitoring.

The very first thing that installers should insist upon is that the broadband line is properly monitored and Emizon offers that solution. It gives the peace of mind to the installer and the customer that should the broadband line fail for any reason the key holders will be called . In addition it gives the installer the ability following an incident to check that the line was intact at the time.

Third party remote connection.

It is also crucial that the installer has the ability to remotely connect to the customers site at all times. Most DVR’s and VMS software gives a comprehensive log of how the customers network is responding and will also record if any cameras have failed and for what reason .

Logs at the central station.

Finally a central station should be used that offers both the customer and the installer complete transparency when it comes to viewing events stored at the monitoring centre. The best RVRC’s offer this service through a web browser and this can never be underestimated as a service when a dispute arises.

In summary.

With analytics becoming more popular in generating alarms and cameras becoming more powerful in the images they can provide, remote monitoring of  IP camera systems will be increasing. Failure however in picking up incidents will never go away but the best installers will ensure that with extensive testing during the commissioning process and service engineers who always fully test systems during routine maintenance will suffer far fewer incidents and far fewer cases of litigation against them.

Advice on choosing a CCTV installer

My advice to end users is choose your installer with care IT integrators may seem an attractive solution but there is no substitute for a professional CCTV installer.


Integrated CCTV System

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Integrated CCTV systems.

What are the elements involved in a fully integrated CCTV system?  Starting with the a basic CCTV system we will always have the cameras , the DVR and the monitor. this is what people generally understand when they ask to have a CCTV system installed.

Lots of applications.

We can have an internal CCTV system, an external CCTV system or we can have a mixture of both. Until recently CCTV systems tended to be restricted to a fairly small number of cameras usually up to about 16. Of course there has always been a need on bigger sites for more cameras but there was always the restrictions. The number of frames per second per camera that a DVR could process for instance. The more FPS the more expensive the DVR tended to be to accommodate. Then of course we have the picture quality. Analogue CCTV cameras have always been restricted as to how many lines they can produce to make up the image we see on the screen.

Better picture quality.

Although cameras have advanced to allow more lines,  420 TVL would be typical for instance. It does not stop there, we are then restricted by the monitors and the picture quality they can produce . With the introduction of IP we now have the exciting development of HD CCTV and this means mega pixels and in turn a huge advance in picture quality that we can expect from our recorded images in the future.

Integrated CCTV solutions provide so much more.

Integrated CCTV systems though consist of more .They can be hybrid CCTV systems part analogue, part IP. They can be Integrated to access control systems and linked to central stations. They can be linked to external alarm systems. Sensors, fixed beams and so on to give us many different security solutions and the ability to generate alarms.

CCTV in the future.

Most integrated CCTV systems of the future however will be able to incorporate analytics to generate alarms. This could be used to warn of a terrorists threat such as abandoned luggage and suspicious behaviour etc. The CCTV systems can be integrated to ANPR software that will allow number plate recognition to control barriers and access control and the  police are able to track suspicious vehicles across the country by using this ANPR technology. CCTV systems can now integrate to biometric readers to allow faces to be linked to finger prints this offers companies a huge upgrade of security within their organisation.

In summary.

In summary CCTV systems on their own will be a thing of the past. Integrated security in its many forms is the way forward for the future. IP cameras and the improved picture quality they bring together with analytics and more flexibilty are just around the corner , things are moving fast!