Tag Archives: Ip Camera

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.


Watch pets at home.

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Pet watch cameras.

IP cameras now give every pet owner the opportunity to view their pets at home remotely, saving hundreds of £/$ on pet sitters. Whether it be their dogs or cats in fact whatever your favorite pet at home happens to be.

Mega- pixel IP camera.

The best thing about the advent of the mega-pixel IP camera is that it gives you a quality image so you can actually see properly if your pet is in distress. What is more with two way audio you are able to hear what is going on and best of all talk back to your animal. In addition a PTZ allows pan left and right up and down and even zoom in and out if you require.

Anyone can install this IP camera.

All you need is a PC and a broadband connection. Setting up is easy and in most cases can be done yourself. The peace of mind this two way link can give you will enable you to go to work with confidence and as camera prices fall it is a very affordable option.

Help and advice.

If you would like advice as to which camera will Will give you the best picture quality and flexibility  contact us here and we will be very happy to advise you.

The Predator CCTV Camera Range

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Predator 360 range.

So the predator CCTV range is getting some high profile publicity recently and with good reason some would say. 360 vision technology are a company who have always prided themselves on providing a quality solution at a realistic price. From experience we can say that their support and back up is always good as is the quality of most of the products they manufacture. They do have some history. Most within the industry will know that the company was born out of another successful business venture, so sound business ethics were already in-breed with the founder members of the company .When 360 vision launched they had a simple ethos, target good installers and provide quality products and support and then ensure they are looked after at all costs. This has been an extremely successful formula and one we expect to be repeated in the marketing, sale and support for the predator CCTV product range.

So where will the predator be used and how successful can it become?

The main places we see it being used is outside in non-maintenance friendly situations such as sports arena’s airports ,dock yards and city centres. The beauty of the predator CCTV solution is that it is virtually maintenance free. All programming and set up issues can be done from a remote location. It has a wiper so the camera view will always be clear and unaffected by enviromental issues .Great thought has been put to longevity of this camera. The pan and tilt motors have been designed for quiet, smooth operation minimising wear and tear.  Optional IR lights can be mounted strategically to ensure the weight and load bearing is evenly distributed and gives maximum IR light spread in the areas required. The reason however this product will ultimately prove a success is because it has been future proofed in every conceivable way possible .IP CCTV is going to dominate the market in the future and the predator CCTV range is placed perfectly to benefit as IP integration solutions become more common place.

Conclusion.

So once the predator is sold and in place its hard to see another camera solution that will replace it .Reliability is key and past experience says this will be part of the Predator CCTV camera success story, time will tell but we think the writing is already on the wall.

Monitored CCTV

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What is monitored CCTV.

Monitored CCTV first started to come into its own in the late 90’s .This coincided with the advent of the ISDN telephone network that BT developed in order to transfer large amounts of data mainly for large corporate customers. The first ISDN lines were made up of two legs of 64k each giving a total of 128k. This was sufficient to allow CCTV images of reasonable quality to be compressed and transmitted using an ISDN modem.

CCTV monitoring station.

The early monitoring stations tended to use two formats for monitoring these pictures. As a rule they used either the Adpro or the DVST transceivers. It was a bit like the VHS/Beta Max battle when the VCR was first developed and the market for monitoring at that time was only ever going to be able to support one monitoring platform in the early days and as a consequence  the DVST solution lost and died a slow and expensive death.

What did the operator see?

It was quite simplistic really. The Adpro was able to transmit three separate snap shots each taken approximately one second apart. This was presented to the operator in the form of a quad image, the three snap shots and in the bottom right hand corner was the live streamed image. It had to be remembered that this was early days and the images were of questionable quality . Great skill was required on behalf of the operator to distinguish whether there was actually a break in occurring . Of course when the central station only had a few connections this was not a problem the operator had plenty of time to spend on each alarm ,but, this was soon to change.

The boom years.

The popularity of monitored systems took off as we entered the 21st century. Connections increased massively and central stations were only too keen to take these on. It did however mean that as these connections increased, the service to the end user started to decline ….dramatically.

False alarms.

False alarms were a considerable drawback to the industry, in the absence of regulation any CCTV installer could make a connection. Design of the systems seemed to take second place to the number of connections that could be made and as a result break ins were missed and litigation followed.

Re-think.

This made the central stations re-think their position and actually forced them to decline applications from installers who had a poor record of false alarms. Some sites were disconnected in an attempt to get false alarms and response times under control. It took a long time but with some heavy handed tactics from the central stations,  including isolating cameras that caused more than just a few activations in a 24hour period. Everyone started to appreciate the need to reduce dramatically the number of false alarms being signalled through.

IP solutions.

Of course as technology improved, Adpro was being challenged by some new players in the market place. Slowly but surely with the advent of IP monitoring it started to lose its grip as the main player. Broadband means better pictures and faster connections and also the ability for central stations to view pre- alarm events giving them far more information. There is still a school of thought however that IP monitoring is not always as secure as we would like to think. We have down time  at ISPs and certainly there is a percentage of information that is lost in the Internet cloud.

So where does CCTV monitoring go from here?

We need think hard about this one. IP camera systems mean that monitoring needs are changing and fast. Large organisations are beginning to realise that monitoring there own sites is a possibility and and that cost savings are possible. Hybrid CCTV systems will become the norm and it will only be a matter of time before ISDN is phased out completely so all the old legacy transmitting equipment will have to be upgraded. A great opportunity for installers and manufacturers alike. As for the monitoring stations they need to keep a very close eye on the market place .They must implement front end software that can integrate to as many legacy and new transmission products  as possible into its central station. Ineveitably they will have to reduce the cost of monitoring solutions in order to both maintain existing customers and generate new business


Cisco wireless-g PTZ internet video camera

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Remote connection from anywhere in the world.

The Cisco WVC210 PTZ camera is capable of  being connected to from anywhere through an Internet browser. It is a Wireless Internet Video  IP Camera and has 2-way Audio. Through the Internet browser you are able to control the pan ,tilt and zoom functions.

Codecs.

The camera has two codecs (MPEG-4 and MJPEG) that it can support, they are able to be used at the same time. MPEG-4 would generally be used when viewing live video it has a good compression rate and is ideal where bandwidth may be an issue. MJPEG however gives better video quality so is the better option when storage of the video data is required.

Two way audio.

The Cisco WVC210’s has an integrated microphone for two way audio functionality so you can communicate to any location using this feature. The camera supports real time streaming of video and this means it is ideal for connection from mobile devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. It can also be viewed by up to 10 people at any one time so an ideal management tool.

Software

The Cisco internet video camera includes on board software to allow viewing of recordings from remote locations and has advanced search facilities for ease of use by the operator. The camera is also capable of generating an e-mail to up to 3 different users informing them of an event linked to a video motion action and attach an streamed video of the alarm so enabling a remote response should a security violation occur.

Flexibility

The camera is extremely flexible and offers numerous benefits and features that will be of great interest when an integrated CCTV solution is required.