State of diffusion

01 Sep 2009

by: By John Adams

INTEGRATORS and installers will win a momentary reprieve in the IP changeover thanks to current economic conditions, but it will be shortlived and confined to jobs in public infrastructure where existing legacy gear will continue be leveraged to ease capital expenditure.

In the private sector, things are clearly moving in a different direction, with greater investment in network infrastructure making IP surveillance and networked security management systems incorporating access control, far more enticing.

If you’re wondering about future directions, what’s interesting when considering major installations is that those systems manipulating legacy analogue infrastructure are doing so in a way that drives them into a networked environment – they’re not tipping IP cameras into analogue multiplexers or storing image streams on VCRs.

It’s been observed before in SE&N that the hybrid middle ground occupied by the electronic security industry might be occupied for some time and it appears that this position is correct. As long as there is uncertainty over whether or not HD or higher rates of megapixel will prevail there will be a fallback position for some, particularly those with legacy cabling, in which deploying affordable and reliable analogue cameras makes sense.

The investment in HD cameras from some of the IP CCTV sector’s leading lights does suggest HD will be a serious way-station for IP camera technology in the years ahead. The other alternative, and a perfectly realistic one, is that the market will diffuse, with a range of cameras available from different manufacturers offering a range of performance possibilities.

You could argue that the current situation which sees analogue cameras, basic IP cameras, HD cameras, and big megapixel cameras like Avigilon all selling into the same market proves this state of diffusion is already here. There really are cameras for every application and that includes the applications within applications that exist on every site. There’s no chance that one quality fixed camera and one high powered PTZ dome camera will handle all the jobs of the future in the way they have in the past.

With the release of Pelco’s Sarix, almost every major manufacturer now has a serious presence in the IP camera market though this has not meant the end of hybrid DVRs or NVRs. Having said this, things are changing in storage. We are covering four surveillance case studies in this issue of SE&N and all of them are employing off-the-shelf storage solutions from a range of manufacturers – none of which is a security specialist.

What is clearly driving this shift is the fact that increasingly clever users want more flexible solutions, including a wider choice of software management options, and they want to pay less for them. Adding to the diffusion is the fact very few end users drive their systems across general data networks. Almost all new systems are installed on subnets with servers allowing network access to cameras and storage arrays from a central location.

Another interesting development relates to the delivery of management software. Some manufacturers charge for this management software while others offer management software free. Clearly we are on an interesting trip and while fiscal pressures may delay our time of arrival the destination is not in question.