Back to basics
The region’s security industry is far from recession proof, says Salim Idris, and savvy security managers will be looking for proven technologies to keep their budgets and their surveillance requirements in check
As the economic slowdown impacts on the region, security managers who are contemplating investing in video surveillance technology are much less likely to want to experiment with unproven technologies or be swayed by unsubstantiated claims of providers. Instead the focus, I believe, will be very much on robust solutions that will be able to deliver a favourable cost of ownership and, crucially, a substantial return on investment.
Security managers in the Middle East are undoubtedly well versed in surveillance technology, sadly in the boom years they have had to contend with wave after wave of technology dumping which was either overly hyped or patently unsuitable for their needs. However, prospective purchasers have thankfully learnt from these negative experiences and are now much more aware of the pitfalls.
Less scrupulous vendors will no longer be able to offer ill thought through solutions as the recession begins to focus the minds of security managers. In particular for CCTV, prospective purchasers are taking a smarter approach and going back to basics with their buying decisions, seeing through the hype, and taking time to understand the pros and cons of investing in emerging solutions such as end-to-end IP surveillance, video analytics, High Definition (HD) CCTV and Network Video Recorders (NVR’s).
In these economically challenging times, there will, increasingly, be a pressing requirement to integrate legacy CCTV equipment with new digital, networked, CCTV technology and to add capabilities such as High Definition CCTV without the necessity of having to upgrade a site’s entire infrastructure. Given the scale of many locations it is simply not always practical to move wholesale to the next generation of systems. Despite these hurdles it is still possible to achieve significant performance improvements. Increasingly we are seeing the adoption of a hybrid model for CCTV with the latest digital networked CCTV technology being deployed alongside analogue CCTV cameras, with encoders installed as part of the solution to provide all-important IP functionality for seamless camera operation.
It is important to counter the overblown expectations created by some IP-only vendors that suggest that somehow their IP camera/NVR model is going to deliver a greater ROI than alternative embedded solutions. I would contend that this has not proven to be the case, as the user has frequently been stung with costly network switch infrastructures and backbone upgrades. The reality is that the hybrid model is as much about the distributed server architecture, which does not have a single point of failure, as it is about a blend of IP and analogue recording. Of course we, as an industry want to, and need to, utilise advances such as High Definition CCTV technology, in which case IP is the only way, however with recording out at the edge, combined with transcoding to bring lower bit-rate streams back to the control room on demand, we provide a practical solution which returns a favourable ROI without backbone upgrades.
In the case of High Definition CCTV, security managers can also benefit from adopting a remote viewing station, which supports the viewing of megapixel images on legacy CRT monitors. In practice this means that rather than having to rely on 300,000 pixels from a static scene on a standard definition monitor, or upgrading to an HD monitor, security managers can take advantage of 2,000,000 pixels from a connected megapixel camera, simply zooming in to view vital evidence such as faces or license plates right to the very limits of the megapixel camera’s resolution.
We are also seeing the wider deployment of analytics capable CCTV solutions to significantly enhance site security. The advantage for security managers who adopt this approach is that by installing a DVR that has an embedded video analytics capability built-in (the approach we have taken at Dedicated Micros) they can utilise powerful features such as Object Left, Object Removed, People Counting, ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) through a simple software upgrade without requiring the widespread upgrading of the surveillance infrastructure.
Ultimately, this economic slowdown is likely to put pressure on providers of security solutions and specifically CCTV to be able to move away from unsubstantiated claims and demonstrate, upfront, the security management and cost of ownership benefits of surveillance technology before any business decisions are made. For many large sites, in these tough economic times, it is now perfectly possible to seamlessly support and integrate traditional analogue and IP based technology and new advances such as High Definition CCTV to deliver enhanced safety and security and maximise the ROI.
■ Salim Idris is general manager, Dedicated Micros (Middle East). www.dedicatedmicros.com (opens a new window) |