What can video now do that it was not able to before?
What is the future of video?
Those were just a few of the questions addressed at the Video, Security and Integration Summit (VSI Summit) in Atlanta. The Summit, which is primarily a venue for vendors to talk about their latest technological breakthroughs or services and discuss how they can collaborate with other partners, focused strongly on how video can be integrated and managed in the current corporate environment.
So what did we learn from the VSI Summit?
This article from SecurityInfoWatch.com outlines the 20 things you should know about networked video, brought to you from the VSI Summit. They are:
1. Wireless is no longer the ugly stepchild. Wireless applications are becoming increasingly commonplace as integrators deliver their services to government operations housed in historic structures, where architectural preservation is required.
2. Wireless line-of-sight (l.o.s.) technology is an option for long-distance high-speed video communications. Dlink, Proxim, Motorola and Alvarion are all offering systems to do line-of-sight.
3. If you’re needing to transfer video in a non-l.o.s. environment, such as one that might deal with trees or semi-dense objects, the 900Mhz bandwidth is a top solution, though it too will degrade and is not designed for extreme distances.
4. IP systems need a network media switch to serve as a “traffic cop” to manage bandwidth if you’re delivering a video-intensive solution to your client.
5. IT security directors are often fond of Linux-based applications and this is affecting the product that video management vendors are offering.
6. Nothing’s changed. “Video is [still] a bandwidth hog”, notes Dennis Charlebois of BroadWare.
7. Specifiers and end users need to really assess what they’re putting on the network. Analytics can help, since there is no reason to push video over a network if that video is not useful or is not being used.
8. Storage, despite major price drops, is the factor that can drive the cost of many systems through the roof. Again, there needs to be a realistic assessment of whether you need 30 frames per second of 4 CIF images on every camera.
9. Don’t get tied down to management systems that don’t allow for SDKs and APIs, so that the system can be open-platform and integrated to other systems in the future.
10. IP systems may still create small issues with latency. Depending on your network design (especially if the system is being controlled by someone not on the LAN), the latency may cause problems with PTZ cameras.
11. More network hops equals more latency.
12. Now that we have flexibility of design, we have to use that flexibility. Make sure to design systems so that they take into account all your different types and levels of users. At a retail store, the security and safety department may need the video of parking lots and loading docks, but the LP director is the only one who gets access to register cameras and POS data. The store shift managers may only have access to limited video feeds.
13. Think about your video storage and the video’s importance. Ask yourself, says IBM’s Sam Docknevich, “How long do you keep video on fast access disks before you move that data to cheaper storage such as optical solutions, and how long is it before that data goes to an IronMountain type of facility?
14. Surveillance video has to be approached on the network in the same way that your IT staff would treat any other data/information product.
15. Video analytics isn’t our industry’s panacea. It isn’t self-learning and it won’t make decisions unless you’ve already told it exactly how to make those decisions. It also isn’t quite mature yet.
16. Analytics needs to be able to do post-event analysis, such that video not coming from an analytics-ready camera unit can be processed for searches.
17. Most companies are not deploying secondary networks for video surveillance, but they are now building enough bandwidth into the business network to accommodate video surveillance.
18. Systems are now using HTTP protocol to talk to each other.
19. Video data needs to have metadata associated with it to enable search and management functionality.
20. Return on investment for integrated security systems cannot be determined fully until you know the costs of not doing it.
For any questions on Networked Video, simply contact ARK Systems at 1-800-995-0189 or click here today.