Great to migrate

Digitisation is all around us. Wherever you look the products around us are absorbing more and more digital technology. Cars, cameras, TVs and music systems are all increasingly using digital technology.

This trend has not escaped the world of physical surveillance. Two independent analyst houses (JP Freeman & Co and Frost & Sullivan) both marked 2002 as the year in which demand for digital surveillance recording surpassed that of analogue. VCRs are being replaced by the hybrid analogue-digital recording technology

or digital video recorders (DVRs) which are currently incorporated into 75 per cent of all new surveillance systems (Source: IMS Research).

Now the market is beginning to see the advantages of cutting out DVRs from surveillance solutions by recording direct to networked storage devices.

Simultaneously, dedicated CCTV monitors have been replaced by computer screens as complete IP surveillance solutions networked with companies’ data networks have gained ground. For many applications only the cabling remains the obstacle to fully networked surveillance systems.

Cabling cost cutter

There are real advantages from installing fully networked surveillance systems. A recent return on investment study was conducted by network integrator Plexnet on Stafford General Hospital. It found that in the first phase of a planned upgrade of a CCTV system involving a total of just 21 cameras, installation savings would be in excess of £40,000 from networking these cameras to the existing 1 GigaBit (GB) Ethernet cabling around the main hospital building, and using established 11MegaBit (MB) wireless links to outlying buildings, rather than providing the dedicated coaxial cabling required for an analogue-based CCTV system.

Going the IP route in this case meant a saving of 56 per cent of total installation costs.

Understandably, Stafford Hospital elected to go IP and have since extended their IP surveillance system to car parks and plan to link with another hospital to provide remote security monitoring – saving still more money.

If you bear in mind other new developments such as Power over Ethernet (PoE), IP surveillance systems look even more compelling in the installation phase.

80 per cent savings

With the deployment of PoE, IP-based surveil-lance systems can expect to extend installation savings to 80 per cent on traditional analogue installations. PoE is a revolutionary technology that integrates data, voice and power over standard LAN infrastructure. It works across standard Ethernet network cabling (i.e. CAT-5) to supply power directly from the data ports which networked devices are connected to. Standard CAT-5 Ethernet cables have four twisted pairs, but only two of these are used for 10BASE-T and 100Base-T networked data. The other two pairs can be deployed for delivery of power to net-worked devices. With one pair delivering positive current and the other negative, a versatile power supply can be provided through use of DC/DC converters. The concept is catching on – over 2 million PoE ports are already installed worldwide.

The PoE community recently made a further breakthrough in the creation of a standard for deploying PoE across multiple networked devices including network IP cameras. The creation of the PoE Ethernet standard called IEEE802.3af, published in June 2003, has already led to its pre-installation by vendors of laptops, Voice over IP terminals, mobile phones, IP surveillance systems. It is also being integrated into new building management systems. This standard enables the safe transmission of electrical power to networked devices without any degradation of network performance.

No limits for installers

PoE also enables the best location of cameras. Network cabling tends to be routed around even the most inaccessible parts of modern buildings today. Cameras need to be sited high up on ceilings or walls (where this network cabling generally is already stored).

This means that installers of network IP cameras will no longer need to feel limited by the location of existing power supplies which all too often are sited down near the skirting boards as far away from the optimal location of surveillance cameras as they could possibly be. All too often cameras have been sited in the wrong location just because the company commissioning the installation did not want to pay electricians additionally to move power supplies to connect to new cameras. This benefit also comes into play for movement of any cameras or other networked devices such as hubs or DVR.

Hybrid vs IP systems

The savings at installation stage do not simply come in the form of cabling. In 2003 Axis conducted some cost comparison studies for hybrid systems incorporating DVRs versus complete IP surveillance systems. It is worth looking at a couple of the scenarios created in this study because they illustrate that savings will be made from going purely IP in new installations as well as in existing installations where analogue cameras are already up and running.

Scenario 1: New Installation

Specification (see below):

16 channels at 2 frames per second, recorded for 15 days at CIF resolution. Solution requires 300 GB of storage. Storage demands can be reduced by using motion detection. All cameras are fixed indoor cameras. If outdoor and/or PTZ are used, the same additional costs would be added to both the DVR and IP surveillance scenarios.

Comparing both systems the functionality is identical except for one important difference – the IP surveillance concept is much more scalable. If the IP surveillance end-user wishes to add another channel the cost will be £380 or so. While in the DVR scenario adding one additional channel triggers purchase of a new DVR unit at £3,800 or more each. In many cases Cat5 cabling is already in place, which would make the IP surveillance installation even cheaper. (See the Stafford example for detail of cabling savings that can be made from medium-sized installation).

Scenario 2: With existing cameras

In many cases, analogue cameras and coaxial cabling infrastructure is already in place. In this case (see overpage), video servers can be used to digitise the video in the IP surveillance concept. Frame rates and recording is the same as described in Scenarios 1.

Even though the IP surveillance scenario shows a slightly higher price, we should remember that this example shows a best-case scenario for the DVR-linked solution, since it is a 16 camera installation. If this was a 10 or 20 camera installation, the IP surveillance alternative would show a significant cost advantage. The larger the installation and the higher the level of performance required the more competitive and cost efficient the IP surveillance installation looks.

In a high-end installation that Axis completed in 2002 involving 300 IP cameras with high frame rate recording, the total cost for installing the complete surveillance system was £436,160 or £1,454 per camera channel. If a similar DVR-based system had been deployed, the cost was estimated at £980,354 or £3,268 per channel – more than twice the cost of the IP surveillance system.

Manageable monitoring

Another key advantage of networking a surveillance system is that monitoring the system becomes a much more manageable task as camera alerts can be programmed to put up automated text messages to mobile phones and even supply pictures to more advanced phones. So wherever a security manager is, he will be aware instantly if there has been a security breach which requires further investigation.

Another key benefit of going IP is the host of additional functionality that it is beginning to offer. For example, IP cameras offer increased intelligence such as advanced Video Motion Detection (VMD) for license plate recognition and object tracking applications. Also, newer IP cameras can offer 0.5 Mega Pixel resolution and the latest offer Mega Pixel and even multi-Mega Pixel resolutions.

All too often cameras have been sited in the wrong locationjust because the company commissioning the installation did not want to pay electricians to move power supplies to connect to new cameras

Wireless networks

IP surveillance systems are also able to take full advantage of developments such as PoE and the increasing penetration of wireless networks which IP camera output can run across. Simultaneously

security that supports the network is rapidly evolving as encryption, watermarking, authentication and wireless security standards are improved and operating systems hardened.

Most compelling reason …

A recent industry study conducted by Axis Communications in January 2004, found that remote, centralised surveillance monitoring is the most compelling reason to go to IP surveillance. Many customers are now looking for ways to reduce rising costs of 24x7 manned security guards. One way of achieving this saving is to make the cameras in and around their buildings available for viewing by a centralised monitoring centre, staffed by people trained to monitor multiple sites.

Assuming then that we accept that IP surveillance will come to dominate security installers’ activity within a few years, it remains a key challenge to persuade customers to route their CCTV output via the network. Many argue it is not secure enough. Others fear loss of control to the IT department. But migration to IP need not be a big bang implementation. A three-stage migration process can be deployed to reduce risk and support the movement to IP surveillance.

Stage 1: Video Server Deployment

The introduction of the video server creates a vital bridge between the analogue CCTV system and a full IP surveillance system. It effectively takes an analogue signal from a traditional CCTV camera and digitises it for sending onto the network. With the simple addition of this technology a whole new list of features and functions are available to your customers.

Remote access for images from their surveillance system eliminate the need for dedicated onsite security monitoring.

With appropriate wireless security it is also possible for patrolling security guards and off site guards to be alerted of any intrusion of your customer’s site. Alerts can come by text message, mobile phones and, with picture phones, images can be viewed from the triggered camera.

Outsourcing security monitoring to a central monitoring station does not need to mean loss of control. With appropriate password protection and configuration it will be possible for your staff to view all the images that the central monitoring station staff are seeing, at the same time.

By putting the system onto the network it becomes a great deal easier for the surveillance system to be integrated with other applications such as building management and access control systems. It is also possible to use existing network resources such as storage devices, bandwidth management solutions, firewalls and email applications to secure, store and move data gathered by the surveillance system. This usage of existing network resources inevitably has a very positive impact on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of the surveillance system. TCO is further enhanced because a CCTV system which is linked to the network is future-proofed for years to come. The next step to full IP surveillance can be carried out in the customers’ own time.

Stage 2: Network Cameras

With a fully digital surveillance system it is possible for customers to connect as many cameras as they want. Each new camera can be connected to the network straightaway. This provides a new set of benefits which should make the migration all the more compelling:

A surveillance system can be as secure or open as the customer wants. Viewing access can be restricted to one or two authorised individuals or opened up to classrooms full of students for remote learning applications. It becomes possible for police and other relevant authorities to remotely view live video images of suspicious activity or a crime in progress. This may be particularly useful in public areas like railway stations or school after hours, where loitering of teenagers is likely to be a precursor to violence or vandalism but if reached early can be defused saving public authorities’ time and money.

It is even possible to use your IP cameras for promotional purposes.

What better way to illustrate the growth and success of a company than to have a camera trained on construction activity as a new office is being constructed? And wouldn’t it be great if dispersed sales teams could get the monthly motivational speech from the sales director from the comfort of their arm chair at home before going out on the next sales call, rather than wasting time coming into headquarters?

By plugging directly into the network the costs associated with installation fall dramatically. Most modern office buildings today are flood-wired with CAT5 cabling and so links can be established very easily. For remotely sited cameras there is the option of deploying wireless Local Area Network (LAN) links which are now being widely deployed. Costs of savings made from not having to lay dedicated coaxial cabling for traditional CCTV cameras, escalate fairly quickly into the tens of thousands of pounds (see Stafford Hospital example above).

When computers are already in place, they provide the facilities to view output from the camera via a normal web browser or with the aid of dedicated software for larger installations where camera location needs to be pinpointed via alarms.

Stage 3: Network Storage

With proper management of storage, most IP solutions today can be managed within companies’ existing network storage resources. Any system requiring real time - 25 frames per second (FPS)-level - recording and archiving for 31 days will require a reasonable-sized Ethernet backbone and network infrastructure capable of rapid transferal of images to any storage medium. Networks comprised of 1GB backbone and 100 Megabit (MB) LAN switches are now not uncommon. In addition many organisations now have sophisticated storage arrangements sitting inside their network or attached to it.

Most of these systems have a great deal of spare storage capacity and are easily upgraded to add additional capacity. And with the internet data transfer standard FTP (File Transfer Protocol) it is easy to stream images to these storage devices across a network via IP surveillance software packages. These packages have many attributes which allow for multi-viewing, scheduling, archiving, retrieval and file management.

When determining appropriate storage resources for a surveillance system, required bandwidth must be calculated. To this end Axis has recently created its AXIS Network Design Tool (available through the Axis Channel Partner Programme. To register you can go to: http://www.axis.com/ partner/channel_program/index.htm)

Open door for installers

Little now stands in the way of security installers wanting to migrate their customers in the direction of IP. The Return on Investment and Total Cost of Ownership studies can all be carried out with some accuracy. The IP technology is robust, is based on open standards which avoid getting locked into the use of proprietary systems and specific vendors. The price of equipment is beginning to fall, while functionality increases almost monthly.

Axis has just launched it first Mega Pixel network camera for example. The emergence of standards for PoE and wireless security make the migration all the more compelling. The maturity

of the hybrid technologies such as DVRs and video servers also create firm stepping stones for nervous security managers to use on their way to realise all the benefits of networking their surveillance systems.