The bench test 2: Phenomenal pace of progress

In the absence of any recent report or reliable statistics there is no way of knowing exactly how much video surveillance recording is a complete waste of time but it’s a fair bet that it’s going to be a disturbingly high figure. A great deal of material is lost through simple carelessness – recordings are not routinely archived and equipment improperly maintained. Tape-based systems have stood us in good stead for more than a quarter of a century but they are particularly vulnerable to mismanagement. However, as digital video recording systems slowly take their place what is to say the same thing isn’t going to happen? If anything the situation could be even worse.

At least with tape-based systems, archiving and storage is made relatively painless by the fact that recordings are on media that is cheap and removable, and cassettes are easily viewable. With first generation hard disk video recorders archiving was often a secondary consideration, requiring additional hardware and stricter regimes to ensure that potentially important data was retained and not simply overwritten due to limited and costly storage capacity.

However thanks to the PC industry, archiving is becoming much less of an issue, and the develop-ment of massive hard disk drives and increasingly efficient digital compression systems means that images can now be stored on disk not just for a few days, or even a couple of weeks, but for years.

This very welcome trend is ably illustrated by the new Vista Triplex Columbus multiplexer and digital video recorder. The pace of development has been nothing short of phenomenal; 18 months ago in the April 2001 issue we looked at the Columbus VDGHDe 16-channel multiplexer/hard disk recorder, of which the Columbus Triplex is a direct descendant. It boasted a 30 gigabyte hard drive, capable of storing up to 960 hours of video, which at the time seemed quite impressive.

The Triplex VC16TLe, which we are looking

at here, shares a number of features with its predecessor and from the outside they look similar but inside there are twin disk drives, with a combined capacity of 328 gigabytes, which in ‘Standard’ recording mode gives the unit a recording capacity of an incredible 2,023 days and 19 hours! And it gets better ...

The VC16TLe can be easily connected to a PC network using standard Ethernet connections and protocols; live and recorded images can be viewed directly on the PC screen using Vista’s WaveReader software, which also allows access to the DVR’s menu and controls; recordings can be downloaded, archived to hard disk or recordable CD and printed; and the program has some basic image enhancement facilities.

The PC can also control pan/tilt/zoom cameras and be used to manage external video archiving devices, such as Vista VAIDe, which connects directly to the Triplex. This is basically a box con-taining from one to eight additional hard drives and some control circuitry in a so-called JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) configuration, which the Columbus Triplex treats as extra storage space.

20 years of recording

The sample we have been testing in conjunction with the unit has a total capacity of 1311.43 gigabytes! The office calculator almost gave up trying to work out the maximum recording time but a few sums on the back of the fag-packet suggests it could be in excess of 20 years! Incidentally, the Columbus Triplex is also compatible with other types of archiving device including other manufacturers’ RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks), CD-ROM and tape units.

Of course those figures are based on lowest quality settings, longest time-lapse intervals, and minimum number of connected cameras, which is an unlikely real-world scenario. But the point is hard disk recording has served its apprenticeship and not only can it do just about everything tape can do – and in a lot of cases do it better – but it is now creating new possibilities and opportunities for the surveillance and security industry, but we digress, back to the Triplex Columbus.

In addition to the hard disk video recorder functions, the unit also incorporates a 16-channel multiplexer and camera sequencer. Text from an ATM, cash register, POS, access control and other devices can be superimposed over images. The alarm facilities include a built-in motion detection utility and external trigger inputs; it can control PTZ functions on connected cameras; and there is a ‘covert’ recording mode, that records a camera input but hides it on the monitor display selection.

The unit is housed in a slim rack-mountable black box with the distinctive rows of blue buttons. From left to right these include a set of recording and playback controls – the digital video recorder equivalent of a VCR’s tape ‘transport’ keys. Next to them is a bank of camera selectors followed by an electronic ‘zoom’ button. The large circular pad is a four-way cursor, used to control playback speed and access menu functions. On the far left there is a motley collection of function buttons including menu selector and Enter, screen display mode, archive search, freeze frame, record, sequence and alarm.

On the back panel the 16 BNC camera input and loop through connectors take up around two thirds of the available space. There are also connectors for monitor outputs (composite and S-Video), alarm I/O, an RS485 comms port, an SCSI port for an external archiving device, two RS232 comms port and a 10/100 Ethernet port. Power is supplied by an external mains adaptor.

The Triplex, as the name implies, has three basic operating modes in that it can simultaneously record, play back and allow live viewing. The live viewing options are single, sequenced single or multi-screen. The latter has eight display formats, including basic Quad and 4 x 4 plus 6, 7, 9, 10 and 13-way and movable single picture-in–picture (PIP).

The zoom function electronically enlarges the image by a factor of 2x. Recording is continuous, irrespective of any other functions, however there are numerous options to ensure both the best chances of recording useful images and making best use of the system’s storage space. These include settings for specifying recording quality (high medium or standard), time-lapse and alarm event recording rates.

Installing and configuring an optional VAIDe storage unit is virtually effortless and once archiving has been enabled on the menu it operates automatically in the background.

Everything is controlled from a set of menu-driven on-screen displays. Access is password protected and there are two basic security levels, ‘Operator’, which covers various low-level system and viewing functions and ‘Installer’ for access to all menu options. Additionally the reset to factory default, menu language and Ethernet access are all password protected.

The Installer menu contains 13 sub-menus, arranged in four groups. In the first group there is time and date setting and record configuration (record timer, time lapse, record quality, alarm actions and disk maintenance). In group two there are the alarms, macro and motion detection controls. The third group covers camera titles, camera set-up and archive set-up. Finally menu group four, which contains menus for setting up telemetry and communications, locking the front panel, returning to factory settings and password control. Navigating the menus is fairly straightforward, once you have got used to the cursor controls.

Motion detection set-up follows the usual procedure of defining an activity grid, which in this case is made up of an array of 16 x 16 individually selectable ‘targets’. The system can be set for either Activity or Intrusion detection. The former triggers an alarm whenever any movement is detected whereas Intrusion detection has extra facilities for setting target size, alarm rejection levels and alarm output.

During normal operation the Columbus behaves pretty much like a timelapse VCR with replay controlled from a set of transport buttons. However Vista has complicated things slightly by putting the rapid picture search controls on the large cursor button. It’s not very intuitive and takes a while to master; a jog shuttle or more co-ordinated controls would have been better. Perhaps the most useful operator facility however, is the powerful ‘Search’ screen, which shows in a clear and easy to understand way how the disk space is being used, what has been recorded and rapid access to any part of a recording.

Search is based around two display screens: Search Filters is used to locate an event by using various parameters, such as time, date, alarm, activity or text. The search results appear in a separate window and playback can be started by highlighting the event with the cursor keys. The alternative is to use the graphical Disk Analysis screen, which shows the camera channels as a series of horizontal timelines, colour coded with different types of event or trigger. Any part of the recording can be viewed using the left-right cursor buttons to move an indicator arrow across the display to line up with an event then pressing the Enter button.

Network control using the WaveReader software is similarly straightforward. This will run on any network-enabled Windows PC with a 400MHz or faster processor. The main window shows the image from a single camera or a multi-screen display, which can be live, recorded or archived. The window has controls for camera selection and transport functions.

From the main screen, using the drop-down menus, it is possible to access the full range of functions on the Columbus, including the Search Filters, Disk Analysis, motion set-up screens and manage archived files and images. This latest version also includes some rudimentary video processing tools, called WaveStudio. This has controls for adjusting image brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpness and noise reduction. Additionally it also has histogram equalisation, zoom and region selection tools for isolating parts of the image.

Performance

Recording quality compares very favourably with tape-based systems and at the highest quality settings, sharpness is on a par with Super VHS but with significantly lower levels of noise. However, there is a fair amount of ‘texture’ in the picture, which shows up most clearly in lowlights and dark highly saturated colours. In the standard and medium quality modes there are further reductions in quality, giving the image an increasingly blotchy appearance with clearly visible digital artefacts.

The loss of detail and drop in colour rendition is not too serious in the medium quality mode but it could be significant in the Standard mode where resolution dips quite noticeably and the picture looks increasingly as though it is being viewed through frosted glass.

It is worth pointing out that since the recording is digital data there is no reduction in playback quality, no matter how many times a recording is viewed and the trick play functions are absolutely rock solid. The only minor complaint, as we have mentioned earlier, is the layout and position of the replay controls, which make it unnecessarily difficult to review a part of recording.

What the manufacturer says …

The triplex columbus is vista's latest video multiplexer and combined digital recorder. Based on proven and award-winning technology, the new unit offers a host of exciting features:

• Triple operation: The name Triplex Columbus reflects the unit’s three simultaneous operational capabilities – recording video from multiple cameras to an internal hard drive while simultaneously providing playback of recorded images and viewing live images – even on the same monitor.

• Motion search on playback: A true motion search facility enabling operators to define an area within a camera’s field of view for subsequent interrogation. Following such selection the unit is able to search the entire hard disk for activity in this area, allowing the user to swiftly locate relevant incidents within seconds.

• Parallel video processing: The unit’s upgraded processing of video images gives greater recording speed, allowing up to 50 images per second to be recorded to the hard disk effortlessly.

• EPOS/ATM text input: Columbus can now be interfaced with these devices providing cross-indexing of video and transaction details, allowing easy retrieval of data. Search criteria are simplistic in operation – for instance using a card number or transaction type.

• Ethernet compatible: All machines are Ethernet compatible and come supplied with WaveReader software under open licence. This allows full remote operation of the machine, control of remote dome or PTZ cameras, as well as up/download of settings.

• Storage capacity: Although the unit is available with 320Gb on board storage, applications requiring a higher level of storage can easily be accommodated. The VAIDe can provide an extra1280GB.