New shoes broken-in a week before, sharpened quills at the ready, pocket stuffed with business cards, press ticket in my hat, list of appointments on the half hour …
Monday morning 9.55am and I was ready for the starting gun on that crazy week of fun – IFSEC 2008.
It becomes more of a challenge every year. The easy part is reporting the many news and product launches. This year a lot of these got instant coverage thanks to our website www.info4security.com.
The more difficult challenge is trying to get some kind of handle on this increasingly massive event. Easy to round up one monkey but not a whole barrel – not literally of course as it would undoubtedly contravene apes’ rights. But as IFSEC is such a true yardstick on how this world industry is developing, it’s the perfect place to get an over-arching education.
Four days total immersion and you could conceivably pass as a expert. This is no criticism, and any installation proprietor who doesn’t make sure his apprentices, engineers and salespeople attend is passing up a once-a-year golden opportunity for free educational hot-housing.
Backdrop to the show
With security taking such a large slice of the profile in national events, IFSEC always has a backdrop. In the wake of 9/11 and 7/7 the industry felt itself at war with terrorism and there was a perceptibly righteous feeling there.
Last year it had swung to the slightly defensive with the first national media stirrings of “surveillance society” criticism.
But between last year’s show and this, security has taken a real public hammering, with a constant criticism of CCTV in the media.
From “big brother society” to “images not good enough” to “apalling database losses” (not strictly security as we know it) this subject is the only common thread that unites the poles-apart Guardian and Daily Mail.
Just a few days before IFSEC 2008, a policeman’s comment started a predictable rash of national stories on the effectiveness of CCTV.
The national media needs no encouragement and any criticism, especially from inside the industry, results in a deluge of politically-whipped up anti-CCTV coverage.
Hold on, we’re the good guys, and the public has consistently backed CCTV. Interestingly, none of these papers or broadcasters are slow to use CCTV images when it’s a juicy news story that helps sales.
Blown out of proportion
What was needed was a robust defence of CCTV, and on my first appointment with Dedicated Micros on day one of IFSEC we had that from Pauline Norstrom, chair of the BSIA’s CCTV section and newly appointed director at AD Group. She said the criticism had been “blown out of all proportion”.
On a radio show she had appeared on in the wake of the “CCTV fails to cut crime” story one call went along these lines … a caller said CCTV “didn’t work” because when property was damaged, although there was an identifiable CCTV image, the culprit was eventually let off! So how is that a criticism of CCTV? Surely more one of our creaking judicial system.
We in the industry know that CCTV has solved countless crimes – and who’s to say how many it’s prevented as a deterrent?
Peter Hawksworth, managing director of Siemens Building Technologies Security Systems, contributed to this defence on the special IFSEC channel of our website info4security: “It is an indisputable fact that CCTV is having a positive impact on reducing crime rates,” he said. “Our customers have the statistics to prove it. For example, rail operator First Capital Connect has seen a reduction of over 50 per cent in crime since taking over the operating franchise two years ago. The lower crime levels have been credited to a sophisticated video surveillance network.”
And Marc Wesley, sales manager, Pelco UK made the valid point that there was no measure of how much crime CCTV actually deters.
So against this backdrop, what were the Top Five technology themes I picked up from my four-day travels around the NEC’s halls?
1. Evidence retrieval: Making it easier to gather
The industry is not taking all this criticism lying down and its continual quest to make image retrieval easier for police and other users was an abiding theme at the show, with most major manufacturers having given it priority this year.
Despite the still oft-repeated line in the national press that police were “trawling through tapes” the reality is that digital CCTV has made it so much easier for them in the past few years and continues to do so.
Dedicated Micros announced new video technologies which make evidence retrieval much less of a chore. Embedded camera selection maps and an intuitive video timeline are standard on the latest generation NetVu Connected systems, making it much easier to reach scenes of interest in either live or recorded views.
Synectics demonstrated its new Synergy Forensic Data Server, which allows users to go straight to critical footage in virtually no time at all. An optional add-on to the company’s Synergy Virtual Matrix System, it allows high speed analytics to be carried out retrospectively. Any event that happened in any area of the scene can be viewed and evidence can easily be exported to CD, DVD or memory stick. Bosch showed its Divar MR, a new DVR with “smart search” that finds recorded images quickly by looking for changes in a selected area.
2. Video analytics: CCTV shows intelligence
Video analytics, the buzz technology at IFSEC for the last couple of years, was still very much to the fore with all CCTV manufacturers offering intelligent video in the camera, the recorder or codec.
Developing from video motion detection, we in the industry may now even be feeling this is slightly old hat. But if you’ve ever risked losing friends by talking “shop” down at your local, you realise the public have absolutely no idea of what CCTV is now capable of.
As a speaker at a Siemens Building Technologies presentation made the point … “There are so many cameras but who monitors them?”
Technology alerting operators to items taken, suspicious packages left, people walking around cars or the wrong way along corridors etc has been around for some time. All of these capabilities and more were demonstrated many times over from manufacturers at IFSEC 2008.
Panasonic launched its “highly intelligent” WV-NS950 colour dome which has auto tracking and offers accurate detection of individuals by memorising the characteristics of the subject including any colours, shape and contrast. It’s possible to operate the tracking lock to identify individuals on screen at the push of a button on the optional system controller.
Video analytics specialist Smart CCTV Ltd announced at the show that it would be a UK distributor for the Intellio smart cameras which include “behaviour recognition”. Intellio cameras are also used in traffic management where intelligence in the camera can classify vehicles, count them and even work out their speed.
Illustrating just how quickly this technology is developing, I later learned of Smart CCTV’s involvement in a behavioural project at the University of London involving multiple cameras. A model is being developed to detect and tag people across cameras, enabling automated tracking of the same person between one camera to another. Camera actions would be determined by behaviour profiling. If the camera decides it’s suspicious behaviour, it will automatically focus on the tagged person.
An area where intelligence offers instant benefits is camera tamper, a problem in many areas where cameras have to be mounted in normal reach of individuals, especially in stores, on transport or in low ceiling areas.
Spray painted, vandalised, covered, blocked, shifted or re-focused, they can stay down long enough for the crime to be committed before the tired operator is alerted. Then there is the accidental banging or misalignment of cameras when building or maintenance work is being done.
To get round this, Axis launched its P1311 network camera which, alongside enhanced video motion detection and audio detection, has active tampering alert which immediately alerts the operator to any of these tamperings.
3. Megapixel cameras: It’s all in the detail
As predicted, all the CCTV manufacturers were showing off their offerings in megapixel technology. The falling cost of storage and improved compression algorithms have contributed to this.
But probably just as significant has been the high profile criticisms of image quality, mentioned earlier. Here megapixel technology takes images right up the quality scale.
And as each technology leap has its consequences, we now learn that the need for additional storage capacity in CCTV systems is “sky rocketing”, according to a new industry report (see news page 6).
Giving greater detail, a wider field of view and better colour reproduction, megapixel cameras bring the prospect of far superior images, especially when zooming in on a recorded image.
I was bowled over by Avigilon’s demo of its megapixel cameras ranging from 1 to 16 MP. Detail like this shoots a hole through police arguments for better evidential quality.
Sony’s SNC-DM110P, and its robust sister model the SNC-DM160P, bring megapixel resolution to the company’s existing range of intelligent IP mini dome cameras. Also on show in Europe for the first time, was the SNC-CM120P, a C-Mount box camera with mega pixel resolution.
Panasonic launched two mega-pixel cameras as part of its “second generation” of i-Pro surveillance products. The WV-NF302 day-night fixed dome network camera and the WV-NP304 day-night have a 1.3 mega pixel CCD.
Sanyo showed a 4 megapixel camera equipped with a 10x optical zoom and 16x digital zoom, and capable of streaming 1920 x 1080/25p H.264 images. The camera can simultaneously stream both H.264 and JPEG live images.
Genie was showing a pre-production 2.7 megapixel IP camera currently in development with full HD 1080p resolution and Ethernet connection. Also showing from Genie were IP models in bodied camera, vandal dome and bullet camera formats, all high resolution with 560 TVL colour and H.264 compression.
Mirasys announced that its NVR line will support “the world’s first full line of H.264 megapixel video surveillance cameras” from Arecont Vision.
Predicting that next year a total of 500,000 megapixel cameras will be shipped worldwide, the company said IP/megapixel “hurdles” had been overcome.
– Bandwidth and storage capacity was no longer a problem because of price per byte reductions and H.264 compression, an alternative to MPEG-4.
– Limited low-light performance had been overcome by new sensor technology.
– High cost was offset by the fact that one megapixel camera covers the same area as several analogue cameras.
4. H.264 compression: A little byte more
H.264 video compression was on everybody’s lips and a number of IP/CCTV manufacturers were announcing that they were adopting this standard, following its widespread use in the consumer market. The thinking is that it will go hand in hand with the spread of megapixel technology.
Also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, it is said to produce good quality video at substantially lower bit rates than previous standards.
In launching its P1311 camera (page 25) Axis Communications emphasised that it was taking the H.264 route, saying it was a natural step in surveillance video following its use in mobile phones and digital video players.
It would hasten the adoption of mega pixel technology. The benefits were huge and it would grow rapidly, said the company.
At their press launch they presented a study on H.264 that concluded as the format becomes more broadly available in network cameras, video encoders and management software, integrators will need to make sure the products and vendors they choose support it.
For the time being, products that support both H.264 and Motion JPEG were “ideal for maximum flexibility”.
5. Thermal imaging: Hot technology
It’s a relatively short time since this technology was confined to police helicopters and the military, but now thermal imaging is biting at the mainstream.
Being able to detect people at long range in any weather without any external lighting are powerful selling points in areas such as port, border, airport and power plant surveillance. And of course a lot of users have been convinced thanks to those police chase TV programmes when car thieves are tracked in pitch darkness after they’ve ditched their vehicles.
Interesting to see it being used by police to detect cannabis farms in suburbia… Can’t be long before the council starts sending round the men in dark suits to check on our roof and window insulation from the street – followed, of course, by energy wastage fines!
However, as each IFSEC goes by, more manufacturers are getting into this area and hoping to convince users that, despite the price tag, it is cost effective in smaller operations.
In the CCTV industry, specialist Flir has driven this sector and cameras are now being offered by the company to suit “every budget and application”.
Forward Vision’s “Metal Mickey” now incorporates a 50mm thermal imager from Flir. The MIC1-412 Thermal gives an optical overview of the scene using its integrated day/night camera then, at the flick of a switch in the control room, the camera delivers thermal images with a detection range of more than 780 meters. Operators can view images in “white hot” or “black hot”.
At the show, CBC Europe launched its Thermal C-AllView, which also has thermal and imaging technologies combined. The Thermal C-AllView can detect a person at up to 1000 meters, day and night, no lighting needed, in any weather – and operators can switch to CCTV imaging when they need to get evidential images.
CBC’s John Downie, national sales and marketing manager for CCTV and vision, pointed out that thermal imaging cameras have another thing going for them, centering on that other “hot” CCTV area – video analytics.
According to Downie, video analytics is highly suitable for thermal imaging. “It’s fantastic for analytics designers because they work in greyscales [the thermal medium],” he said.
Come together
Other significant technology advances include the onward march of biometrics which was everywhere at the show and transforming the offerings of the access sector.
There are not many bodily parts now left out of the loop – iris, palm, arm, vein, face, gait, signature and that most popular of parts … finger. Biometrics’ everyday use in schools and even nurseries, is helping overcoming civil liberty concerns.
Also interesting to see the continuing convergence of the alarm sector with access control. Honeywell seems to be spearheading this with the significant launch of their Galaxy Dimension concept, a single installation covering both technologies and based round the tried and tested Galaxy panel (see last month’s edition or do a search on www.info4security.com).
And, of course, major intruder alarm suppliers also have a natural place in the access arena. Risco Group launched its 16-door commercial solution, MaxiMate at the show.
IP separation
You may be tiring of it as a talking point but the switchover from analogue to digital still ranks high in the conversation stakes. And exhibitors gave it due respect in their presentations.
Specialist Axis estimated IP penetration was somewhere around 20 per cent and would eventually take over, of course, although they would like it to go faster.
Personally, I believe the case for treating IP as a separate concept is lessening by the minute – apart from the need for training. It is now one option in the security armoury. The argument that “it’s the future” is a facile one. If IP works better in the application, then use it. If it doesn’t, then use analogue … or both, in any best hybrid combination.
We’ve all been battered over the head by the IP spin machine over the last five or six years and heard all the arguments a hundred times. But it’s unfair not to expect IP providers to push the many advantages.
By any objective assessment, IP has opened-up this industry and offered the sort of easy, hands-on access that security buyers now expect, thanks to our digital world.
Some of the biggest systems – at hospitals, stations etc – have been hugely impressive and it has, especially, opened up schools security and transport security.
But, in my view, you get a more realistic handle on the switchover from those who are intimately involved but are “agnostic”.
IP realism
As the largest CCTV distributor, Norbain sees itself as agnostic. At the launch of its own ViP-Kit range of IP cameras and top end components, Alun John, Chief Executive of Upperpoint, parent company of Norbain SD, for the second IFSEC running, gave a realistic assessment of the IP transition following their own commissioned research.
Although IP penetration in the UK was small at the high end, there was specific success in high end enterprise systems and this sector was growing.
He said at the entry level there was “huge dissatisfaction”, with many customers saying they would not do it again.
In the large mid market, penetration was small and they could still not see real growth there.
Network video was now 10-15 per cent of the UK market, they estimated, and growing 40 per cent per annum.
He said there was ongoing transition into networked video but he also detailed the inhibitors to it:
– There was a high satisfaction rating with traditional systems and users were happy.
– It was difficult to recruit in the IP sector due to knowledge/skills shortages.
– Cost/performance ratio of IP does not currently satisfy the largest sector – the mid market.
He added there was a “trivialisation of demands of traditional security installers by entry vendors” and a resistance to change on behalf of installers.
He emphasised that the company was certainly not negative to IP. It had been involved in it for years and partnered with key suppliers. He said there was a strong argument for IP in enterprise and low end systems. Norbain was the bridge between the markets.
But he added he objected to negative marketing of IP that relied on the “fear factor” of installers: “I strongly object to marketing that as, ‘If you don’t do IP you’re dead.’ ”
Life left in analogue
While the transition goes on, and while pushing their IP offerings, the big suppliers are still keen to support the volume analogue market.
Said the new MD for EMEA at Honeywell: “We’re not going to throw this away because IP is round the corner.”
In announcing a wide range of integrated initiatives from the company, Vineet Nargolwala said: “Analogue is still growing but at a slower rate than IP. It has a long tail.”
And Simon Nash, senior European marketing manager at Sony Europe, was emphatic: “We are committed to analogue. To us it is as important as IP.”
The comments were made at press breakfasts where the emphasis was on the newest technologies. But it’s accepted that analogue will need maintenance and support for many years ahead, even when sales dwindle. That’s probably reassuring to those installers who are reaching “maturity” and who have no real inclination to get involved with IP before they retire – unless and until their customers force them to!
You gotta be forum
Probably the most significant item of news at IFSEC 2008 was that Sony, Bosch and Axis have joined forces to set up an open forum to develop a standard for the interface of network video products.
Ironically, I thought, each of the three companies made the announcement separately at their individual press launches!
No matter. This is still a cooperative “first” for the industry which currently has no global standard defining how network products such as cameras, encoders and management systems should communicate with each other.
At last, products and systems talking the same language! No doubt other manufacturers will want to join in this forum and the trio of companies say that before the end of the year the numbers involved will have grown.
The framework of the standard, incorporating key elements of network video interoperability, will be released in October 2008.
“The whole idea is to open it up,” said Ray Mauritsson CEO of Axis.
Faster, simpler systems, products working together regardless of brand, covering areas such as video streaming and intelligent metadata, will be welcomed by installers as much as end users will welcome more freedom of product choice.
This will be an all round winner and can only hasten the digital transition. Now there’s no excuse – you’ve got to be able to say “interoperability” … even after a few pints.
Party peeps
On that note, the Security Installer/info4security team would like to thank those exhibitors who offered their hospitality at those after-show gatherings.
We joined the hundreds of installers having a great time at the Panasonic PPI Awards and comedy night at Jongleurs in Birmingham.
Then there was a fantastic underwater spectacular, the Norbain Gala held in the “Lost City of Atlantis” (well, actually the National Motorcycle Museum, but no shortage of liquid there).