With IP video technology set to dominate the CCTV sector over the next few years, the question of whether or not a system is integrated (single vendor) or open (multi-vendor) has fast become a recurring theme across the industry.
Many people in the security sector believe that so-called open or multi-vendor IP video systems achieve their interoperability through the use of open industry standards. In truth, this is a myth. There are a number of aspects to IP video that are genuinely standards-based. One of these is video compression.
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 (‘H.264: up to standard’, SMT, February 2007, pp45-46) and JPEG2000 are ratified standards commonly used in the IP CCTV industry. That said, these formats only cover digital compression and decompression of analogue video, not the live streaming of the digital video.
IP video systems require digital video to be transmitted in real time around the network and, for that purpose, a transmission and control protocol is required. These protocols are transmitted using the Ethernet IP network standard, which allows IP video to co-exist with other network traffic.
There are many transmitters on the market that use standard video compression, yet they depend on proprietary streaming protocols. It’s the transmission and control protocol that’s the most non-standard element in the system. However, it’s this element that allows many of the advanced features found in IP video systems to be realised.
The protocol contains a number of basic commands that, for example, allow the video recording to be started and stopped, an alarm to be sent or a camera to be panned. Every manufacturer uses its own protocols. Without them, the system wouldn’t work. Add video analytics to an IP system and the complexity of the protocol is dramatically increased. There’s a similar situation with analogue video systems wherein the video transmission is standard but the PTZ and matrix controls are proprietary.
The reality of open systems is that the video management software has to interface to each of the different vendors’ equipment using separate proprietary protocols- far from a standards-based solution, then.
Single vendor or multi-vendor?
All IP CCTV systems are made up of three basic components: transmission hardware, recording hardware and video management software. Some manufacturers have taken the complete solution approach and are single vendor, with all hardware designed, tested and sold as a single, integrated system.
Others have chosen the so-called open approach and are multi-vendor, such that a single video management software application can communicate with various manufacturers’ solutions (including transmitters and IP cameras, etc). This holds many advantages for the end user, including:
- an ability to source from multiple manufacturers;
- lower pricing on hardware components;
- stand-alone software providers often sell
- across a wider market, so the end user can gain from this investment and resulting features;
- the user is not locked into any one hardware
- manufacturer’s agenda (concerning development roadmaps or application bias);
- an ability to upgrade installed IP video
- systems with new third party hardware;
- an ability to choose the most suitable
- manufacturer for the specific application.
While the multi-vendor approach might at first seem to be the most suitable solution – and is indeed often appropriate – it also has some drawbacks. Such systems are effectively single-sourced, have limited interoperability, can be more expensive and have more complex support issues surrounding them.
Buying from independent vendors
Multi-vendor usually means buying video management software from an independent software vendor that can communicate with equipment from a number of transmitter/IP camera manufacturers. The hardware is open, but the end user is still tied to a single software developer. So, instead of being single-sourced on the whole solution, they remain single-sourced on the video management software.
This would be fine, but the independent software vendor has far less control over the hardware from the multiple manufacturers they support. Therefore, in the absence of real standards, they are less able to deploy a system featuring optimum performance compared with a single vendor that controls the entire solution from end-to-end.
There is an opinion suggesting that using multi-vendor software applications will allow the user to seamlessly (and inexpensively) source the transmission hardware from any manufacturer. However, there are many limitations in multi-vendor systems that make it difficult to freely ‘mix and match’ between different manufacturers. The system is only as good as the worst performing component – the lowest common denominator – and this can lead to a reduction in overall functionality.
In reality, many IP video systems based on multi-vendor solutions only use hardware from one manufacturer to reduce these limitations, effectively making the system dual-vendor.
Many IP CCTV systems require hardware-to-hardware communication (for example streaming from transmitter to hardware decoder), an important element in the so-called ‘virtual matrix’ that provides IP video systems with their flexibility and scalability. No amount of software will allow these two components to be integrated, and so a key component of an IP virtual matrix – a link from anywhere to anywhere – is negated.
More expensive, more complex
In terms of development, the most expensive component in an IP CCTV system is the video management software, although the true costs are often hidden. By sourcing from an independent software vendor, the end user is simply aligning his or her company with the most expensive component in the system.
Also, the need to incorporate the control protocols from many vendors’ equipment into one software application further increases the development cost. This is why multi-vendor support is often priced at a premium and means that the customer is being charged for supporting hardware that they don’t ever use.
The video management software is required to interface with several different technologies, and this increased complexity can affect the reliability of the system and highlight the problems with support. Multi-vendor systems depend on strong strategic alliances from many different companies to maintain the integrated support.
If something were to go wrong, who does the end user blame? Who takes responsibility for what revision of firmware should be used in an IP camera when a new version of the video management software is released? With a single vendor complete solution responsibility for performance clearly lies in one place.
Single vendor: integration, choice
With a single vendor solution all the IP video components are sourced from a single manufacturer, reducing the end user’s choice. In reality, many components can still be selected from other vendors. IP video systems often use a combination of analogue cameras connected to transmitter modules, as opposed to dedicated IP cameras.
In this case, the end user can choose any manufacturer’s camera based on cost, specification or brand. Similarly, many manufacturers enable their NVR software to run on any IT configuration, allowing the user to choose anything from a low-cost PC to a multi-raid server set-up. IP video systems also provide multiple interfaces to other manufacturers’ equipment such as display monitors, keyboards and joysticks, further expanding choice for the end user.
Another misconception is that integrating to third party equipment is more easily achieved with multi-vendor IP video systems, as single vendor systems are perceived to be ‘closed’. This is far from the truth. Integrating IP video with other types of system – such as intruder alarms and access control – is more easily achieved with single vendor solutions. Why? Control of the different components and software in the system is in the hands of one company, ensuring that the integration is seamless throughout.
Post-processing video analytics
IP-based video management systems provide the ideal platform for powerful analytics to be completely integrated into the system, making them a core and integral part of its operation.
Leading IP video solutions support analytics that can be performed in two fundamental modes: live (to detect events as they occur) and post-processing (to test various scenarios on recorded footage).
The optimum place to locate post-processing analytics is obviously on a central server within the video management software so that recorded video can be searched many times with different parameters.
Both modes of system can perform these post-event analytics functions perfectly well in the video management software. However, implementing real-time analytics at the camera in multi-vendor systems becomes a very difficult task simply because of the extra complexity required within the numerous control protocols that interface to the video management software.
The debate rages on…
The debate between single and multi-vendor will of course continue. In the meantime, though, it’s extremely interesting to note that most of the heavyweight names in the IP video industry supply single-vendor systems, capable of higher performance.
The biggest proponents of multi-vendor systems are invariably the independent vendors of video management software.