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How will UK schools and colleges take advantage of their early lead in IP video adoption over the next few years?
The Blair-led Government unveiled the largest UK schools spending programme for 50 years back in 2004. This unprecedented £55bn investment programme which was called Building Schools for the Future (BSF) led to the construction of more than 70 new schools and the extension and rebuilding of many more. It also triggered a colossal investment in ICT equipment across UK state schools. Annual investment rose from £683m in 1996/7, the year before New Labour came to power, to over £5bn per annum at its peak. Spending on ICT equipment was supported by a specific annual grant which in 2007-8 alone was £113,000 per secondary school and £34,000 per primary school.
UK retailers gather vital business intelligence (BI) using network video
We are noticing increasing deployment of IP-based surveillance cameras to help UK retailers to find operational efficiencies as well as reduce shrinkage. Indeed this trend is confirmed in a key finding from an August 2012 CCTV in Retail survey of 700 UK retailers conducted by the Centre for Retail Research. The study, which was commissioned by Axis Communications, found that 58% of UK retailers plan to migrate from analogue-based CCTV to a new network video system in order to integrate network cameras with business intelligence (BI) applications. BI application integration was the most significant reason for UK retailers to move to network video, or IP Surveillance as it is sometimes called.
So what are these retail-specific BI applications? We were interested to see many of them were geared to capturing and understanding in-store customer behaviour better and flagging up areas for potential improvement.
Technology improvements, definition of interoperability standards and a clear SMB business case, all combine to make the time right for VSaaS
There has been a great deal of talk about Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) in recent years. Authoritative sources are starting to highlight the business case for VSaaS or Hosted Video Storage.
As the SecurityInfoWatch article indicates, there are many different flavours of hosted surveillance storage. The argument runs that the advent of multi-megapixel HD cameras and the proliferation of these cameras have created an explosion of video data which all needs to be stored and managed.
The article suggests a hybrid video surveillance storage model using internal (i.e. in-house DVR, NVR, VMS-embedded server, NAS or other storage device) and external storage (i.e. cloud) usage being increasingly considered by larger enterprises. The cloud could be used for holding backups in this hybrid scenario, for example.
Overlooked? LILIN CMX recording software
LILIN has been offering free recording software with their IP cameras for years. However, we feel this is not much promoted and LILIN product users often are not aware of it.
It seems that this software is somewhat overlooked in the market, hence this blog post to highlight its usefulness and create more awareness amongst our readership.
Edge-based recording on the rise
Original SD cards, called ‘SD Standard Capacity’ or SDSC, could provide only 2GB of storage only 10 years ago. High Capacity SD cards (SDHC) offering up to 32GB reached the market in number some five years ago. This development prompted an explosion of IP surveillance camera launches with in-built SD card slots designed for edge-based recording.
Moore’s Law continues to go to work so that today SDXC cards (eXtended Capacity SD Cards) already offer 2TB of storage capacity. 128 GB SDHC and SDXC cards are available today in larger and larger numbers and prices are falling fast. This is a game changer for edge-based recording because it makes the storing of high frame rate HD video images increasingly easy and inexpensive. To give you an idea of the level of penetration of edge recording – of the 69 network cameras listed in Axis’ latest product comparison tables published in February 2013, 45 now offer SD card slots. Almost every new camera model launched this year comes with a SD card slot.
How useful are the Home Office’s i-LIDS video analytics tests in today’s world?
Following NW Systems Group’s look at the new Surveillance Camera Code last month, we decided to follow up this month by taking a closer look at the world of video analytics.
Read more >>
NW Systems welcomes new Surveillance Camera Code but worries it creates potential for delay in adoption of ‘intelligent’ CCTV cameras in the UK
One of the most significant pieces of news for the UK surveillance world has been the appointment of the new Surveillance Camera Commissioner Andrew Rennison back in September 2012 and the subsequent publication, on 7 February 2013, of a draft Surveillance Camera Code of Practice Pursuant to Section 29 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. The Act promises ‘further regulation of CCTV’ as surveillance technologies improve and potentially threaten individuals’ rights to privacy. Consultation on the draft Code closed on 21 March.
Sony’s View-DR Wide Dynamic Range Technology – What is it? (with videos)
Sony’s entire top-of-the-line network camera range features a system called View-DR. Billed by Sony as “Brilliant clarity even with strong backlighting” it’s designed to surpass conventional wide dynamic range (WDR) systems, improving the visibility of subjects in high-contrast lighting or back-lit areas.
It does this using a technique called ‘multi-frame imaging’ by serially capturing up to 120 frames each second at different exposure times, then combining a subset of them together to form the final image, resulting, after some algorithmic image processing magic, in a best-in-class wide dynamic range.
So how does this feature differ from conventional wide dynamic range systems as used by some other camera manufacturers, and how effective is it?
Top 5 Wireless IP Cameras for 2013
We’re on a roll this month. Having just predicted the 7 top trends in video surveillance, we are now going to open up the oracle again and share the 5 best wireless network cameras on the market right now.
The models below all impress us a great deal, so much so that we just couldn’t agree on a ranking formula from 1 – 5, so decided to use good old alphabetical order instead. So, let’s begin…
Top 7 IP Camera Surveillance Trends in 2013
Having been in the business for more than the last 13 years, we figure we know a thing or two about a number of things: what’s likely to be a fad; which piece of high-tech is not quite mature enough for the marketplace, and which systems are coming into their own.
At this time of year, it’s always interesting to predict the big hitter developments in the industry. Here at Network Webcams, we offer our predictions of what’s hot and what’s not in video surveillance and IP cameras for 2013.
