First came the Camera and Monitor closely followed by the Video Cassette recorder (VCR) Technology then brought us the multiplexer which allowed several streams of video to be recorded onto the same tape and separated out. The rapid development of Video compression algorithms such as JPEG & MPEG-4, increases in computer processing speeds and a rapid reduction in data storage costs then gave rise to the DVR. But technology is moving even faster now and with that business and home users are requiring more and more from their systems thus giving birth to the IP camera.
According to research predictions IP will dominate over 60% of the surveillance market in 2010, and with what is an already huge market today and sales that will generate vast revenue over the next 10 years its understandable why companies would be motivated to act – do you want to get left behind ?
Established in 1986, GKB CCTV is a Taiwan based manufacturer of a full range of high quality CCTV equipment. They regularly release new products and are committed to providing excellent service / support and care for all of their customers. They have recently released the GKB professional IP solution specific for the tender market, which consists of easy “plug and play” IP cameras doing away with router mapping and port forwarding used in conjunction with the GKB NVR (network video recorder) users can easily learn how to operate this system even with out a manual.
But why choose IP ?
You are a retailer, organization or corporation with multiple stores, locations or branch offices. Today at each of these locations, you have a DVR with storage at each of these remote sites. Its expensive to buy all of these units or shall we call then appliances because that’s in effect what they are. Now what if one of these appliances breaks down? Manufactures will require you to send the appliance to them for repair and as we all know this can be a lengthy frustrating process with the end result being loss of down time for you and your business. Or what happens when you want to upgrade or change the settings of your appliance?
Most manufactures offer support over the phone which at the best of times is limited and for large and small businesses dealing with their own people is often hard enough let alone another company’s. So this is where using GKB’s NVR software excels. You are running the application on a PC that you or your IT department built, it can be serviced and maintained by you, keeping costs down and reducing down time in the event of a failure.
So why don’t installers go for IP cameras ?
Fear is one of the main reasons, fear of a technology they don’t understand or are unable to install set up and service, but GKB’s Easy “plug and play” camera and software will take this away. Firstly you really should be thinking of the IP camera as a “digital camera” with internet protocol capabilities therefore reducing the level of fear for those installers who don’t understand the technology. But aren’t digital cameras (IP) expensive? Standard definition IP cameras only costs a small amount more than an equivalent analogue cameras so why pay big dollars for a camera that does not give you an image you can use?
If someone pays $25K for an analogue system and gets poor images I don’t think they will be very happy with you. Over the next five years the cost of IP equipment will be reduced so drastically that the cost of IP cameras pales into insignificance when you consider the labor savings deliverable through using your own IT equipment. When you look at the major CCTV users – Banks, Retail, Transportation – these are all sectors that run big IT networks too.
IP cameras where renowned for being ugly or not suiting the clients needs. With GKB’s new professional range of IP cameras this has changed. GKB have released several types of IP cameras that are compatible with the IP solution system, including outdoor varifocal IP cameras, box IP cameras, infrared IP cameras, IP domes cameras, designed to meet different installation applications, with multiple functions such as “plug and play” viewers can see their video from anywhere in the world in a matter of moments or depending on their service provider even from their mobiles via 3GPP.
So lets talk about two of the biggest issues storage and bandwidth. Regarding storage expense, consider this – what would the equivalent of 1TB worth of VHS tapes cost you 10 years ago? SATA drives in a RAID 5 configuration are best suited for a mainstream IP surveillance application. These are already at a very low cost and getting cheaper everyday, and with all GKB’s professional camera range having H.264 video compression which is beyond doubt the best video compression format so far I don’t see storage costs being a hindrance.
IT managers are notoriously zealous in safe guarding their network capacity and rightly so, but by calculating the data flow requirement across the network and strategically placing NVR’s accordingly, the impact of video streaming on bandwidth usage can be minimized. The IT manager can specify what level of bandwidth he is prepared to make available for video streaming and this can be set as a cap, so that is not exceeded under worse case conditions when in operation.
So lets say you’re a “high risk” client that needs to store data off site for the obvious reason of security of this data. In Australia as opposed to other parts of the world bandwidth has been limited to say the least, but in the next few years there will be major changes in the way data is handled by the major telco’s and this will greatly increase speeds and lower costs for video transmissions. But even if the cost is low why move video that is mostly useless? 99% of video surveillance footage doesn't’t involve a “situation” and is simply never looked at. Therefore it does make sense to store data locally but with high risk businesses this is sometimes not possible. So this is where features such as Activity Controlled Frame rate (ACF) comes in.
GKB’s NVR allows you to set up boxed areas and using ACF this reduces useless video say in hallways, to be transmitted thus reducing costs. In use, should no movement be detected in the camera scene then the recorder falls back to a low frame rate. However, when movement is detected in the scene it speeds back up to its pre-programmed recording rate. This feature is very effective in reducing transmission and video storage costs on large systems with many cameras in locations of low activity.
So why choose GKB IP Professional?
All GKB professional IP cameras are bundled with a standard 64 – channel NVR for free. NVR functions include NAS recording, email notification, 3 zone motion detection setting, remote playback and AVI file converting, local motion playback and local alarm notification. The NVR structure supports more than 1000 + IP cameras and when compared to other NVR’s or software GKB NVR consumes minimum PC CPU resources. A very unique feature of GKB’s IP solution is the 8 video streams, not only does it have a high potential for future scalability, it means 8 or even more applications can be integrated with the IP solution. Its rare manufacturers can offer IP cameras to this standard.
So does it make sense to consider GKB’s digital IP solution when designing a modern CCTV system? It sure does, as GKB IP solutions offers many new advantages over old analogue set ups, and with the way technology is shifting and the fact that IT is such a driving force for modern business, its not hard to guess who will get the first shout when a CCTV job comes up.
For further information on the GKB range of Professional IP Cameras contact Seadan Security on 1300 366 851 or email: seadan@seadan.com.au
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