IP surveillance solutions have transformed many long-held misconceptions surrounding network video surveillance.
IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is one of the most commonly used protocols for communication over computer networks. An IP surveillance solution transmits video information in a digital format over wired or wireless IP networks. As long as there is network access, video surveillance and recording can be implemented, and this type of monitoring can be seamlessly integrated with many other types of systems.
According to analysis by industrial analyst J.P. Freeman and Co., Inc., there are 20 million analog cameras installed in the United States alone. Of these, over 15 million were sold in 2002. Against the backdrop of booming analog camera sales, a new generation of products—the network camera—is emerging and developing rapidly. With its momentum, it is easy to foresee its bright future; as the concept of digitization takes deeper root, it is sure to replace analog products in the near future.
Network cameras connect directly to IP networks, allowing users to view images remotely, store them, and analyze collected image information to take appropriate action. By 2007, network cameras were projected to account for half of the market share, and by 2005, the global network video market reached $790 million.
Whether a solution consists solely of network cameras, or a combination of analog cameras with a video server, or a hybrid of both, IP surveillance has proven to be an extremely attractive solution. In more and more existing industry applications, this revolutionary technology is gradually replacing traditional surveillance systems, improving security while further reducing costs; in many new application fields, it is also being used for the first time, thus creating and stimulating many new markets.
Due to its system scalability, IP surveillance has gradually consolidated its position in existing monitoring and remote surveillance applications, accelerating its use in other emerging industries, specifically including:
- Education: Remote monitoring of school playgrounds, corridors, lobbies, and classrooms, including monitoring of some buildings.
- Transportation: Remote monitoring of safety at train stations, railway tracks, highways, and airports.
- Banks: Applied in bank branches or street ATMs, replacing cumbersome traditional security monitoring methods.
- Government: Security and surveillance applications, usually integrated into existing systems.
- Shopping Malls: Safety monitoring and remote management of large supermarket branches for quick and efficient management.
- Industry: Monitoring production lines, logistics departments, and warehouse storage systems, improving plant security.
The emergence and subsequent promotion of any new technology go through a period of market adaptation, also known as the market education phase. The more complex the new technology or the greater the distance from existing technology, the longer this market education period will be. During this stage, it is necessary to adopt a gradual approach to build the missing knowledge framework and rectify any market misconceptions. Only in this way can erroneous beliefs and confusions be eliminated.
Undoubtedly, IP surveillance technology is a highly complex new technology, particularly its built-in IP components, which truly elevate traditional security concepts to the IT domain. In this sense, the new technology and the entire market environment face a dual situation of opportunities and challenges. In fact, you will find that the direct competitor of IP surveillance is DVR products. The illusion created by DVRs is that people mistakenly believe DVR technology represents the most mature technology on the market. Let's analyze this head-on. Why analyze? Because from top to bottom, from manufacturers to system integrators to end-users, there seems to be a near-fanatical interest in DVR products. We will provide a professional explanation to reveal the secrets behind this.
Not only do some people believe that digital video recorders (DVRs) are the latest and best technology, but there are also misconceptions that DVRs represent fully digital network technology—this is not the case.
Compared to traditional VCRs, DVRs indeed have many advantages, such as: no need to change tapes, continuous image assurance, and fast search capabilities. However, you still cannot escape the cumbersome analog video cables, which significantly degrade image quality, and the overall system is quite costly. IP surveillance encompasses all the advantages of DVRs while providing even more advantages that DVRs do not possess.
IP surveillance does not have DVR's limitations, such as the 16-channel restriction; it can expand from one unit to thousands. IP surveillance can provide real-time user-selectable image refresh rates without limits.
More Cost-Effective Infrastructure:
Most existing devices connect via network twisted pairs, which prepares a good groundwork for IP surveillance; you only need to connect to the network cable to complete everything. All data, images, sound, and others are transmitted and managed via the network cable.
All image information, whether real-time or already recorded, can be securely accessed from anywhere in the world.
Dynamic monitoring, emergency event handling, alarm input, delayed output, log management, and other built-in functions allow the cameras to intelligently choose when to send information, to whom, and even the refresh rate and resolution.
IP surveillance systems are currently the most economical choice among all installation methods. Based on open standard network protocols, it highlights its advantages over DVRs. Need to store image information? It’s just a matter of a hard drive. Its straightforward installation and simple maintenance far exceed what DVRs can offer.
DVR is not a final solution; it seems more appropriate to say it is a milestone on the path of CCTV surveillance technology. As the market becomes more aware of DVRs, people will gradually realize that DVRs are outdated technologies, and their system limitations will inevitably lead them to exit the historical stage. Meanwhile, the superior aspects of IP surveillance technology will gradually be recognized. These are two entirely different technologies, and the market has already begun to realize this.
This question touches more on issues regarding the structure of the security market and user purchasing habits, rather than the performance and reliability of IP surveillance solutions.
IP surveillance is a relatively new technology that currently faces a strong competitor—DVRs. Many people want to retain their existing equipment, a common conservative mentality, and DVRs provide customers with an illusion of not wasting existing investments. We must say, this is quite natural. Correspondingly, as a brand-new digital concept, IP technology still needs time to gradually instill this concept in system integrators and consulting service providers, to gradually overcome people’s inherent traditional beliefs. I'm sure everyone remembers how long it took for Word to replace traditional WPS word processors, and it wasn't that long ago, was it? How long has it been since VCRs were replaced by the latest DVDs? Thus, the technological gap takes time to overcome.
In fact, the number of cases utilizing IP surveillance solutions is increasing, and the number of system integrators is growing rapidly. We believe that in the near future, the market will recognize the advantages of IP surveillance, at which point we will surely see a surge in demand.
You might think our statements lack persuasiveness; well, just look at these giants like IBM, Cisco, and Proxim, who have recently entered the network surveillance field, and you may understand the market direction.
The larger the installation project, the higher the user's demand, which can highlight the advantages of IP surveillance. IP surveillance has proven to be a highly competitive and attractive new concept. In fact, among the many advantages of IP surveillance mentioned above, scalability is its greatest advantage and the aspect that advanced users value the most. Receiving orders for 200 to 300 units is quite common for us, most of which are applied in locations with extremely high security requirements, such as international airports and large prisons. Therefore, this misunderstanding is easily corrected: IP surveillance can certainly meet enterprise-level applications. In fact, we are receiving more and more surveillance orders from government, schools, and airports, all of whom unanimously believe IP surveillance is the best architecture; this significant change in perception has occurred in just the last 12 months. This seems to indicate something significant.
High-quality network cameras can have image sensors (CCD) and lenses comparable to analog cameras. Moreover, integrating analog cameras with video servers can directly transmit the image information collected by analog cameras onto the network. High-quality network cameras are for professional use and must be distinguished from simple low-end web cameras.
Additionally, with technological advancements, network cameras and IP surveillance technology can achieve resolutions in the millions of pixels, while due to technological limitations, analog cameras can achieve a maximum resolution of only 40,000 pixels.
In terms of price, network cameras are indeed more expensive than analog cameras. However, you should also recognize that their functionalities are incomparable to those of analog cameras, such as digitizing analog signals, image compression transmission, and intelligent control features. Compared to the overall costs of DVR-based monitoring systems, IP surveillance is even cheaper. For analog systems, it's not enough to just purchase a DVR; you also need to buy many related devices, such as a large amount of analog video coaxial cables. Moreover, if you want to implement PTZ control, you'll need to lay down a lot of additional video cables, while PTZ functionality in IP surveillance is still achieved via network cables without needing extra cabling.
For a project involving 300 network cameras, which has extremely high security and high recording refresh rate requirements, the total cost is $800,000, averaging $2,700 per channel. To achieve the same functionality using a DVR monitoring system would require $1.8 million, averaging $6,000 per channel—over twice the cost of IP surveillance.
Perhaps DVR providers want people to believe this, but in fact, advancements in video server technology have bridged the seemingly insurmountable gap between analog and digital surveillance. By simply connecting analog cameras to a video server, the image signals collected by the analog cameras can be converted to digital signals, compressed, and transmitted over the network. This means that video servers enable analog cameras to function like network cameras. In fact, for most users who already have analog surveillance systems, they tend to prefer this method to build their IP surveillance system, or a hybrid IP surveillance system consisting of network cameras and video servers. In short, your existing analog surveillance system will not hinder your progress toward IP surveillance.
If there are only a few monitoring points, then the existing fast Ethernet (100Mbit) can meet the bandwidth needs for transmission. Users can adjust the bandwidth according to the compression ratio and refresh rate. If there are multiple monitoring points, we recommend laying down a dedicated network cable. This is quite similar to railway traffic; once existing rail lines become congested, new rail lines must be built to relieve the strain on the tracks. Furthermore, for large enterprise-level applications, local networks are typically Gigabit (Giga/1000Mbit) LANs, which can be segmented into different subnets using switches and routers.
Moreover, the intelligent features of network cameras can select the refresh rate for sending images based on event triggers, motion detection, and preset times. The amount of image information that needs to be transmitted is not substantial; almost only 10% of the time is information transmitted, with 90% of the time having no image data being transmitted over the network.
Although the original purpose of the network was to make information sufficiently public, as long as the correct security measures are adopted, such as firewalls, VPNs, or encryption protection technologies, it can also be used to transmit highly sensitive information. In fact, many banks and financial institutions use the network to handle global financial matters. Undoubtedly, for security surveillance and remote monitoring, it is also a reliable medium. Compared to digital surveillance, analog surveillance is far less confidential; it has almost no confidentiality. Anyone can see the so-called security information in analog systems and even alter this information, causing significant losses. IP surveillance will never encounter such issues.
The IP network architecture developed in the 1960s and 70s has always had a strong demand for backup functionality. Today, various storage servers, network switches, and optional routers continue to provide such synchronous backup functionality.
The function of storage servers is to ensure easy retrieval of data after going offline, utilizing backup power, hot-swappable RAID hard drives, fault-tolerant storage, and dual network cards to help achieve backup functionality. Although a small network structure may not require all these complex security measures, choosing high-quality IT components is still much more reliable than the VCRs or DVRs in traditional CCTV solutions, and emergency handling will be much quicker than with DVR solutions.
Believing that it is not yet time to apply IP surveillance seems to be the root of all problems! Let's clarify this with concrete data. Since the launch of the first network camera in 1996, millions of network cameras have been successfully sold and installed, and this number is rapidly increasing year by year, fully demonstrating the growing interest in IP surveillance. As people gradually discover that, whether in terms of cost-effectiveness, reliability, or any other aspect, IP surveillance has proven to be a mature solution applicable both now and with an eye toward the future.
Here, we have uncovered numerous misunderstandings and misconceptions surrounding IP surveillance, hoping that people can see that IP surveillance is indeed a highly scalable, effective, and efficiently utilized mature solution using existing networks.
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