Behind the scenes: CCTV trends

SURVEILLANCE TOOLS

Find out how technological advances around the globe are creating a world of new CCTV system capabilities.

It’s a journey of epic proportions. They’re coming from the computer hardware and software world. They’re coming from the cabling and connectivity arenas. They’re coming from the high-tech imaging sector. And, of course, they’re coming from the traditional physical security industry.

“They” are the multitudes of companies, both start-ups and stalwarts, that are pouring their expertise into the CCTV surveillance world, particularly the digital CCTV world. As the best ideas from various worlds cross-fertilize, the technology is improving by the day, including advances in storage, retrieval, and video content analysis.

This dynamic environment holds the potential to enhance performance in the long term. But in the short term it often creates confusion. Finding the right course of action amid this sea of choices can be an overwhelming odyssey for prospective CCTV purchasers who must choose from among the offerings of the hundreds of companies that make cameras, digital video recorders (DVRs), and other components.

But choose they must, because CCTV is increasingly viewed as an important piece of the security picture. Worldwide, the market is expected to grow from about $4.5 billion to roughly $9 billion from 2002 to 2005, according to J.P. Freeman and Company, Inc.

Brad J. Wilson, CPP, whose firm is a partner in the SecurityNet group of integrators, sees evidence of this projected growth. Wilson says that an informal poll of system integrators shows that they are buying twice as much CCTV equipment as they did last year. Many companies can’t offord to replace access control systems, he notes, “but they can afford to add cameras.”

It would not be possible to cover all the developments in CCTV in the last year within the space of one short article, but the following overview highlights a number of innovations and advances that stand out among the new offerings. And they appear all along the digital CCTV chain, from camera to transmission to storage.

Cameras. Everything starts from the camera, and more activity is taking place there than ever before. The most notable advances in camera technology are in intelligence and imaging.

Smart cameras. It’s been said that the camera doesn’t lie. But it might also have been said that it didn’t tell the truth. In other words, the camera did not make any judgment at all. It simply captured the scene. Not so anymore. Cameras are being loaded with intelligent software, to make them more than passive viewing vessels.

Although early versions of these capabilities first began to be introduced about a year ago at trade shows such as the ASIS International Annual Seminar and Exhibits, “the intelligent camera is just starting to get perfected,” says Roy Bordes, a physical security expert and consultant in Orlando, Florida. These “leading- edge” cameras, which are IP (Internet Protocol) addressable, are now able to perform functions such as motion detection and pattern recognition.

One development receiving a lot of attention is the ability of a camera to track an object. With object tracking, software in the camera can be programmed to identify and follow, say, a person entering a restricted area or a bag that is picked up. When the subject leaves the view of the camera, another camera picks up where the previous one left off “That’s what’s groundbreaking,” Bordes says.

For example, processors manufactured by Pixim Inc., a start-up out of Mountain View, California, have recently incorporated pattern recognition. According to Bob Weinschenk, Pixim’s CEO, pattern recognition at the camera curtails the amount of video data that must get transmitted down the line to monitors and DVRs. Because only recognized or prespecified patterns will get into the data stream, bandwidth and storage demands decrease. This intelligent feature goes beyond motion detection.

Another company with interesting motion-tracking technology is Network Korea Co., Ltd., of Seoul, says Alan R. Matchett, CPP, author of the recently published CCTV for Security Professionals. The camera is sophisticated enough to keep tracking the correct person even when other people are moving through the field of view. Matchett adds that the camera produces “great picture resolution” for its low price. It can also be retrofitted into many other CCTV systems, he says. On another front, manufacturers such as Sanyo and Philips have cameras with built-in video storage capability. The data can then be transmitted to the IT department’s network, a dedicated security network, or the Internet.

Some cameras, such as one from Carol Products, Ocean, New Jersey, can store images to a removable memory card, but capacity is limited because these cameras are typically designed to be triggered by an event, not to run constantly.

Another advance that is just coming into the marketplace is on- board modems. For example, epic Australia recently released a small camera that contains a modem and motion detection. It can dial up POP (Post Office Protocol) accounts on Internet service providers and place live or archived footage on the Web. Thomas Wade, CEO and president of Samsung CCTV, which is working with epic to acquire the technology, says however, that the technology is not yet viable in the United States because it requires a special server infrastructure that does not yet exist.

Some futuristic features would seem more suited to a science fiction novel. For example, Bordes says that he has been working with a company that is building nonlethal weapons into its cameras. The camera automatically locks onto its target and measures the distance from camera to target, then fires a taser up to 50 feet. Of course, the market for these cameras will consist of high-risk facilities and applications, such as prisons. Other weapons, such as smoke and sticky substances, are also possibilities.

While the promise of smart technologies is undeniable, it is not yet a reality. “Smart cameras on the market today only have pieces of intelligence, 11 such as only object tracking, says Joseph P. Freeman, an industry analyst whose firm, J.P. Freeman and Company, Inc., recently released its 2003 Worldwide CCTV & Digital Video Surveillance Market report. “There’s nothing with a full degree of intelligence.”

But it’s only a matter of time until that changes, says Freeman. “The omniscient camera is coming; there’s no question about it.”

SecurityNet’s Wilson, who is senior vice president of system integration company RFI Communications & Security in San Jose, California, agrees that the full range of intelligence “is not quite there yet” for cameras. The real intelligence is at the DVR level, he says (more on this later).

Another concern about intelligent cameras raised by experts relates to data storage. Archiving and managing a lot of data at the camera will be difficult “because the processor speeds of cameras arer;t the same as processing speeds of recording devices,” says Douglas L. Florence, Sr., CPP, casino segment manager for Loronix Video Solutions.

Florence also questions whether it is feasible to load cameras with all types of software. And storing images in cameras may be foolhardy for more mundane reasons, notes Robert Prady, surveillance systems manager for the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. “If someone steals or damages the camera, the video is gone,” he says. Obviously, that risk is less of a concern for covert cameras.

Imaging. Advances in chip technology are making it possible for companies such as Pixim and SMaL Camera Technologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to create cameras that yield better image quality, color fidelity, and dynamic range (the ratio between the brightest and darkest recordable images in a scene).

Explaining the progress in plain English can be difficult. For example, Kodak now offers a camera that solves the problem of the lack of uniformity of CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) chips. What does that mean to end users? The problem is called “fixed-pattern noise,” and essentially, noise is interference with the image. Vlado Damjanovski, editor of CCTV Focus magazine and author of the book CCTV, explains that Kodak recorded the image of every one of these noise patterns (each chip has a different pattern). When an image is produced, the new camera deducts the fixed-pattern noise from the exposed image, leaving a much higher quality image.

Perhaps an even more significant CMOS innovation from the still- camera world comes from the workshops of Santa Clara, California- based Foveon, Inc. Foveon has developed a chip that captures red, green, and blue light at every pixel; typically, pixels capture only a single color. Because of the higher granularity, the technology results in better color and sharper images, Damjanovski says. Prady predicts that it will enter the CCTV industry after it goes into the home camcorder market.

Another imaging advance with promise was recently rolled out by Spectrum San Diego, Inc. This camera, according to its manufacturer, can capture 21 million pixels in an image at a rate of one image per second. That many pixels is “substantial,’ says Machett, who recen\tly witnessed a demonstration. “It has incredible resolution even zoomed way in on an image.” In fact, the camera is designed to capture scenes up to 250 feet wide, then enable someone reviewing the recorded image to zoom in on any one element of the scene, such as a license plate, with high resolution. The technology is too new to fully assess, but Matchett says that it could be a significant advance.

Transmission. The next step in the digital link is transmission either via the corporate network or a separate network to a monitor or recording device (although camera outputs may pass through encoders to convert from analog to digital). Much of what’s new in the transmission arena is the networking of various types of cabling, most notably twisted pair, coax, and fiber. Another trend is wireless transmission to hand-held devices.

Cabling. Some end users, especially ones that dont need the distance offered by fiber, want to take advantage of their installed base of coaxial or twisted-pair cable (the cables that carry phone signals) and use that existing wiring to build a network. Companies are rising to meet the challenge. Coming over from the wiring and cabling industry, for example, Anixter Inc. of Skokie, Illinois, recently introduced a system that can allow a company to leverage its existing cabling. The system runs video, power, and control signals over a single unshielded twisted-pair cable, whereas traditional systems have required three separate sets of connections.

Minneapolis Community and Technical College recently chose Anixter to wire a Philips surveillance system that was installed in a newly built library/technology center. The solution was predicated on using the twistedpair cable wired into the building, says Curt Schmidt, the college’s director of public safety. The facility’s server can accommodate 32 cameras; ii have been posted so far. Some cameras can even be plugged into ports that run to the public safety office several hundred feet away. “Now when we add cameras, we don’t have to run cable,” Schmidt says.

Another company that has recently emerged with cabling solutions is DVTel, Inc., Paramus, New Jersey, whose hardware and software solutions help to convert analog environments into digital IP transport networks. One focus is on the limitations of CAT-5 (a high grade of twisted pair) and coax cable, which can only carry signals short distances before the signals degrade. The company offers “network transceiver units,” which serve as repeaters to extend the reach of Ethernet over twisted pair, saving on cabling labor and cost.

These companies are tapping into the end user’s desire to maximize company resources. The Stratosphere’s Prady says that, despite the craze for fiber optics, there is still ample room for coax and twisted pair. He notes that he recently expanded a hotel surveillance system by using twisted pair. The move saved him an estimated $100,000.

DVTel’s, Anixter’s, and similar solutions can either be integrated into an existing IT infrastructure or serve as a dedicated security network. They can also carry other security data such as intercom audio and access control.

Still, even manufacturers and distributors espousing coax/ twisted-pair solutions recognize that fiber-optic cable is replacing copper (used in twisted-pair and coax cables) in wide area networks because it is faster and can transmit long distances without degradation. Despite the high cost of fiber, recent years have seen the construction of a massive fiber-optic infrastructure between major cities in the United States. Companies that can afford to, especially ones with wide area networks, are jumping to fiber.

That’s wise, says Bordes, because unlike copper cables, fiber- optic technology is immune to radiofrequency interference and electromagnetic interference. Plus, it provides better quality than copper, he says, and the price is dropping.

Freeman also notes the demand for fiber. “It comes through clearly when you talk to users,” he says. “They want fiber for the extra bandwidth.”

Wireless. When sailors thought the earth was flat, they feared sailing off the edge of the earth into nothingness. In the olden days of communications– say, last year-the same could be said of any security officer who “sailed” out of the reach of the wired network. Essentially, if the security professional couldn’t get to a computer terminal, he or she could not receive video images about a security condition. That is no longer the case.

“The biggest change from a year ago,” says Matchett, “is the ability for guards to view cameras remotely” from a hand-held device like a personal digital assistant (PDA) while doing their tours. “It looks like it’s a very viable addition that will speed response time,” he says.

In response to demand for remote viewing with convenient 24/7 access, several companies are tooling their hardware and software to that end. DVTel, for example, makes its recorded images viewable from cell phones, PDAs, and wireless PCs. Pocketmultimedia of Mystic, Connecticut, recently introduced a wireless hand-held PC from which a viewer can monitor CCTV cameras and control cameras in real time. Loronix offers a remote viewing solution in which a user can see designated footage, such as that which was recorded during an alarm condition, by touching a stylus to a laptop. These are but a few examples of the flurry of activity occurring in this sector.

A niche market seeing burgeoning attention is remote monitoring of cameras installed in police cars, according to Freeman. Experts add that private– security vehicles could also be candidates for such systems. Among the companies tailoring products for this application are cVideo and Sequent Technologies of City of Industry, California. Sequent, for instance, makes a unit that can transmit up to 15 frames per second over cellular networks, wireless LAN, or satellite.

Recorders. In just a few short years, DVRs have gone from luxuries to the core of a CCTV program. By now, everyone knows their advantages over VCRs: better images; superior search capability; simultaneous recording, live viewing, and playback; remote access; and easier integration with security systems. When companies claim to have “gone digital,” they often mean that they are storing output from analog cameras in digital format on DVRs.

Hundreds of companies manufacture DVRs, ranging from simple “boxes”-in essence, storage devices-to elaborate data management systems. And there’s good reason for the proliferation. Freeman says that the DVR market is still growing at “a very strong rate.”

For example, approximately 27 percent of all recorder units sold in the United States in 2000 were digital. By the end of 2002, that number had crept up to 39 percent, he says. Freeman adds that the revenue generated by digital sales will exceed that from analogs for the first time in 2003, but that’s because digital units still cost more than their analog counterparts.

Heavy DVR competition means heavy innovation. Not surprisingly, the most significant technological advances are occurring at the higher end of the market. The DVR is moving from a recording box to a sophisticated system loaded with video management features. For example, Dedicated Micros of Reston, Virginia, just introduced a combination DVR/multiplexer; NICE Systems has a DVR that incorporates motion detection and other video content analysis capabilities in its DVRs. And Alpha Systems Lab of Costa Mesa, California, has a DVR that can be bolstered by modular software so an end user doesn’t have to scrap an old system when new features are introduced.

One of the most exciting new developments in DVRs, says Damjanovski, is neural network processing, now incorporated into products by Cieffe of Milano, Italy; Dallmeier of Regensburg, Germany; and a few other companies. This function allows security personnel to have the system automatically look for a specific object that was detected during playback.

The DVR analyzes the color, shape, and size of the object and scours the footage for this object. In addition, the DVR can automatically adjust its parameters to an existing situation and learn what counts as normal behavior in that environment. Then it can watch for anything that doesn’t fit that model. “Once something extraordinary happens, it will signal an alarm,” Damjanovski explains.

Another feature concerns frame rate. DVRs, such as those from NICE and Loronix, can now automatically adjust frame rate of stored video based on preset conditions. For example, a business might record public areas at 3.75 frames per second but set the system to record at 15 frames per second if the DVR’s motion detection picks up a certain type of movement. DVTel’s system, for its part, records and views images at different rates. NICE’s solution also allows users to define specific areas in the picture where superior quality is desired, such as a money– counting area in a bank.

Another advance is to enhance the DVR’s ability to integrate data from sources other than the camera. For example, DVRs are integrating point-ofsale (POS) transactions. Dedicated Micros, for example, is working with partners to integrate POS data-mining with the DVR. Also working on POS integration is cVideo of San Diego.

Nelson Fallen vice president of sales for cVideo, explains that, historically, transaction data have been overlain on videotape, which obscured the image. Moreover, footage could only be searched by time period. By contrast, he says, cVideo’s DVR has a parallel port dedicated to integrate information from multiple cash registers. Transaction text is placed in a bar on the side of the screen, not over video.

The system can retrieve footage by criteria such as time and date, cashier, receipt number, transaction type, credit card, product, and brand name. The goal is for a central monitor to be able to proactively create reports for retailers on cash\-register activity, such as overrings, Faller says.

Early feedback on one video/POS system has been encouraging. Mike Shearon, owner of three 7-Eleven stores in the San Diego area, recently replaced one store’s analog video system, which featured POS information overlaid on videotape, with a cVideo digital system. While the shrink rate at his stores is below the chains national average, Shearon says, he wanted to reduce it even more and, as importantly, instill in employees an awareness of the importance of accuracy in transactions.

Since the system was installed at the beginning of the year, it has impressed Shearon with its fast and flexible searching and retrieval. If he notices an item missing, such as a lighter from a counter display, he can enter the product number in the system to find out if and when it was sold. He can then input the time and transaction, and the system will show the video of the transaction. With the analog systems at his other two stores, tape has to be searched manually.

Besides searching by any number of criteria, Shearon adds, the system can generate graphs of employee activity, documenting all transactions and creating comparisons between employees that might show differences in oversales or undersales, for example.

The new system has alleviated storage concerns as well. At the stores with analog systems, Sherman rotates 6o tapes at each store to retain one month of footage. Recording at the same rate, a single CD can capture two months of video, Shearon says. The space-saving benefit is important in a tight convenience-store environment, he says. Plus, he can review live and stored footage from home.

Shearon says he believes that the digital system is a good deterrent. “After educating the personnel on what it’s capable of doing, accuracy has increased tremendously,” he says. “It also sends the message that were watching everything.”

POS integration is only one advance. Improvements in traditional DVR functions-such as compression, video quality, storage, and retrieval– have also been noteworthy, says Wilson. Despite these advances, however, there are still capabilities that are not yet available. These are on the industry experts’ “wish list” for DVRs.

“The DVRs biggest problem is video database management,” says Bordes. “That’s the next hurdle for the industry.”

For example, DVRs by companies such as Loronix can now strip away frames from stored video as that video ages. So video originally recorded at 30 frames per second can be stripped down to perhaps 1.75 frames per second after, say, 12 months of storage.

Stripping frames of data is a nice advance, but the footage still takes up significant space on the hard drive, says Border. Finding a way to eliminate irrelevant footage entirely would be better, he says. If only 2 of 16 cameras that are programmed to run around the clock capture relevant activity, the security manager might want the system to know to purge the 14 inactive cameras as well as the irrelevant material on the other two cameras. Today’s systems can’t do that, he says.

Storage is another area where great strides have been made-for example, Dedicated Micros’ DVR can now store 1 terabyte-but other storage media, such as AIT (advanced intelligent tape) and RAID (redundant array of independent disks) may offer better alternatives for long-time archiving.

As long as they are networked into the system, these archive media can share the features of the DVR, such as POS integration and object tracking. For example, a DVR might hold only 3o days of high- quality footage. Archived data (data removed from the DVR hard drive and placed onto another long-term medium) could still be retrieved in the same ways that the data on the DVR hard drive could.

Stability of operating systems has also been flagged as a concern. JeanPaul Saindon, president of SmartSight of Laval, Canada, notes that many DVRs run Windows operating systems, which experts say are prone to crash given the heavy amount of work the DVR is asked to do.

Damjanovski says that Linux is far more stable than Windows. He discerns a “slow but certain shift” by manufacturers toward Linux.

Smart software. Some companies put intelligence in the camera as noted earlier. Others put it in the DVR as has been seen as well. Another option being developed is separate software to fulfill this task-though that software may have to sit on a PC or another hardware appliance (and such software could theoretically be added to cameras or DVRs).

One example is ObjectVideo, a startup out of Reston, Virginia. Using technology developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the company has created software that automates event detection, object tracking, and notification for networked video systems.

“We build a model of what goes on in the background of a scene so we can tell what’s happening in the foreground,” explains Chief Technology Officer Alan Lipton, who says that the technology goes well beyond just motion detection. Ease of use is a top concern. We provide a simple prescriptive textual and graphical language where the user can specify what he perceives as a threat,” Lipton says. As with other producers of intelligent video, the company markets its solution as a bandwidth saver, especially because the detection and tracking cull the critical frames (plus frames from before and after) for storage.

As more companies enter the digital CCTV market, stalwarts are ramping up their research and development efforts. The frenzy of activity is bringing steady progress, if not always leaps forward. With this collective effort, end users are sure to reap the rewards in the coming years.

But experts warn end users not to get lured by the siren song of the technology lest they crash up against bedrock security principles. “The bottom line is that nothing has changed in what we’re trying to accomplish,” says CCTV expert Charlie Pierce of LRC Electronics. While computer experts are certainly advancing CCTV technology, they shouldn’t be dictating security solutions. “That’s foolishness,” he says.

To the Matrix, and Beyond

In the analog world, matrix switching is essentially a method of switching video signals in large CCTV systems so that any camera can be seen on any monitor or recorder. One goal of manufacturers is to create “virtual matrix switching” (VMS) for network-based digital systems and eventually surpass the system control offered by matrix switching.

SmartSight, FAST Video Security AG of Switzerland, Dallmeier, Loronix, and Sirrus Limited of Surrey, England, are among the players in the virtual matrix arena. In general, VMS works not by video streams being sorted by an analog switcher, but by sorting via packet switching on the IP network. For end users who want to retain their analog switchers, companies such as DVTel are making products that interface with analog matrix system controllers and peripheral equipment and translate the matrix-switching signals to IP network routing commands.

But some say the shift to networked digital video will eventually phase out analog matrixes. For instance, Loronix’s Doug Florence says that the functions of the analog switching matrix will eventually be assumed by the DVR. “The future is eliminating the matrix switch and talking to the equipment directly,” he says. But that transition has yet to be completed. Meanwhile, various companies have been working on so-called virtual matrix switching, meaning simulating the matrix-switching function.

VMS promises more functionality down the line than analog, some experts say. For example, with analog switching, an operator can switch a specific camera output to a specific recorder. But the recorder records whatever the camera sees. With virtual matrix systems, manufacturers are making it possible to zoom in on a live fixed field of view without affect– in what is recorded.

These advances aside, some experts reject the idea that virtual matrix switching outperforms its analog counterpart. Jean-Paul Saindon, president of SmartSight, whose own company offers a solution, says that true VMS isn’t here yet. “Many companies selling networked DVRs or video servers have talked about a virtual matrix concept,” he says. “None have been able to achieve what a matrix does.”

For example, he notes, flexible macro operations on analog matrixes “allow activation of commonly occurring events, either manually or automatically, based on time of day, day of week, day of year, and alarms.” And the analog matrix also allows response to thousands of alarms on established priority levels,” Saindon says. By contrast, today’s VMS systems don’t have those abilities.

Not even SmartSight’s solution can create macros or perform priority handling of external alarms, Saindon says. But his company’s latest version, he adds, enables a system administrator to program multiple sequences of cameras with automated presets. Several of these preprogrammed sequences can be viewed on any monitor over a private network or the Internet, a feature that conventional matrixes lack. Alarm handling and support for macros are expected to be included in the next version, due out in the fall.

Michael A. Gips is senior editor at Security Management.

Copyright American Society for Industrial Security May 2003