EYESPY a splash of old and new

Hurdles to adoption
Villet said the local market was also hindered by available Internet access, speeds and caps on data quantity transferred.

"Although companies can easily deploy systems inside a LAN or WLAN internally, as soon as the video streaming has to go through the Internet to a management control centre, organisations, such as security companies, will have to look at more expensive Internet access options if they would like to offer a remote managed surveillance service to their customers," he said.

Lack of education and understanding about how IP surveillance worked is another big deal-breaker. "Many companies see IP surveillance as black magic: they know it works, but don't understand how," Villet said. "Since the maintenance responsibility will now move to the IT department, many are concerned this team will not have sufficient manpower nor the knowledge to service the surveillance network. "From the manufacturer's side, we will have to provide resources to educate the market to address this knowledge gap."

Frost and Sullivan forecasts the Asia-Pacific video surveillance market (excluding Japan) will expand from $US992.1 million last year to $US3956.7 million in 2013 growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.4 per cent.

"The convergence of security with IT infrastructure is providing the necessary business case to shift from analogue to IP surveillance," Frost and Sullivan senior research analyst, George Paul, said. "This convergence not only reduces the cost of deployment, but also helps build a unified database that can increase interaction among the various security systems."

Paul said a host of new products were making IP surveillance the standard technology for most greenfield security projects. New opportunities were also arising from the advantages of digital technology in analysing and providing real-time feedback for preventive action.

Advanced compression techniques had improved the quality of the images for lesser bandwidth requirements thereby reducing the network cost to support IP cameras, Paul said. The ease of integration with video analytics and low-cost, server-based video management systems also demonstrated the advantages of IP surveillance.

Getting around IT
With traditional analogue CCTV, live video feed is sent through coaxial cables and stored on a tape drive, or encoders convert the feed and store it on digital video recorders (DVR). With the emergence of IP surveillance video it can now be transferred over transmission control protocol (TCP)/IP networks. This means staff implementing these solutions need to understand IT standards and technologies, Paul said.

While predicting IT guys would lead the IP surveillance charge, Salvatore also expects traditional security players with large customer bases to have taken a prominent place at the table. Both sides were being recruited to help companies make the transition. "Companies want to protect their investment: many have good quality analogue and want to gradually take on an IP platform," he said. Alloys distributes network video product technologies including hardware and software, with full access control integration. It is educating partners about the growing market opportunities and how they can help companies migrate to IP surveillance.

"It requires a mix of both skill sets," he said. "I think IT people would go into a customer site and think, 'this is easy, it's simply IT with a twist,' but that's not the case."

Salvatore recommended IT partners seek assistance from a third party to do the camera work or lean on traditional security experts for their know-how of physical premises and camera placement. Technology that bridged the gap between analogue and IP, such as that offered by Dedicated Micros for example is another way to go. The product let users connect analogue and IP cameras simultaneously. Salvatore predicted these would have large SME market appeal. Digital Data's Villet also pointed to log capture cards for video servers, which act as the gatekeeper.

"Total convergence won't happen before 2010 because the security world is based on analogue. And there are some new analogue products [LAN models] which are competitive with IP-based kit," he said.

Fries with that?
As customers get on the migration path, Axis Communications country manager, Wai King Wong, said there was a huge opportunity for integrators to educate the market about full IP-based systems, and up-sell related product. The company is reporting 40 per cent growth in IP surveillance uptake.

"There's a trend towards IP surveillance and, in many tenders, there's an option to have digital," he said. "The good news is resellers and integrators can sell the server and storage, the network video recorder, the network cabling and installation. So there's a big value add."

King Wong said Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches, uninterruptible power supplies, PCs and servers to support the software, and the network cabling system were also areas of opportunity.

D-Link marketing manager, Maurice Famularo, said products came in all shapes and sizes, and crossed into both the home and enterprise segments.

"People are using the technology for home security, in business, and for all sorts of weird things like a mob who asked for cameras to monitor the largest barometer in the word," he said.