Back in the Stone Age at a 1980s International Security Conference in Las Vegas, when the Lib- erace Museum was still open and popular, the British-born Dedicated Micros held a funeral for the VCR, complete with a widow, preacher, casket and, if I remember correctly, a drink of sherry. Fast forward a couple of decades and today’s talk is about the so-called death of analog. But, in the words of Mark Twain, the report of its death has been greatly exaggerated. No doubt, for many installations IP security video is — sooner or later — inevitable and a good thing, too. Image quality from IP cameras has improved over the years. Megapixel and high- definition cameras demand an IP approach. “Ana- log remains an important part” of the security video equation, says Cheryl Bard, product market- ing manager with Bosch Security Systems North America, Fairport, N.Y. “There is a lot of talk about megapixel cameras,” she says, but only about four percent of end users now have them. And bigger is not necessarily better. “HD is not for every single part of a project,” she advises.
It can be a matter of the sensor and the lens. When an end user wants more megapixels in a camera, “the sensor can handle it, but the lens may prove harder to handle,” says Brendan Daly of Eye P Video Systems in Danville, N.H., con- sultant and systems integrator, who points to loss of resolution over the edges not because of the sensor but the lens. Mark Wilson of Infinova, Monmouth Junction, N.J., concurs. “A low-quality lens cannot see the detail of a high resolution sensor.” Daly observes that “people still are using analog, of course. There is no reason to rip out analog. Just add encoders and leave more of the infrastructure in place.” But “now that IP has matured, it is a lot cheaper to build larger systems with network- based components.”
The biggest reason: the use of an enterprise’s infrastructure with lower installation cost due to Cat 5 and 6 Ethernet cabling as compared with coaxial or fiber, as well as the potential of Power over Ethernet. Storage has turned digital with DVRs, NVRs and maybe into the cloud one day.
“In general, the shift to IP continues,” points out Fredrik Nilsson, general manager, Axis Communi- cations, in Chelmsford, Mass., who sees improved image resolution, better color fidelity, greater scal- ability and lower prices as purchase drivers. “End users now measure their security video against
their home big-screen TVs. Big companies know they need to play in the IP arena.”
A more recent choice in between analog and IP video comes from the HDcctv Alliance, a group of vendors who stress high-definition analog through coax cable.
Alliance members believe that HDcctv is “likely to become the next generation in the evolution of video surveillance technology.” For example, HD DVRs are generally designed to accept not only
‘You lose all the benefits of IP technology if you leave it behind to stay in the analog world.’ — Mark Wilson, Infinova
HD camera inputs but also inputs from standard- definition and IP cameras, including megapixel IP cameras. In addition, HDcctv can achieve or re-gain the ability to control speed domes using a joystick. There is a link between consumer high-definition
television and the expectation of security buyers. “Since the HD television craze began several years ago, there has been a craving for improved resolu- tion similar to what they get on their big screen at home,” says Greg Bier, director and chief executive officer with Vitek Industrial Video Products Inc., Valencia, Calif. “Until now, the only option offered in our industry was IP megapixel cameras. Although this solution does deliver sharper images when used at full capacity, it takes up a great deal of bandwidth and has a tendency to lose packets of video, not to mention the slow response or ‘lag’ time that accom- panies high-definition cameras of the IP kind.” Bier adds, “HDcctv over coax now gives us the true security we need in crucial applications with- out the major learning curve associated with its IP counterpart. Just the way we’ve been installing it for years, we use copper braid coax in a closed circuit. It’s a much more reliable environment. HD-SDI (high-definition serial digital interface) is the technology being used to deliver 30 pps of high-definition video at 1280 x 720 or approxi- mately one megapixel. HD SDI cameras will soon be available in up to 2 megapixels or 1920 x 1080.” Bier further explains, “It is important to realize that although this signal travels over coax, it is still a digital signal and is produced by a digital interface within the camera and must be decoded at the head end by an HDcctv recorder. There are currently two standards of HD SDI being developed for the
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