Spot On Security

The fact that VideoIQ’s iCVR includes a complete DVR in the camera continues to generate lots of great feedback. Integrators tell us that they love the way it solves problems, including bandwidth and storage, along with improved reliability and lower cost.

When we first introduced the iCVR, we called this feature “storage in the camera.”

Then we heard customers telling us that they saw other cameras with storage built-in. We heard about one that had 64 GB of storage – almost as much as ours. That was a big surprise to me, since I had looked hard to see if there was anything like our iCVR, but couldn’t find a single camera like it.

When I tracked down the camera with 64 Gb, it turned out to be 64 MB not GB, which is good enough to store a few video clips at best. Most engineers would not even call that storage, we’d call it buffer memory.

However, there are of course more cameras starting to show up with SD cards for providing storage in the camera. They don’t provide anywhere near as much storage as our iCVR, but they do store video. That’s when we started calling what we have a “DVR in the Camera”, hopefully to make it clear that what this means is something far more valuable than just a few hours of storage.

In other words, you can eliminate the need for an external DVR or an NVR with our iCVR, because the DVR is already built in. That’s what we meant by DVR in the camera.

Naturally, any good idea is something that others want to start claiming as well. That’s a sure sign of success.

http://www.sourcesecurity.com/new-products/listing/1/product-profile/cctv/image-capture/domes/mobotix-q24m-sec.html

As you can see, Mobotix is now using the term. They make it pretty clear that they’ve got a DVR in their camera. It’s not just storage, it is a DVR. But what do they mean? They ship their camera with a 4 GB card, which they claim is good for 4 hours of video. Of course, you can replace that with a 16 GB card, which would give you 16 hours of storage.

That’s not what we would call a DVR in the camera.

What we mean is I think what most people would expect: You have enough storage for 30 days of continuous recorded video or more. That’s what you need if you want to replace a DVR.

The only time you could eliminate the DVR with 16 hours worth of video recording is if you only recorded occassional event video clips, such as video triggered by an external sensor, or triggered by motion detection (provided it wasn’t outdoors – motion detection outdoors will be going off so often that 16 hours of recording won’t last long.) But if you only have a few video alarm events a day, and they each only lasted 10 minutes or less, then you could stretch that 16 GB for a month. Unfortunately, this isn’t typical.

Most projects require continuous recording. Why? For two big reasons: First, to make sure you don’t miss what is most important. Second, because it is often just as important to prove what happened as what didn’t happen. For example, someone claims their car was damaged in your parking lot at 2 pm on June 3. If your event video didn’t capture it, that doesn’t prove it didn’t happen, does it?

This means that none of these cameras that include a flash memory card for storage can replace a DVR, so they really aren’t a DVR in the camera. Don’t be fooled by the words.

Another thing to keep in mind with these cameras that allow flash cards: Some of them require you to physically go to the camera to access the video stored on the cards. It is great to have storage in the camera when the network needs to be taken down for maintenance or upgrades. But who is going to go around to all their cameras to collect cards to see what happened while the network was down?

Some of the better systems allow you to log on and see the video through your network, but even this is not ideal. You really want to have the video that gets captured in your camera in your DVR, just like any other video captured.

So, in this world of storage in the camera, there is a wide range of differences. They aren’t even close to all being the same. DVR storage in the camera is by far the best, because then you don’t need an external DVR, and this saves most of the bandwidth consumed by IP cameras. It also makes the system much simpler, and saves cost.

The latest chapter in this unfolding story was the recent announcment by Dedicated Micros.

http://www.securitysystemsnews.com/blogs/?p=2059

DM calls their “revolutionary” product the ICR. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? ICR stands for Integrated Camera Recorder. That’s pretty close to our iCVR, which means Intelligent Camera with Video Recorder.

But ICR doesn’t mean what you might think. Yes, it does include some storage in the camera (they claim 24 hours of recording), just like many other cameras with a flash card, but what ICR stands for is an external storage device that is built into their proprietary network switch. They have “integrated” the video recorder into the switch. There’s a full hard drive in the switch, so you can get 7 days of storage there, they claim. But apparently to get 30 days of storage, you still need a central server. This, of course, isn’t in the camera. It is just integrated to work with the camera over a point-to-point network connection.

What is great to see in all the marketing materials and promotion that Dedicated Micros has gone through is the way they are promoting how important it is to solve the bandwidth issues with IP cameras, and the many weaknesses of traditional IP cameras. Check out these links:

http://www.info4security.com/story.asp?sectioncode=9&storycode=4122273&c=2

http://vimeo.com/460935

I love Michael Newton’s forthright bashing of traditional IP cameras. I agree with a lot of what he says. So, I’m glad to see him educating the market on the problems with existing IP cameras and that there is a better approach.

What is still missing from their revolutionary new product, however,  is intelligence in the camera. Video analytics provide just as many benefits as putting the DVR in the camera. It significantly reduces the amount of video you need to store, and it allows you to capture high quality video whenver anything important happens, while recording everything at the usual lower DVR rates.

And of course the DM solution is still missing a real DVR in the camera, which means you don’t need any external recorders.

What I liked best in the DM presentation was that they called their ICR “revolutionary” and said there was “nothing like this in the market”. This was clearly a big announcement for them.

It is always nice to be copied. It is of course a true sign of appreciation and success. I expect to see many more going down this same path, because the benefits are significant.

But it is even better when the revolutionary products that come out still don’t even have half of what our iCVR has. That must make the iCVR “uber revolutionary”…

Right?

But I think the most important point here is that when new breakthroughs come along, it is natural to see others trying to use the same terms and trying to accomplish the same results, but don’t be confused by the words used. Dig deeper to understand what they mean.

Storage in the camera and a true DVR in the camera aren’t even close to the same.

If you want to read a lively discussion on storage in the camera, check out this from John Honovich’s site:

http://ipvideomarket.info/report/should_you_use_surveillance_cameras_with_built_in_storage

Doug.

The good news is that most high quality video analytics systems these days work quite well with IR lighting for night time detection.

The one thing that often gets overlooked, however, is that IR lights attract insects. Apparently they like the light and the heat. And insects often attract bats and birds, and sometimes even spiders, who occasionally spin a nice web across your camera lens to catch the bugs.

When you are just recording video, this only means you might have an annoying bug or bird flitting near the cameras. Not a huge deal.

But with analytics, it can cause false alarms.

I first learned about this many years ago. Our analytics have not had many reports of bug problems, but we’ve seen a few. Then, I ran across a report by Raytheon that summarized years of experience, including deployments in Middle Eastern deserts, proving the problems created by mounting IR illuminators too close to the camera. Their suggestion: Don’t mount IR lights near cameras.

Sounds like a good suggestion to me.

I just searched to see if I could include a link to the Raytheon study, but it doesn’t appear to be on the web any longer. However, I did run across this document:

http://www.dvmd.com/downloads/ApplicationGuide.PDF

This article says:

“The ring of LED’s around the lens of “bullet cameras” attract amazing numbers of flying insects in summer months.”

Bullet cameras with IR LEDs have become quite popular, but I’d suggest avoiding them with analytics. It is better to mount the IR lights away from the cameras and preferrably closer to the area you are trying to illuminate.

The article also makes this comment:

“Bugs can produce approximately a thousand nuisance alarm events per hour…”

We’ve never seen anything like that. In fact, false alarms are rare from bugs with any good analytics technology, but they do occur and so the wise thing is to avoid the issue by mounting the light sources at a distance.

The reason this article describes thousand of false alarms per hour is because they are talking about Video Motion Detection, not Video Analytics. This is just another example of why VMD is not reliable outdoors.

One other thing to keep in mind with nighttime detection: If you are using a day/night camera, you should know that some video analytics technologies have problems when the camera switches from day mode to night mode, or vice versa. When the IR cut filter switches in or out, it creates a sudden change in all the pixels. This can create false alarms for many technologies.

VideoIQ’s technology doesn’t have a problem with this, and I know there are other good video analytics technologies that don’t as well, but some do. So, if this is an application you are working on, you might want to check with your vendor first.