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Check Your Security Ltd is an East of England based systems design and build  integration company specialising in CCTV/IP-CCTV, structured cabling systems, Fibre cabling, Access control and Intruder security systems.

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IP Based Solutions

Traditionally CCTV systems have been comprised a collection of analogue cameras (colour or black and white) of various levels of resolution, static monitors and video cassette recorders – connected via individual and costly coaxial, power and PTZ control cables.

Evolution

Traditionally CCTV systems have been comprised a collection of analogue cameras (colour or black and white) of various levels of resolution, static monitors and video cassette recorders – connected via individual and costly coaxial, power and PTZ control cables.

Recently hybrid solutions have evolved that replace the Video cassette based recorder and analogue multiplexer with a Digital Video Recorder or DVR. A DVR can be either proprietary hardware device based on PC technology with an embedded operating system such as Linux, or a Windows based PC with an interface card and viewer software.
 Both alternatives store images as digital files on hard disks together with a searchable index.

IP-Surveillance

Internet Protocol,  IP-surveillance systems also known as networked video takes this evolution a stage further in as far as transferring the video signals over an TCP/IP based data infrastructure. In so doing it goes much further than just changing and improving the transmission of CCTV images. It opens up a huge range of possibilities for integrating with other networked systems. I will now explore some of the main advantages:

Scaleability

•    IP-Surveillance scales from one to thousands of cameras in increments of a single camera. There are no 16-channel jumps as required with DVR based technology. Frame rates and storage can be increased by adding servers capacity and hard drives. Any frame rate is available for any camera at any time.

Increased Camera Intelligence.

• Each individual camera can be accessed directly across the network without the need for the server. Cameras contain an embedded operating system and as such can be configured to operate as a web server (HTTP & FTP)or multiple camera server.

• Motion detection, event handling, sensor input, relay output and other built in capabilities allow the camera to decide when and where to send video or messages.

Increased reliability

• IP based data transport enables off site storage and the ability to use redundant processing and storage architectures. Servers can contain redundant power systems and disks can be used in redundant arrays or mirrored offsite.  By using standard off the shelf server and network equipment replacement time for faulty equipment is considerably shorter than if using proprietary DVR solutions.

Utilize existing cabling infrastructure

•  Many modern businesses are already cabled with a twisted pair infrastructure which can be utilised for CCTV reducing the expense of having dedicated cabling installed which can constitute a considerable part of the total cost of installing a CCTV system. In cases where no infrastructure exists  twisted pair cabling can be installed at a fraction of the cost of coaxial cable. Check Your Security also install twisted pair cable for hybrid systems to both keep the costs down for the customer and give a lower cost upgrade path in the future. In many instances it is possible to power the cameras over the twisted pair cabling as well as provide PTZ control signals. In analogue systems each of these would require cabling separately.

• Where cabling is impractical or expensive it is possible to use wireless networking.

Network Convergence

• It is possible to utilise an organisations structured wiring but keep the CCTV signals off the company data network but in many circumstances it makes sense to have one network for data, voice and video. Ideally the video traffic would be at least in a separate VLAN but it depends on the existing traffic and available bandwidth. Overall this strategy makes management of a single integrated data network more efficient and cost effective.

System Integration

• IP-surveillance technologies provide an open and easily integrated platform. It can be linked with access control systems, process control and even heating and ventilation systems.

Remote Access

• Any video stream either live or recorded footage from the archive can be accessed worldwide over the internet. Video can be viewed on PCs with remote viewer applications, embedded into web pages or even on PDAs and mobile telephones.

• Alarm outputs can be sent from either the video server or the camera itself direct to remote PC applications or to email or SMS accounts.

• Central monitoring at an enterprise level is much more achievable at a reasonable cost than with previous solutions.

Open and interoperable

• Unlike a DVR which is effectively a black box that needs proprietary upgrade components, essentially a closed system, IP-surveillance is based upon open standards so you have a choice of products from a large number of manufacturers, equipment such as switches routers, servers, storage systems and software. There is always the risk with a considerable investment in DVR based solutions that the products may not be supported in the very near future especially with the speed of development in this area. Upgrades and expansion with an open system will be the best and most cost efficient approach.

Lower system cost

• In many installations IP-Surveillance has proven to be a lower cost alternative than single supplier  DVR based solutions. Cost effective choices can be made with standard network, server and storage equipment. Together with lower installation costs and the added benefits not offered by DVR based systems IP-Surveillance can in many instances be the most cost effective solution.

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