Tech Watch

May 1, 2008 12:00 PM

With sore feet recovering from the three-day whirlwind that was ISC West 2008, the editors sifted through a sea of press releases, scoured scribbled notes from product demonstrations and recounted interviews with company executives to identify these six products among the items of interest.

Physical Infrastructure Management Platform

VIDEO SURVEILLANCE SOFTWARE AVAILABLE AS AN ADD-ON

InfraStruXure Central from American Power Conversion (APC) enables organizations to conduct real-time monitoring of their physical infrastructure devices contained in a range of locations, from small wiring closets to large data centers. The platform acts as a repository for critical power, cooling and environmental data to provide immediate event notification to users so they can quickly assess and resolve device failures. An add-on surveillance software module can capture a visual record of people who enter a critical area and what they do while they are there. The software can store the video clips from installed cameras locally at the appliance or centrally. Options are provided for accessing surveillance events by data, time, category or text, and for displaying the clips in movie format. InfraStruXture Central, APC (apc.com) Circle No. 1 or visit securitysolutions.com/productinfo.

Security and Business Intelligence Platform

TRANSLATES SURVEILLANCE IMAGES INTO USABLE BUSINESS DATA

Version 2.0 of Avocado Security's Security and Business Intelligence (BI) Platform translates surveillance camera images into intelligent, usable business data and statistics. For example, users can view statistical graphs and charts reporting the number of times an elevator door opens, the times when increased levels of traffic exist at a particular entrance or exit, or logs of camera activity and unauthorized configuration changes over the last 24 hours. “So now instead of security personnel just seeing ‘dumb data’ from numerous images across video monitors, they have a solution that gives them ‘intelligent data’ so that actionable, real-time security decisions can be made,” says Kevin Shahbazi, CEO of Avocado Security. The system is agnostic to camera brand and is embedded with numerous APIs to enable communication with various devices. It can also send alerts about camera malfunctions, misalignments or disconnections. Version 2.0 Security and BI Platform, Avocado Security (avocadosecurity.com) Circle No. 2 or visit securitysolutions.com/productinfo.

High-Definition Surveillance Software

TRANSMITS AND RECORDS HD VIDEO USING REDUCED NETWORK RESOURCES

Avigilon's Control Center 3.2 now supports analog video encoders and Avigilon's line of low-cost, high-performance high-definition (HD) IP cameras to make the system a cost-effective choice for organizations looking to migrate from analog to HD surveillance. The software features High-Definition Stream Management (HDSM), which delivers situational awareness and detail, leading to faster response times and reduced investigation times. User benefits include low bandwidth-transmission for viewing live HD video, maximum storage times through the preservation of hard drive space, quick search times of HD video based on real-time indexing and a multi-megapixel high dynamic range image display that allows operators to view multiple cameras and regions of interest on multiple viewing tabs. Control Center 3.2 with HDSM, Avigilon (avigilon.com) Circle No. 3 or visit securitysolutions.com/productinfo.

Standalone Access Control System

FOR ONE- OR TWO-DOOR APPLICATIONS

Dortronics showcased its standalone EZ-Access door controller, suitable for two independent doors with one reader each or one door with two readers for in/out control. To gain access, users can use secured EZ-Prox Cards, key fobs or any of Dortonics' 26-bit Wiegand keypads. Users are programmed into or out of the system with a programming card or master code entered into a keypad. The system provides text file history reports that can be viewed with standard computer programs, such as Excel and Notepad. Audit trails are downloadable with the provided EZ-Logger software. The two-door controller includes two heavy-duty SPDT amp relays and has the capacity for 2,000 active cardholders. EZ-Access, Dortronics Systems Inc. (dortronics.com) Circle No. 4 or visit securitysolutions.com/productinfo.

H.264 Megapixel IP Cameras

25 TIMES HIGHER COMPRESSION THAN MJPEG

Arecont Vision debuted its line of H.264 Megapixel IP Cameras that use the company's proprietary implementation of H.264 compression technology. The line includes four models, offering 1.3, 2, 3 and 5 megapixels. When used with high video resolution, the compression technology is up to 25 times greater than MJPEG compression when capturing a typical street surveillance scene. As a result, a high-quality 3-megapixel video stream rate at 20 frames-per-second can be as low as 2 Mb/second. The cameras can be scaled to 1,920 × 1,080 or 1,280 × 720 resolution with a 16 × 9 aspect ratio for high-definition format. Resolution is controllable, making it possible to stream full resolution or less in order to conserve bandwidth. Users can also stream a full field-of-view at a lower resolution while streaming regions of interest at full megapixel resolution. H.264 Megapixel Cameras, Arecont Vision (arecontvision.com) Circle No. 5 or visit securitysolutions.com/productinfo.

H.264-Based Video Systems

INCLUDE NETWORK CAMERAS, ENCODERS AND VIDEO MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Axis Communications introduced a new generation of network video products built on its in-house-developed ARTPEC-3 chip, which allows integration of in-camera processing for megapixel video, H.264 compression and video analytics. Using H.264 compression, the systems save up to 50 percent of storage and network bandwidth compared to MPEG-4 compression and up to 80 percent compared to MJPEG. The AXIS P3301 Fixed Dome Network Camera features progressive scan, wide dynamic range and multiple H.264 and MJPEG streams. The six-channel AXIS Q7406 Video Encoder Blade and the single-channel Q7401 Video Encoder both offer H.264 video compression and incorporate video motion detection and an active tampering alarm. The 4U, 19-in. AXIS Q7900 Rack holds up to 14 hot-swappable blades supporting different compression formats, and the AXIS Camera Station is a complete monitoring and recording system for up to 50 cameras. AXIS P3301, AXIS Q706, AXIS Q7401, AXIS Q7900, AXIS Camera Station 3.0, Axis Communications (axis.com) Circle No. 6 or visit securitysolutions.com/productinfo.

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