Genetec’s powerful AutoVu ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) system is now available from Controlware UK. Find out the main benefits Security Center can provide below.
Unsurpassed Accuracy
AutoVu has some of the highest accuracy rates in the industry when it comes to license plate reads. You can rely on the AutoVu solution to capture vehicles within the camera’s field of view. Thanks to AutoVu’s Fuzzy Matching feature, you can ensure that license plates are correctly identified. You won’t miss a beat with AutoVu.
IP Connectivity
Having an IP-ready solution means you get real-time monitoring and identification of vehicles. You don’t have to wait to find out if a wanted vehicle is approaching your building or city. Data is wirelessly transferred over an IP network so you can take immediate action if a vehicle of interest is spotted.
User-Friendly
As part of Genetec’s unified security platform, the Security Center, AutoVu is very user-friendly. Use graphical maps to monitor hits and read locations. Click on a hit to display an image of the license plate, a color image of the vehicle as well as the date, time and location. And use the easy search function to enable quick investigations.
Easy to Install and Configure
Installing AutoVu is easy. Once the AutoVu Sharp cameras are up, you need minimal adjustments and configuration to get your system working. Your databases of wanted vehicles can be uploaded daily or automatically on a pre-set basis. It’s a simple three-step process: install you cameras, configure your system and upload your list.
AutoVu is now available from Controlware UK. To find out more about AutoVuclick here or call Controlware UK on 0844 225 9 225 for expert advice and great product deals.
Mike Tolley, Principal Consultant at Cogent (fm) Solutions, looks at the issues that concern the CCTV industry today.
Unfortunately my flippant comment about double glazing sales people selling CCTV is true. The approach to selling CCTV is based, by the majority, on How many? and The cheapest price? – not questions such as Why CCTV? Placed where to justify the need? and the issue of cost effectiveness against quality.
As a consultant, I would often get sales staff walking a site with me on a tender specification, and they would try to justify their point for additional CCTV, or an easier mounting point, with no foundation or reason. They where quickly put back in their place. There is no education or training in the security sales industry. It is, typically, ‘in at the deep end’ and ‘use your first customers as your testing grounds’
It is good to see that some manufacturers have taken the initiative in system and product sales training and accredited installer schemes. There are a few installers that take training seriously. They are starting to shine through, recognised as sitting at the front of their field.
Do you agree with Mike? Let us know what you think below.
When editor of Security Installer, Alan Hyder, criticised a report that concluded there was no link between crime solving and CCTV it sparked responses from police representatives who criticised current CCTV practices. Now, Mike Tolley, Principal Consultant at Cogent (fm) Solutions, has joined the debate. He says he is “someone who cares about what he does and the industry he is in” and concludes that too often CCTV is sold like double glazing …
I read with interest the articles about CCTV in last month’s edition. I have to agree with the majority of comments from Norman Gibson (independent consultant and retired RUC sergeant) that CCTV is “only one tool in the box”.
I often refer to CCTV as a management tool with security a part of its use. The type and placement of cameras should always be chosen to meet the need – not finding the easiest place to install it. My most valuable lesson on specifying and evaluating CCTV was probably learned whilst working in the manned guarding industry, where the CCTV system is a very important part of their tool box. I deplore this ‘cost of guarding’ Vs the ‘cost of a remotely monitored CCTV system’ argument as a justification to buy CCTV, i.e., just because it’s cheaper.
The best camera in the world will never outweigh a good guarding service. But it’s also about balance, and, as many others do, I refer to the Home Office operational requirement document. If end users only took an hour to complete it whilst assessing their needs, it would answer many questions without them being hoodwinked by the guy who sells CCTV instead of double glazing because it’s an easier sell.
Do you agree with Mike? Let us know what you think below.
CCTV footage has been released of the moment that raiders broke into a supermarket to get at cash inside a cash machine.
Minutes later one of the raiders can clearly be seen using an angle grinder to get at the cash. Although alerted that a robbery was taking place police arrived too late to stop the raiders getting away.
In this instance Intelligent Video Analytics could have helped raise the alarm much sooner. By constructing invisible trip wires in the video security personnel or police could have been warned the moment the raiders entered the store. In this way Intelligent Video Analytics linked to a flexible open management platform could have helped the CCTV become more proactive.
The break in happened in the town of Driel, Netherlands but the raid ended in tragedy for the robbers when a traffic accident was reported in nearby Maarsbergen. When police arrived at the scene they found five men in the car, which also contained a substantial amount of cash covered in security dye. The men who are all British were taken to hospital where 3 have since died of injuries received.
To view more instances of CCTV in action click here.
The second part of an end user’s response to Mark Harraway’s article “Don’t Go Hybrid” that can be read in full here.
Richard Quinn is Food Retail Loss Provention Manager for the Co-operative Group.
IP has been muted by the industry for some time as the end of analogue and the entry of a new digital age in CCTV. The predominant limiting factors to this are in my opinion restricted firstly to technology and secondly to capability and awareness.
Capability and Awareness
Despite talking about IP for a number of years, it remains still a relatively unknown subject to some installers, who do not have the required skill sets, or knowledge to be able to integrate and communicate effectively with IT functions and appear to have the confidence to install the equipment correctly.
Our own experience of this is relatively mixed and we still seem to have issues with the knowledge and capability of people installing the equipment. Whilst I do not wish to ‘badge’ all installers as not having the capability, we need to ensure that there is adequate knowledge within the sector and from experience across a number of installers – This depth of knowledge is simly not there at the moment.
That said, I am sure that those installers who wish to develop their capability and understanding in this area, should focus their efforts on building knowledge in the short term in order to communicate confidently with Clients, including their IT departments regarding the benefits and drawbacks of such a solution and its implementation.
I also believe that manfacturers collaborating together to develop common standard protocols will also benefit the end user to adapt and migrate across to IP led systems.
In summary addressing these key points will help the market to evolve and conifdence to be generated around identifying whether IP is indeed a viable option. In the current climate the market certainly has to adapt and go the extra mile in demonstrating it’s viability to end users, more importantly end users are becoming increasingly aware of the requirement to demonstrate a rate of return on any capital investment – These systems are not exempt from this and I believe therein lies another challenge, additional spend often requires different styles of thinking, in order to identify whether there is a clear business case for this type of investment.
To read the initial Dont Go Hybrid article that started the debate click here.
The first part of an end user’s response to Mark Harraway’s article “Don’t Go Hybrid” that can be read in full here.
Richard Quinn is Food Retail Loss Provention Manager for the Co-operative Group.
IP has been muted by the industry for some time as the end of analogue and the entry of a new digital age in CCTV. The predominant limiting factors to this are in my opinion restricted firstly to the technology itself.
Technology Capability and Platforms
Whilst in simple terms it is easy to build an IP infrastructure and effective back-up resource to ensure that single point of failures become a thing of the past, the capability and functionality is still not at the same level as analogue cameras, which can easily be bolted into an IP recording solution. The quality of these devices has improved ten fold over the last few years, but there is still some way to go and the market (Buyers) are not yet demanding IP as a full solution, due to the fact that costs are still relatively high by comparison and they can adopt a hybrid IP solution that meets their needs. These may include conecting to a data mining solution, taking images/recorded media across a WAN/LAN – In taking this approach it meets requirements both current and in the future. In any event as the UK has earned the mantle of having more CCTV Cameras per 1,000 population, the likelihood of replacing these frequently is extremely high. Indeed this is something most businesses experience on an almost daily basis and a planned programme of asset renewal when the market requires the deployment of IP cameras, will ensure that systems are changed over time.
As with all good technologies, until a product reaches the market that provides the functional requirements and is as good as an analogue camera – It simply won’t get adopted.
To read the initial Dont Go Hybrid article that started the debate click here.
Much has been discussed about the wider merits of CCTV and how it can reduce crime and make people feel safer but a topic that is often over looked is how CCTV can help with health and safety.
It is sometimes a shock to find staff carrying out tasks that completely go against the training, regulations and processes that have been put in place. CCTV if well monitored can therefore be highly important in preventing the occurrence of accidents. Also if employees having received training and been made aware of regulations are involved in an accident, CCTV is a tool that can be used to help clear your company of blame and potential legal action that might follow.
The video below filmed at a warehouse in Russia shows a major health and safety incident occurring. Fortunately no one was badly injured, but five million roubles (£105,000) worth of alcohol was destroyed in the accident, according to the website that posted the video, scandalim.ru.
If resource for live monitoring is not available technologies such as Video Analysis (Video Analytics / Smart CCTV) can help. When using an open management platform such as Cware, Video Analysis from IP cameras, analogue (analog) cameras or codecs can be easily integrated into the CCTV system. Video Analysis continuously checks for activity, events or behaviours that might be considered suspicious against user-defined policies. When activity is detected the system will classify the objects of interest (people, vehicle etc.), track and identify the direction of moving objects, interpret what the objects are doing and determine if a customer-defined policy has been broken. Once a policy is broken, for instance an intruder climbing over a perimeter fence or a vehicle parking in a forbidden zone, a wide variety of automatic countermeasures can be taken. PTZ cameras can automatically zoom in and track the object to get images of evidential quality, audible alarms can be broadcast to frighten away trespassers and emails or text messages can be sent to notify security personnel.
For more information about IP CCTV, the Cware management platform and Video Analysis click here.
Plus what do you think about CCTV? Is Britain becoming a Surveillance Society? Discuss here.
Even if an existing CCTV network has analogue cameras we can take these analogue feeds and convert them to IP via encoders either at the edge or in the control room, and once they are converted to IP, they are simply treated in the same way as any IP camera. At this point some people will say that this is a hybrid solution, which in the truest sense of the word it is. However, what we have achieved here is to start to implement IP at the edge which then allows us to build a complete IP infrastructure with all the benefits this brings rather than having the unhappy compromise of a hybrid solution at the most critical point of recording.
The benefits of IP that hybrid can’t offer are features such as iSCSI recording through RAID arrays to provide a 100% fail proof redundancy. There is no single point of failure in the recording and storage system either in the individual discs, the recording servers or RAIDs. The use of RAID arrays also brings in another key element in IP superiority – namely that as these solutions run over an IT platform, such a Windows Server, linked to industry standard storage. It becomes so much easier to build a scalable system, because the boxes have a larger capacity (the latest iSCSI are taking 16 x 2TB drives – so 28 TB of useable storage in only 7 inches / 17 ½ cm!) and you can just add additional capacity as required. Standard IT platforms also deliver a more competitive market approach for purchasing additional or future upgrades of security systems and software capability. IP based solutions offer further benefits such as intelligent alarm handling, and integration with other systems, such as intruder or access control, to promote a completely integrated solution.
If you are looking at expanding, migrating or a new CCTV solution, there should be no reason not to look at IP. IP is here today. It’s reliable and offers so much more than hybrid. So why buy twice? Don’t Go Hybrid. Choose the superior IP option.
Taken from Controlware Country Manager Mark Harraway’s “Why go hybrid?” article as published in the September edition of Professional Security Magazine.To read the complete article click here.
Recording and Management Servers
Within the primary control room, there will be servers with sufficient storage to capture video at full frame rate DVD resolution from the cameras located around the site.
In addition to the recording servers, the primary management server will also reside within this location. The management server stores all user and system configurations and enables the management of devices and alarms. Each of these servers will be protected from power loss by the inclusion of UPS battery backup devices.
Viewing and Replay
Each Operator workstations has dual 19” LCD displays and a Joystick for PTZ camera control. These workstations will be powered by the Cware Control Centre application that enables the operators to view live or recorded video, manage alarms and control cameras.
The Control Centre user interface is designed to be as simple as possible while still providing advanced capabilities. The main screen can be utilised as the operator’s spot monitor and facilitates viewing of multiple cameras in live or replay mode, export of footage, viewing of alarms, management of the video wall and so on. To enable simple navigation through the cameras and provide vital information on camera positions, the second monitor can be used as the map interface. The map interface can provide users with a zoom overview of the site and highlight elements such as alarm triggers and camera positions.
As well as the maps, the system can be licensed with the patented ICN feature. ICN stands for Image Content Navigation and enables a revolutionary method of navigating through the system. With ICN enabled, it is possible to setup predefined invisible links within the video image from a camera that link to another camera. This offers the operator the opportunity to click on an area of the image and the system will automatically switch to the best view of that area. For example, if you have a camera overlooking a doorway and you see a suspicious individual enter through the door of a building, ICN makes it possible to click on the door and automatically switch to the camera inside quickly and easily without having to search through a list of cameras to identify the correct one.
The Cware server within the central location will constantly monitor each remote IP camera and encoder (for existing analogue cameras) device for alarm triggers, such as motion detection. In the event of an alarm trigger from a remote location, the alarm management and response configuration can allow for a variety of notification methods, including simply presenting the user automatically with the video on their spot monitor or presenting the alarm to the video wall displays.
In addition to the monitoring motion alarms, the system can also enable system health monitoring. In the event of events such as loss of connectivity to a server or the failure of a video feed to an encoder, an e-mail can be sent out to system administrators who are responsible for maintenance and upkeep. This ensures that the system can proactively prevent and notify of potential performance issues.
The system also provides comprehensive logging, including operator activity, alarms and so on. The log viewer tool then enables system managers to search and extract valuable information as a CSV file. This can then be imported into 3rd party systems, such as excel, to assess performance such as response times, number of alarms and so on.
Videowall
Within the control room, there will be high performance rack mount workstations connected to a large screen LCD displays. These workstations will be powered by the Cware Videowall application. Each workstation can display up to 16 or more video streams from remote cameras on wither a predefined or custom layout. The Control Centre clients can manage the display of the cameras onto the video wall by simply clicking a tab at the bottom of the screen and choosing which cameras they would like to display. It is proposed to utilise one or more of the screens as a dedicated alarm display whereby all incoming alarms from cameras can be shown to highlight this to the user.
Across the site both internal and external cameras can be wired back to various collection points and utilise POE (Power Over Ethernet) thereby reducing the amount of cabling required and saving costs. These collection points will house encoders (if not IP cameras) that will convert the analogue video from the cameras for distribution onto the network via a fibre or wireless transmission device.
To further enhance the performance of the cameras, each encoder or IP camera can be equipped with Intelligent Video Analysis (IVA) to enable intelligent motion alarm detection. The IVA provides reliable video motion detection for indoor or outdoor use. IVA is state-of-the-art intelligent video analysis that reliably detects, tracks, and analyzes moving objects while suppressing unwanted alarms from spurious sources in the video. The key advantage of using this technology within the encoders or IP cameras is to enable detection of perimeter breaches while improving the reliability of alarms and reducing operator work load.
The algorithms within IVA intelligently adapt to background environmental conditions such as rain, snow, clouds, and leaves blowing in the wind while built-in tamper detection generates alarms on camera hooding/masking, blinding, defocusing, and repositioning. Image stabilization ensures detection even with shaky video sources such as cameras mounted on poles or simple vibrations.
Within IVA, the following tasks can be selected:
• Detect objects entering, leaving or just being within an area (detector field)
• Detect loitering in an area related to radius and time
• Detect idle object within a configurable time span
• Detect removed objects within a configurable time span
• Detect trajectories/routes of objects, passing in the scene, displayed with tracking lines
• Detect multiple line crossing from single line up to three lines combined in a logical row
• Detect condition change properties such as size, speed, direction, and aspect ratio change within a specified time span (for example something falling down)
• Alarm task script manager in the expert mode to combine tasks logically
Up to eight independent tasks can be selected and combined in the scene to build sophisticated detection rules, each one individualized with its own parameters. This allows the detection of multiple object states in parallel, generating separate triggers that can be handled independently or in combination.
To enable the detection of alarms, rules are setup on each encoder or camera individually based on the scene that the camera is looking at. When one of these rules is breached, an alarm will be sent back to the central server and be distributed to alert the operators.
To find out more about the Cware management platform click here.
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