Page 35 - Security Today, September/October 2024

A CAMERA THAT IS CONNECTED
Then, virtually out of nowhere, came an- other company that started with an “A,” promoting what one of my early custom- ers called “IP” cameras. What the heck is an “IP” camera? Oh, you mean IP camera as in Internet Protocol camera, a camera that is connected to a network and pow- ered by a network switch? Old dog, time to learn new tricks. Pick your knuckles up off the floor and learn all about BICSI standards for network cable, distance limi- tations, how to convert old analog cable to network cable. Our team had to learn how to run and terminate Cat 5 network cables, POE extenders, NVRs, new compression standards, throughput calculations, and the list goes on and on.
What happened to the good old days of analog video?
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It is also important to mention that this “A” company and several others started bringing open standards into our world. They also introduced more advanced vid- eo compression and their own, more pow- erful image processing chipsets. IP Video Convergence was the talk of the town. CCTV evolved right before our eyes and there was more to come.
Right on the heels of this evolution came the rise of video analytics. New companies sprung up virtually overnight. There was edge analytics, server-based an- alytics, hybrid solutions and Neural Net- works for object classification. The days of simple video motion detection and line crossing went out the window. Object de- tection and Object Left Behind were terms born overnight and pasted on every booth at ISC West. With more processing re-
quired, new, more powerful chipsets were created to handle the processing needed to make the analytics work.
One of the next big developments was edge storage. Originally, edge-based stor- age was hailed as a revolutionary concept. The idea was to store video data directly on the camera itself, using onboard stor- age like SD cards. This approach promised redundancy and reduced the need for ex- tensive network infrastructure.
Some of the manufacturers started selling the concept of not needing central- ized recording of any kind. However, the practical limitations soon became appar- ent. Storage capacity was limited, and the reliability of SD cards in harsh environ- ments was questionable. As cloud storage solutions improved, edge storage saw a de- cline, although it remains a useful feature for certain applications.
With more computing power at the camera itself, camera manufacturers start- ed to focus on better quality video. Early video surveillance systems struggled with lighting variations, often rendering foot- age unusable in challenging conditions. How many times have you seen video foot- age on the news that was basically useless?
HANDLING EXTREME
LIGHTING CONTRASTS
Modern cameras, however, boast impres- sive Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) capa- bilities, allowing them to handle extreme lighting contrasts. Low light performance has also improved dramatically, with cam- eras now able to capture clear images in near-total darkness, thanks to advanced sensor technologies and powerful image processing algorithms.
The introduction of H.265, also known as HEVC (High-Efficiency Video Coding), marked a significant leap forward in video compression technology. Compared to its predecessor H.264, H.265 offers dou- ble the data compression ratio, reducing bandwidth and storage requirements with- out compromising video quality. This ad- vancement has been particularly beneficial for IP cameras, enabling the transmission of high-resolution video over networks without excessive strain on resources.
Advanced compression also enabled
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