trying2learnmore

Hi all, I'm new to the video surveillance industry and was just assigned a research project by my boss (we work for a technology consulting company) to look into how common different surveillance system architectures are. I have some experience in general tech networking/system architectures, but nothing specific to video surveillance. The camera types he gave me to look at are 1) base level-IP camera, 2) one-directional IP-camera with AI capability, and 3) "dome" 360 degree-IP camera with AI capability. I assume AI capability to mean it has a computer chip inside that could support some form of AI software package if the customer chose to install one on the system. The storage options he gave me are NVR, decentralized storage servers (I think, based on how he described it, this means a small storage server at each camera) and centralized storage server (self-explanatory but don't really understand how this is different than an NVR or DVR?), and then Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), which based on some initial Googling, seems to mean a combination of storage, compute, and networking on one server/device (sounds vague, not really sure if this is common or what it means in a video surveillance context). A few of the locations he told me to start looking into are transportation venues like airports/train stations, manufacturing sites, sports stadiums, and retail stores to see how their setups may differ (if at all) from one another. Seems like a really interesting research question but not really sure where to start. I'm wondering if any of you experts out there could share, based on your experience, what the most common setups for these systems are and where they tend to be located. As in, say most airports have 100 cameras (probably way more than that, but using a round number for the sake of simplicity), 50 will be 360 degrees with AI function, 25 will be dumb CCTVs, and 25 will be one-directional with AI function. Then they may require 20 decentralized servers for those 100 cameras (probably wrong), or 10 NVRs, or they could use 5 HCI servers instead. I totally made that example up, but that sort of thing is what I'm looking for. As quantitative as possible is ideal because the research will eventually roll into a market model we are creating to forecast demand for video surveillance equipment. And any other examples or facts you can share on this topic to situate me would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance! If you could, please also share your title/position and the type/name of the company you work at in case my boss asks what types of industry experts I've spoken to.

Some factors I have thought of include: Inflation / potential recession War (Ukraine or elsewhere) Sanctions on Chinese manufacturers like Hikvision Laws around public/private surveillance and privacy concerns Crime rates / law enforcement Border control/immigration Use (and cost) of AI/analytics in cameras Storage (transition from NVRs versus newer options) Some of these will obviously have more of an impact than others. I have hypotheses for each but want to see what others think. What do you think, and why? Are there any trends I'm missing?

Hey all, looks like no responses so far so I decided to format my research questions into a quick survey, if that might be easier for people to digest/respond to: CCTV hardware / system design questions Thanks so much in advance!