Newsletters about video surveillance systems

[tpolus 0]

Hello,

 

Recently, I opened a cooperation with David Pan from Geovision, who is their regional representative for Central & Eastern Europe. David publishes monthly newsletters about video surveillance systems from general perspective and from Geovision's perspective. I think they are worth to spend a while reading, so I decided to regularly translate them into Polish for all my customers in Poland.

 

After second issue, I thought you guys also might be interested in these newsletters and I'm very curious of your opinions:

1) Massive False Alarms Represent Poor Cost-Effectiveness in Security Systems

http://www.polvision.com.pl/files.asp?lang=en&id=66

2) Thieves from Inside

http://www.polvision.com.pl/files.asp?lang=en&id=69

 

I must admit that currently in Central Europe these are very important security issues and I was wondering if the same problems and solutions apply to U.S. CCTV branch. I would appreciate your comments. Thanks.

[rory 0]

Interesting, though at least here in the Bahamas, wont find many owners sitting down to search through the POS transactions, thats if they even have a POS system, most have old registers down here, even one of the largest food store chains here. But im going to check out the gas stations as they do use POS with their pumps, and i know someone that fixes all the Esso and Shells equipment here (pumps, electric, etc)

 

As for False alarms, well i cant wait for that motion detection feature

 

Also, i use Dual Beams where i want less false alarms, and door contacts rarely ever false, however its probably the cheap "lick and stick" alarm jobs that have 1 motion where they have a lot of issues. Most problems i ever had was trouble from a low battery in a wireless device .. down here at least .. .

 

Good info on your site, alot of useful docs, I need to take a look through them ... thanks, keep it up ..

 

Rory

[pandorabox2050 0]

Interesing topic on false alarms...

 

It's a serious trouble since many city halls want to fine us or our customers for sending that.

 

Here has links to fine rates in BC and California: http://www.alarmsbc.com/pgfafees.htm

 

Can't say gov't is over regulating at all, but if DVR can't do correct job, can't help instant check on alarms, then we as installers and service providers are going to pay the price

 

Anyone use this Geo Center V2 already...

[rory 0]

i've tested it out, but havent had a need for it as yet.

[pandorabox2050 0]

i've tested it out, but havent had a need for it as yet.

 

true, who really needs more than 80 cameras per project. not many. but it's a good article for sharing info. when you need something, you know where to go

 

recently at isc Geo showed prototype of "control center" ... i assume this new ap is more useful than traditional cms console

 

something more on false alarm, i found a report on SecurityInfoWatch.com

 

interestingly enough, in dallas, the city hall also proposed to fine our residential and commercial clients over false alarms. i wonder if this's gonna be a trend for whole america...

[rory 0]

well actually it would be better if there were more than 25 cameras in one multi view ... otherwise 80 camera thing is useless.

[Thomas 0]

The problem with 16+ cameras in one view is the human factor. We just don't see well above 9 cameras. I've seen 64 camera views on a single screen (large plasma, I didn't measure it) and it's just tough to understand all of it.

[pandorabox2050 0]

well actually it would be better if there were more than 25 cameras in one multi view ... otherwise 80 camera thing is useless.

 

as far as i remember, geo control ctr supports 64 cameras across from mutisites, and per ctr can support up to 4 monitors if graphic card itself permits. can't wait to see it...

 

once visited taipei secu show, some small factories are making some fancy dvr... by fancy, they look futuristic like starwars... but, i have to say, customers consider that as toys.

 

agreed with thomas, it's a human factor, lots of customers are using PDP to display many many partitions per monitor... that's crazy since in fact, for the really important one, they still have to buy geo loop card for looping video to a single lcd panel...

[Securitymaster 0]

one thing that comes to mind is that, no matter what anyone tells me, I still think that CRT has a better quality pciture than an LCD. Is just a sharper image.

[Thomas 0]

It's harder to find a LCD with good color responce. The LCD I use here for instance works fine for work stuff (e-mail, etc) but it's color responce is simply too poor for it to be used as a DVR monitor (ie, why it sits on a salesman's desk) and when I do view cameras on it, they can make cameras look washed out. It's a problem with the cheaper IR bullets in particular during the day. (Which makes sense since they are washed out to begin with.)

 

But the Plasmas are just freaking great.

[Roman 0]

What about using secondry monitor for layouts with a lot of cameras? Say, 16+16, 9+9, 16+9 etc. These layouts seem to be operator friendly, aren't they?

[Thomas 0]

Second monitors and even quad set ups work but I recall reading in Damjanovski's book that most guards can't handle more then 3x3 without loss of focus.

[rory 0]

the 30 site/camera remote software i made for the Geo cards, is fine to me, and its on a 17" CRT ... its going to be at least 36 site/cameras when its complete (depends on the Geo speed as requires a seperate connection for each single camera window, if i can take it up to 64 way i will) ...

 

i mean there are other multi views to bring up cameras closer ... for general observation though, 30 way view is fine, and 36 or 49 way on a 60" monitor would be good also, ive tested 36 way on this 17" CRT so i know it would be great on a plasma / LCD.. Then again there are the rear projection multi display panels ... you could always line a bunch of them uptogether . bottom line is if i have a 64 camera software i want to be able to see all 64 cameras in one view, then bring them up closer if need be. There are other ways to do it in the software also such as PIP, or a 28 view with 6x6 but 3x3 (9) being a larger view that opens a camera on motion, etc ..

 

basically Center2 has too much wasted space with text and empty areas ...

 

otherwise it worked well for remote recording, i tested it for a couple days and recorded all the motion detection ..

[Roman 0]

The problem with 16+ cameras in one view is the human factor. We just don't see well above 9 cameras. I've seen 64 camera views on a single screen (large plasma, I didn't measure it) and it's just tough to understand all of it.

 

That's correct, however there is also a difference. With two monitors the guard can have 3x3 on the left and 3x3 on the right and turn his head from one monitor to the other. On each one he will see not much feeds to get his focus lost. Having 2x3x3 on one monitor his focus is gone and lost forever (just a guess-work though).

 

I hit the edit rather then the reply button. My bad, I think I have this post restored to what it was prior to me being dumb. If not, let me know and it will be fixed. -Thomas

[Thomas 0]

It's not a can it be done, we can do a sixty-four camera layout with ease in our software. The problem is the Mk. 1 Eyeball and Mk.1 Brain that most people have. The eye is like any lens, your best sight is in the center and the brain is wired to look for motion to focus the best sight you have on a target.

 

When you have alot of views, the brain simply has trouble processing it. Even if you make it larger the problem is still information overload. Now you can do some things to ease this. One way we do it is by setting up a second window that simply flips to what what cameras are seeing motion. Another way to have it is more guards.

 

I'm sure when Cooperman gets here, he'll recall the studies on it but there are alot of things that are differant when you switch from passive recording to active monitoring.

[rory 0]

Yeah but for remote monitoring, we arent talking about a guard sitting down watching non stop video for 8 hours .. local video i would agree the smaller the multi views the better. Most guard booths dont have the room for 4 or more 50" Plasmas or LCDs, just 1

 

Using a gated community here as an example ... 64 camera multi view .. over a wireless network. Guards arent watching the video conitinously, but if something happens, then they look for the problem amongst the cameras easily (large screen), and bring the camera up in full view, or a smaller multi view. There are alarm beams around certain points, which trigger the alarm and they can then bring up the appropriate camera, or if there is a PTZ there it zooms in on the area of the beam closer. and pops up the video into a single window. They can still scan all the cameras in the 64 view easily enough, and since they are using Extreme IR its plain as day, at night.

 

All cameras are recording, regardless of whether they catch an incident or miss it. There are guards on tours out in the field. Relying on just a remote watcher is not enough security, i mean if you had a guard for each 4 cameras in a quad view, then perhaps, but you're talking about an average of 2-3 guards in the booth at one time, where at least one has to handle the gate entry. Ofcourse there are multiple booths with other security guards, and they have canine units and Special response teams (weapons) driving around.

 

Anyway this is the scenerio for at least 3 of the largest gated communities down here (multi billion dollar homes) ... perhaps a little different from the application everyone else was thinking about ..

[Thomas 0]

It works if remote monitoring is someone doing a spot check. But for control center software, why would you make it work against guards that are monitoring?

[Thomas 0]

[

That's correct, however there is also a difference. With two monitors the guard can have 3x3 on the left and 3x3 on the right and turn his head from one monitor to the other. On each one he will see not much feeds to get his focus lost. Having 2x3x3 on one monitor his focus is gone and lost forever (just a guess-work though).

 

 

It's still a focus issue. If you move the monitors apart far enough then he's moving his head back and forth. If they are close then all you have done is put a bigger monitor in place. It's not a resolution issue, it's a data overload issue. It's not hard to test if you go to a client. Sit in front of their machine and watch in a 32 camera view. Keep scanning and keeping an eye out. It's really, really tiring and hard to keep going for more then 15 min.

[rory 0]

It works if remote monitoring is someone doing a spot check. But for control center software, why would you make it work against guards that are monitoring?

 

But then what exactly is a control center ..? I mean most of us arent doing mision critical stuff here .. Guards will always have other guards out doing tours, otherwise its not very good security in place, there will always be alarm systems in place, or security would not be priority to them.

 

I mean if we really want to look at it from security side, then there should only be 1 camera per guard.