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video surveillance
trends
what is the strongest trend in video
surveillance today?
Kent Fransson: "In terms of resolution and
picture quality, it is clear that HDTV is the new
standard. Today, everyone is talking about either
720 or 1080. Another trend is that the society's
acceptance of video surveillance has increased in
almost all parts of the world."
Björn Adméus: "Quality has become
important in all situations: both during night
time and daytime and also when it comes
to photosensitivity. Today, people are simply
more sensible about quality. Security cameras
are so much more than just cameras; they are
intelligent devices. For example, with motion
detection the number of false alarms is mini-
mized. Another trend is that people tend to look
at the whole picture, on how well components
fit together in the system and how well various
products operate together."
Pieter van de Looveren: "The discussion
will not only be to use a 12, 15 or another multi
megapixel camera. The focus will be deliver-
ing meaningful IP video surveillance solutions
to the market place that offer operators or end
users highest quality of relevant IP video surveil-
lance images. There is also an increasing demand
for mobile access to your HD video footage. IP
video surveillance needs to be easy to manage
as well as affordable. Especially for SMB and
residential applications, cloud technology is
taking off."
what is your opinion about 4K
when it comes to security cameras?
Kent Fransson: "I think we will see exactly
the same thing as with HDTV, which was
driven by the consumer market and where
prices decreased pretty quickly. The same thing
will happen with 4K, but with one major differ-
ence: earlier the security industry was about five
years behind the consumer market, nowadays
it might only be a year. However, the impact
of 4K will not be as explosive as with HDTV
because most people do not know what 4K
is. Also, HD made a major difference when it
hit the market and that will not be the case for
4K. There is no doubt 4K will enhance video
surveillance in that you will be able to digitally
zoom into images and, for example, will be able
to see if a person has a knife in his hand or if it is
something else."
Björn Adméus: "Today's major bottleneck
is compression. When you send files over the
network, the issue is how to extract them in the
central application. We will launch a 4K camera
some time during 2015 and we will display a
prototype of it at ISC West and Ifsec this year. I
believe 4K will breakthrough within 2-3 years,
but not for all applications. We see that HD is ad-
equate in many installations and 4K will primarily
be used when you want to cover large areas such
as airports."
Pieter van de Looveren: "At four times
the resolution of full HD (1080p), ultra HD
provides a tremendous advantage in detail
capture with crisp, vivid images even when
zoomed in digitally. Ultra HD from Bosch is the
first real ultra HD camera for video surveillance
applications and Ultra HD is ideal for airports,
banks, gaming centres, shopping malls, retail
stores, parking areas, public transportation like
platforms and walkways as well as stadiums and
for large area surveillance."
Will the race for megapixels ever
come to an end?
Kent Fransson: "Everything will always be bet-
ter. But if we look at the digital camera consumer
market the megapixel race has almost come to
an end. Instead, it is all about optics and noise
reduction. It is very important to not just focus
on megapixels."
Björn Adméus: "It feels a little bit like it has
already run out. People have realised that HD
or Full HD is good enough and that there is a
quality difference between HD and megapixel
cameras: although there are fewer pixels in a HD
camera, picture quality will be a lot better than
with the megapixel camera."
Pieter van de Looveren: "We expect that it
will continue for a while looking for example at
developments within the film industry. In con-
sumer markets megapixels are still an important
argument in the mind set of customers for buying,
"more is better." Often forgotten however, is that
more megapixels also mean more data and there-
fore require better processing power, more storage
space and higher bandwidth requirements."
As resolution continues to increase,
how big is the problem with band-
width?
Kent Fransson: "Well, bandwidth is increas-
ing, but compression is also becoming more
effective. H265 will be launched to the market
in a few years and it will reduce bandwidth by
up to 50 percent compared to H264. You could
say that 4K will multiply the bandwidth by four
and then H265 will divide it by two. Because fi-
bre networks are becoming more common, I do
not think bandwidth will be a major problem in
the future."
Björn Adméus: "Today, most people have
realised that they should not put up an IP
camera on the existing network, but create new
networks for security applications. It minimizes
problems with bandwidth. However, if you have
a Full HD camera recording 50 frames per sec-
ond, of course it requires more of your network.
In summary, I do not think bandwidth will
be a big problem and there will be new, better
compression coming soon."
Pieter van de Looveren: "Bandwidth will
be an ever-increasing challenge for the coming
years. We need to manage the data at its source
and therefore in the camera. The intelligent
camera can decide what to record and therefore
stream via the network consuming bandwidth
or what not to stream based on pre-defined
rules. Another challenge that comes with it is
managing your data storage most efficiently.
Storage costs often account for 50 percent of
total system costs, so therefore you also want
to limit possible redundant storage capacity to
keep certain retention times or to built-in extra
reliability."
Today there are HD security cameras
that can record 60 frames per second.
Is that really necessary?
Kent Fransson: "It depends on what you
are shooting. Normally, not very much will
happen between each frame, but with traffic
surveillance for example, it will be a whole
lot easier to recognise a license plate. In many
countries, people sit and watch live video
surveillance footage, and for them it will be
an improvement because pictures flow much
better with high frame rates."
Björn Adméus: "Most security applications
today use 12-15 frames per second, but there
are needs for more in specific environments. For
example, in traffic and city surveillance you do
want to be able to see patterns of movement.
Same thing in the heavy industry where you
want to follow a process and break it down into
frame by frame."
"4K will be the next big trend in video surveillance"
IP cameras and video surveillance continues to develop rapidly. In this
article, experts from three major surveillance camera manufacturers will
share their view on the major trends of today: Kent Fransson, Product
Manager, Axis, Pieter van de Looveren, Manager Marketing Communica-
tion Video Systems, Bosch and Björn Adméus, Regional Sales Manager
North europe, Sony.
By Henrik Söderlund