Access Control And Video Surveillance News From April 2015
By The Business Solutions Network
Each month, Business Solutions reports news on business in the channel. This month in access control and video surveillance news, Milestone Systems enhanced its NVR series, Sony adds a 4K camera, Axis Communications unveils a new camera and an installation tool, and Genetec announces cloud-based license plate recognition and updates to its Security Center VMS.
Milestone Enhances NVR
Milestone Systems recently announced new enhancements to its Milestone Husky M10, the smallest footprint in its series of Milestone Husky network video recorders (NVRs). The Milestone Husky M10 can be an edge-recording device in a network or a stand-alone device. An important feature for the Milestone Husky M10 is Video Push in the Milestone Mobile client. This enables a smartphone or tablet running the Milestone Mobile client to act as a mobile security camera, pushing video to the Milestone Husky M10 network video appliance using a mobile or Wi-Fi network, yielding on-the-go video documentation and immediate awareness of incidents.
Sony Adds 4K Camera
Sony is adding 4K imaging to its line of security technologies, with its new SNC-VM772R camera. This camera is designed for city surveillance, transportation, railway, traffic monitoring, and airport surveillance applications. A 2.9x motorized zoom lens is matched to the image sensor to maximize video resolution. The lens features optical image stabilization and helps capture images with low distortion. Intelligent cropping and multitracking show an overview of an area and allows for “region of interest” selection of up to a maximum of four areas at a time so users can select only the portion of an image they want to see in 4K resolution, while also streaming a scaled full HD image. This results in 50 percent less bandwidth consumption by reducing the amount of video transmitted in 4K resolution and makes wide area monitoring more effective and targeted.
Axis Unveils New Camera, Installation Tool
AXIS Q3709-PVE Network Camera has three 4K sensors that together provide a detailed 180-degree overview of a large area, outdoors as well as indoors, in an efficient one-camera installation. The camera provides video with unparalleled streaming performance, smoothly capturing movements in high detail at 30 frames per second (fps).
Axis Communications recently unveiled the first camera in its new Q37 Series. “The Q3709-PVE ships with three 4K sensors that together provide a 180-degree view (up to 33 megapixel resolution) without any stitching in the center of the image,” explains Fredrik Nilsson, general manager, Axis Communications. This large-scale situational awareness is useful for applications in stadiums, airports, and train stations.
No focusing is required since the lenses are factory-focused. The camera is discreet and outdoor-ready (IP66 and NEMA 4X ratings) with a removable weather shield that protects against rain, snow, and sunlight. The unit is also vandal-resistant with an IK10 rating. Finally, the camera, which offers a video streaming performance of 3 x 4K at 30 fps or 3 x 11 megapixels at 20 fps, offers video motion detection and a tampering alarm.
Axis also unveiled its new T8415 Wireless Installation Tool, designed to aid in the on-site installation of network cameras. The T8415 is a battery-powered handheld device that connects directly to a camera and displays live video at the installation site. This makes setting the camera’s viewing angle and focus easier than with the use of a laptop or remote computer.
Genetec Announces Cloud-Based License Plate Recognition, Update To Security Center VMS
Genetec recently announced AutoVu Plate Reader Cloud, its new software-based license plate recognition solution for its AutoVu Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system. This new module will allow customers to enhance standard IP video surveillance cameras with ALPR capabilities instead of requiring a specialized license plate recognition unit.
AutoVu Plate Reader Cloud is designed for applications such as parking lot monitoring, automatic gate, or garage doors. Using triggers such as motion or cross-line detection, or hardware triggers, including in-ground loop and IR sensors, AutoVu Plate Reader Cloud will detect vehicles and upload a short encrypted video feed to its cloud-based engine, where the image analysis is performed. The data will be sent back to the local Genetec Security Center system, usually in less than one second, to be compared to vehicle lists and used to document arrival/departure credentials, open gates, or trigger alerts.
Genetec also recently updated its Security Center product to version 5.3. With the growing adoption of multimegapixel cameras and introduction of 4K devices, Security Center 5.3 will improve system performance when managing high-resolution video streams. Through the use of hardware-accelerated video decoding, Security Center 5.3 will leverage workstation graphics cards and embedded graphics processing units (GPU) to decode video and reduce processing demand on the CPU. Security Center 5.3 will also introduce its Incident Recording feature. With it, operators will be able to record video sequences from multiple cameras to storyboard an incident from beginning to end and then export them into a single video clip for review by other investigators.