Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Who’s watching the store? -The rise of cheap digital video surveillance


You are lying in bed watching the ten o’clock news and the story about a local robbery cuts to a video showing two masked people robbing a convenience store. We have all seen it. It’s like a car alarm going off at 3am. You are aware of it but it’s nothing new. One jumps over the counter and assaults the counter person while the other make off with cash and lottery tickets. These people are caught. Not be the authorities. Not by the baseball bat swinging storeowner. They are all caught on camera.

That camera was installed to protect that business and winds up being used to help solve a missing persons case or catch a hooded criminal or show the court that the person suing you for falling on the icy sidewalk in front of your business actually fell across the street. It happens and it happens daily.

In a bad economy, it doesn’t take a CNN poll to know that crime goes on the rise. The world’s on high alert and the state of the nations security bounces between orange and yellow daily. And with cheap overseas made CCTV (Closed-Circuit Tele-Vision. A name carried over from the 60’s to describe a direct connection between a camera and a video monitor bypassing any public broadcasting.). These newly computerized security systems are selling faster than iPads. It’s getting hard to cross the street in any part of urban America and not be captured by one of them. We have given up a bit of our privacy in a gleeful exchange for the element of safety. And, unlike the world’s airports, nobody seems to mind here.

But how reliable are these cheap imported security systems that might be the last link in a life and death missing person’s case? How good could the video possibly be when the whole system costs less than a shiny new iPad? That is the one element almost 90% of the digital security system consumer market overlooks.

New York City, in particular, has seen an influx of low-end security systems. The bottom line is that the average security consumer is not even aware there is a quality element involved in making a purchasing decision. And a lot of the time, it’s only after they actually have to review something that it becomes apparent there is not enough resolution or video performance to actually be useful. And this might be why nobody was able to identify those two store robbers we all kind of saw on the 10 o’clock news. Like any technology and any car you buy, blender to make your summer icy drinks and large screen TV, price reflects quality and features. It simply costs more to get that clean smooth and sharp video. Those cameras cost more. The recorders cost more to manufacture. There is very little way around that.

There are some particularly great companies in New York that have shown an ability to capture high end CCTV footage. Artisan LVX has been recognized as a leader in New York CCTV camera installations. They install the newest type of CCTV systems know as IP Camera Systems and NVR recorders. Unlike the common analog systems, IP systems and IP Cameras use the standard computer Ethernet network and cost effective cat5e cable to transmit their video to network-ready recorders. Since you are no longer confined to the old video transmission systems using antenna cable, and RG59, you can pump up the quality and resolution to far-beyond high definition or “HD Video” Standards.. Some of these new IP cameras have resolutions surpassing even an impressive 6 megapixels. With that kind of quality, criminals and people of interest are easily identified at great distances. Coverage areas can now be widened with near fish-eye lenses and still have fantastic quality. This in some cases, do away with expensive zoom lenses , PTZ or “Pan Tilt Zoom cameras” and more importantly, nobody has to be watching to zoom or move the lens. Artisan LVX carries the finest names in IP security and IP cameras from companies like Exacq, Bosch, Everfocus , Speco and Panasonic. Plus, IP networks are not just point-to-point, You can record a single or an array of cameras from several recorders at once. This can create a solid layer of redundancy. In many cases, after a break in, the DVR recorders are the first things taken. When there’s a second off-site recorder backing up the local one, chances of a successful review are greatly increased.

New York City continues to be the perfect testing ground for the advancement of security and video surveillance systems of all types. If it can be proven here, it can secure you anywhere. Check out more info on New York City CCTV Camera Installer