Box Fan

The other day one of our existing CCTV customer was rather annoyed when we said we couldn't help him to set up a burglar alarm system in his office.


As CCTV gear, software and more importantly customer's CCTV requirements are getting more and more sophisticated, a security generalist simply not good enough to meet the needs of an ever-demanding surveillance market. We rather be a specialist in CCTV than a generalist in the security industry.



I am in this line for more than 10 years and always prided myself a handyman but when I tried to open the front and back covers of my dinning room's box fan for cleaning yesterday, it took me close to an hour! This experience of mine send the same message to us loud and clear; leave a specific job to a specific specialist – a CCTV company not suppose to get involve with burglar alarm system and likewise a non-CCTV specialist like those burglar alarm, autogate, network IT supplier & installer are not suppose to supply & deploy CCTV system.

I Remember

Yesterday a CCTV installer long-time friend told me that he is toying with the idea of quiting the business after Chinese New Year (end January 2009) as the economy had hit his business hard.

I shared with him this quote;

"Believe me when I say we have a difficult time ahead of us. But if we are to be prepared for it, we must first shed our fear of it. I stand here, before you now, truthfully unafraid. Why? Because I believe something you do not? No, I stand here without fear because I remember. I remember that I am here not because of the path that lies before me but because of the path that lies behind me. I remember that for 100 years we have fought these machines. I remember that for 100 years they have sent their armies to destroy us, and after a century of war I remember that which matters most... We are still here!" Morpheus - The Matrix Reloaded 2003

I told him if a line from a movie character is not convincing enough, here is a statement from the wealthiest man in the real world;

"We'll survive current and future recessions just as we've survived past problems" Warren Buffett August 2007

We can't predict the future but by remembering the past we can be optimistic about the future.

Cloud 9

Riding on the Web2.0 trend, Cloud Computing is getting more and more popular. Some optimists even predicted that in a vary near future both software and hardware will be like water & electricity. PC no longer need software or powerful hardware as both are available online as services.

It is a vary exciting and intriguing development. It is convenience, flexible and green as Cloud Computing eliminates all physical distribution & it frees up a lot of redundant resources being tied up with underutilized software and hardware. It opens up new possibilities but at the same time closes doors for many existing IT players.

Wonder if Cloud CCTV could make inroads in the surveillance industry. It could spell disaster to all the small players in the industry as the capital intensive Cloud services is destined to be dominated by a few global giants.

But then again, as long as the privacy issue is unresolved, the great CCTV exodus to the cloud is like heading to a mirage in the sky.

Jellyfish

Overheard my teenage niece talking on her cell that all boys breakup with their girl friends is due to jellyfish. Once she got off the phone I asked her the meaning of jellyfish. She smiled and explained, “ jellyfish means nothing big but petty reasons like jealousy and selfishness.”

Over the years in the CCTV industry we had learned that 9 out of 10 CCTV system breakdowns are also caused by jellyfish, 'petty' gears like connector, adapter, power supply, cable etc. Vary rarely a CCTV system failure is caused by main equipment like DVR and the camera.

In other words, no gears in a CCTV system is petty or less important and only those CCTV installers who pay attention to the small stuff or details will produce stable & long lasting CCTV system.

As the saying goes, ' it's the small things in life that count the most.'

Live Life to the Fullest

A friend of mine says mankind no long has privacy with the first ever surveillance camera rolled out from the production line. I told him if he want absolute privacy, pay with cash, send snail postal mail, search with yellow pages, throw away your cellular phone, don't give blood to doctor and never ever travel by airplane or leave the country for that matter.

Like it or not we must take some privacy risk in life in order to live our life to the fullest.

Minimalism in CCTV

Picked up an ID book the other day about Minimalism.

For the pass few years I am a strong advocate of simplicity. I'd done my vary best to keeps everything to the absolute minimum or simple. My adherence to this single principle had brought me tremendous rewards to both my personal and professional life.

It is also holds true for CCTV system deployment. We constantly strike for simplest possible design and deployment of any CCTV solution without compromising the quality and stability of the system.

After years of hands-on experience, simple design and deployment had resulted in CCTV solution which uses less gear, less downtime, less energy, friendlier to the environment, easier usage and contributed handsomely to both customers and our company's bottom line.

Simplicity is indeed the ultimate sophistication.

The Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man was my childhood's all time favorite TV series. For those who are too young to have the pleasure to enjoy the TV series in the 70's, here are the background of the story; astronaut Steve Austin was severely injured during a rocket liftoff and his right arm, both legs and left eye are replaced by bionic implants with a price tag of 6 million dollars. Pretty cheap by today standard though. With the implants he can lift heavy load, run 100km per hour for a long period of time and a 20x Zooming and infrared capability eye.

Today you don't need to get involve in a rocket accident & burn a 6 million dollar's hole in your pocket to turn yourself into a bionic man or woman... well not literally but you can have bionic eye by deploying an IP network camera with 3GPP protocol at home. With this deployment you can distant monitor your house with 3G mobile devices anywhere around the globe.

Melamine in CCTV Industry

The other day I was taken aback by a prospect saying all CCTV man ( and woman I presume) are like lawyers, hell is where they belong. Pretty obvious she had vary bad experiences with her CCTV deployment.

CCTV system is a vary sophisticated & complicated system which required the mastering of many disciplines & crafts like cctv, electronic, audio visual, IT, networking, telecommunication and sometimes even civil engineering and carpentry.

Like melamine in the milk and food industry and Collateralized Debt Obligations in the financial world, we at PocketCCTV had identified 5 types of melamine in our CCTV industry.

a) Counter-faith pirated DVR hardware, software & substandard camera & gear.

b) Parallel-imported equipment with no after sale service and warranty.

c) Incompetent & Inexperienced CCTV consultant & Installer.

d) Substandard supporting gear like the PC, router, cable, connector etc.

e) Over-promised but slow broadband speed & poor coverage of 3G services.

As long as we have the above stated melamine in our CCTV industry we will be forever cursed and looked down by those unwary melamine-tainted CCTV victims.

Halloween – Unidentified Flying Creature

Halloween may come and go, but we are forever fascinated with ghost and monster.

The other day I watched MonsterQuest of History channel on Astro about an unidentified flying creature, they call it Rods with multiple sets of wings. Some think it is a military weapon, others believe it may be a type of atmospheric beast from another dimension.

According to the cryptozoology, Rods are mysterious, elongated flying creatures. Some say it travels too fast to be seen with naked eye. However for decades cameras around the world have been capturing images of this flying, torpedo-like creature. But just what is it?

At the end of the show MonsterQuest sort of arrived at the conclusion that Rods are tricks of light, motion blur, artifacts of video photography. Interlacing is the likely culprit of the creation of this beast on all video footages.

Interlaced scan refers to a methods for "painting" a video image on an electronic display screen . Each frame of interlaced video is composed of two fields that are captured at different moments in time, interlaced video frames will exhibit motion artifacts if the recorded objects are moving fast enough to be in different positions when each individual field is captured especially if the camera is shooting at night with relatively long exposure times. The fast passage before the camera of an insect or even bird flapping its wings has been shown directly to produce rod-like effects.

Look closely to all the recorded footages in your DVR especially those recorded at Halloween night. You might had captured monster or ghost images on hard disk!

Quantum of No Solace

The iris of the much anticipated James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace will open in Malaysia at cinemas nationwide on the 6^th of November.

But last month the iris of the equally exciting Quantum of No Solace in Wall Street was wide open and some experts say it will remain open for at least till the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010!

How bad is this global credit crunch affecting our CCTV industry?

Some says security industry is recession proof & yet some says security may be but security products certainly are not.

Well, one thing for sure, for the time being I will only buy one bond, that's Jame Bond & its stock code is 007.

Then again, I could be wrong! ...That's life.

Drill Drill Drill vs Change Change Change

American President candidate Republican John McCain's “Drill Drill Drill” & Democrat Barack Obama's “Change Change Change” greatly representing & reflecting our CCTV industry's rivalry between the conventional analog solution & the IP network solution.

Both solutions has its pros and cons.

But we are luckier than the American voters. We can tap into the advantages & benefits of both the analog & IP surveillance gear by voting for a hybrid system ( like NUUO hybrid system )

Tonite the American will decide. Wish them have a peaceful presidential election.

White Gold Sentinel

A swiftlet farmer or commonly known as birdnest farmer came to our CCTV outlet to get the same surveillance gear for his 3^rd birdhouse in Sitiawan, Perak.

Edible birdnest farming is a vary lucrative business and the beauty of this business is this type of swiftlet is only available in South East Asia.

Cave like conditioned birdhouse is dark, about 2 to 3 Lux & humid with automated humidifier system with pipes & nozzles. Hence birdhouse required good quality infrared camera with IP66 standard weather proof certification.

Our IP68 (higher than IP66 standard) TANDÉR IR35SN had a proven track record as it had been deployed in more than 20 birdhouses both in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Warfare Gave Birth To CCTV

As the saying goes, “warfare gave birth to new technology”. We just found out it is also true for CCTV gear.



During World War II the German operated the world vary first CCTV system installed at the Peenemunde launch site, so that the world's first ballistic missile Vergeltungswaffe-2 or V-2 launches could be watched from a bunker.

Sony & South Park (28th Oct. 2008)

A customer asked us a vary intriguing question, "What is Sony IP Network Camera SNC-P5 and the animated American television comedy series, South Park's Kenny has in common?"

See for yourself.

TV3 – REMAJA ( 23th October 2008 )

Crews from Malaysia's top free TV channel TV3 with program 'Remaja' main cast Mohd. Syazwan Bin Roslan, E'one had visited our CCTV outlet at Plaza Low Yat to do shooting for the gadgets segment of their show.

PocketCCTV will appear on TV3's Remaja episode 34 gadgets segment which will be aired nationwide on 9th November 2008, Sunday prime time slot 7pm. See you there.

Here are the preview of the show;



TV3 crews were preparing for the shooting. Our colleague Kit (in red) & Allan (in blue) helped to set ting up the 'props'.



Shooting in progress..... E'one performing in front of the camera.

LOUIS VUITTON ( 13th October 2008 )

After a site visit to a new fashion outlet at the Starhill Gallery, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. I stumbled upon this LOUIS VUITTON ( LV ) outlet's window display.



Pretty amazing, right? Don't bother to count, I had counted, a total of breath taking 41 cameras in total to guard the internationally renowned and highly regarded French objet d'art.

RAT'S EYE VIEW ( not too long ago )

Not too long ago, few customers came to our CCTV outlet at Plaza Low Yat to get a recorder for their pipe crawling SUV ( Sport.... no, sorry. It's Sewer Utility Vehicle).



When it was unpacked, it doesn't look like a rat to me but a cross between a Transformer's Autobots and Pixar's Wall-E



Once it was fired up, it sure can move around & gave us a clear rat's eye view!

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