CCTV today comes with super advance facial recognition function.
Those more advance DVR can even detect human faces in the video and saved as thumbnail image index. With the index, it is very easy to retrieve the required video footage by checking and clicking the thumbnail image index.
But somehow I don't think it can tell the difference between the following individuals.
Take a look at this 2 new drinks from Coke and Pepsi.
Did you check if your CCTV gear was RoHS Compliance? RoHS stands for Restriction on Hazardous Substances, for more detail check out my previous posting, Livi's 501.
Some readers might find the 2nd photo in this post disturbing, reader discretion is advised.
A boxful of damaged network Ip camera.
It reminds me of Pol Pot's killing field.
This is a follow up to “Better Safe than Sorry” post.
Those IP cameras were brought to us for repair by a CCTV installer, after inspection those IP cameras was damaged by power surged. It could be the power grid's power surged or another more likely culprit, lightning strike induction.
Induction is a very common phenomenon in tropical countries. It is caused by nearby lightning strikes. Induction generates high voltage spikes in electronic gear, this sudden power spikes will damage electronic circuit in the CCTV equipment.
Please note that, all electrical and electronic gear damaged by power surge is not covered by the limited warranty.
Hence, again, it is better safe than sorry. Power surge protector is highly recommended in any deployment of CCTV system.
A gentleman came to see us the other day. He owns a house in a gated community and he would like to install a full fledged CCTV system.
I asked him, why does he need a CCTV system in such a water tight security gated community, Desa Park City to be precise.
During my last visit to that place, I remember I had to pass through 2 guard houses before I can get to my friend's house.
The gentleman asked me if I had heard a Malay proverb, “harapkan pagar, pagar makan padi”. In English, " You rely on the fence to protect you rice field, the fence eats the rice"
It simply means those guards can not be trusted.
I suppose he is right, it is better safe than sorry.
World No.1 tennis player and Wimbledon defending champion, Rafael Nadal announced last Friday that he would skip Wimbledon 2009, citing tendinitis in his knee.
Like Nadal, no matter how good is your CCTV gear, it will still break down. Hence after sale service is a must to any surveillance solution and deployment. Good after sale service with quick repair turnaround time is utmost important to reduce downtime.
I had decided starting from today, every Sunday is “No CCTV” day.
Sunday will be reserved for movies, music, books review, hobbies, food & beverages, traveling, investment, new ideas, new product (not CCTV gear) etc.
Lets jump start our very first No-CCTV-Sunday with this bizarre but wonderful music played by a British-born, Australian-affiliated violinist, Jon Rose. Enjoy.
Here are some press quotes;
"Fence music creates Australian soundscapes and liberates troubled hearts. " Sydney Morning Herald
"Jon Rose is more than simply a curiosity, he molests our sense of profundity." El Pais, Spain
"There's not much Rose doesn't know about the violin. The rest, he has invented." Artforce Magazine
"Jon Rose's Music from 4 Fences brought the concert to a thrillingly visceral close, with Kronos scraping their bows along amplified wire fences. The symbolism of creating music from barbed wire - in a program inspired by conflict - was inescapable, giving the work a resonance that echoed in the mind long after the final notes had disappeared." Melbourne Age
CCTV system can only work when all its components work together at the same time.
For instance, if you want to perform distance monitoring with your handphone;
you need a working camera, the camera power supply, connecting cable and plug from camera to the DVR, a working DVR, the DVR power supply, connecting cable and plug from DVR to the router & modem, a connecting broadband, a mobile phone network, a supporting handphone.
In other words a CCTV solution is as good as your weakest link. If one of the components, say the video connecting BNC plug is of inferior quality, the video quality you received on the phone will be poor too.
This is a follow up to my previous posting, cheap.
Not all CCTV gear are build alike, just like not all cars are build alike.
Let me remind you, the content of your car and your real estate are equally important to you. You don't want your family member in the poorly build car as much as in a house which is 'protected' by poorly design surveillance solution with 'cheap' inferior CCTV gear, do you?
June, 16th 2009, parang-wielding robbers terrorized 6 restaurants and a budget hotel in Puchong in an hour-long robbing spree. They made off with approximately RM9,000, seven cellular phones, some jewelery and a school bag.
My friend is still very sore over the loss of a big CCTV job.
Today I would like to share this song with all of you out there. I found it reassuring and uplifting, especially in this tough economic times.
Pay attention at 1.38. Personally, I think it's a very wise statement.
Enjoy!
Mozez - Feel Free
Think i've heard it all before You keep knocking on heaven's door On the road to a looming night You explore the madden clouds For all the reasons that i can't tell The road to heavens and the road to hell
So wrap your finger around the world And treat it like you've found a hidden pearl
Feel free (just be what you wanna be) Be young (feel free, you've gotta be) Be happy (be happy as you wanna be) Live long (live, long as you wanna live) Feel free (just be what you wanna be) Be young (feel free, you've gotta be) Be happy (be happy as you wanna be) Live long (live, live, long as you wanna live)
Been to a wishing well Hoping for what time can't tell For all that you can't find Were they meant to be left behind?
So wrap your fingers around the world And treat it like you've found a hidden pearl
Feel free (just be what you wanna be) Be young (feel free, you've gotta be) Be happy (be happy as you wanna be) Live long (live, long as you wanna live) Feel free (just be what you wanna be) Be young (feel free, you've gotta be) Be happy (be happy as you wanna be) Live long (live, live, long as you wanna live)
Be the star: You want to shine on Walk through the darkness Be strong In the light of oneness Live on You belong You are strong Be the star: You want to shine on Walk through the darkness Be strong In the light of oneness Live on You belong You are strong
Feel free (just be what you wanna be) Be young (feel free, you've gotta be) Be happy (be happy as you wanna be) Live long (live, long as you wanna live) Feel free (just be what you wanna be) Be young (feel free, you've gotta be) Be happy (be happy as you wanna be) Live long (live, live, long as you wanna live)
(just be what you wanna be) (feel free, you've gotta be) (be happy as you wanna be) (live, long as you wanna live) (just be what you wanna be) (feel free, you've gotta be) (be happy as you wanna be) (live, long as you wanna live)
Wikipedia explains 'Thinking outside the box' is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel, creative and smart thinking.
It is important in our CCTV industry to think outside of the box when it comes to designing a surveillance solution.
Here are 2 examples;
Conventional : to deploy an infrared camera at a dark area Alternative 1: to install a lamp and a normal camera Alternative 2: to deploy a low Lux camera
Conventional : to deploy multiple cameras at the site. Alternative 1: to deploy a megapixel camera. Alternative 2: to deploy a PTZ speed Dome.
... and here are 2 alternative movie plots, enjoy.
World Health Organization (WHO) had escalated the swine influenza pandemic alert to the highest phase, phase number 6, made H1N1 a first ever 21st century official flu pandemic.
Putting human cost aside for a moment, let us explore how this development will affect our CCTV industry.
H1N1 outbreak is definitely a boon to the private health care and medical industry, a bane to tourism and traveling industry.
If people try not to travel, they will turn to technology to substitute the physical traveling like making phone call, emailing, messaging, tele-conferencing, and CCTV Internet distance monitoring.
This powerful and yet simple surveillance solution will allow its authorized user to distant monitor multiple sites, or business outlets from the comfort of their office or house. A user can simultaneously monitor all sites with a Internet connected computer or a mobile phone. This CCTV solution give you the power of omnipresence, and to time travel to the past when you remotely playback the recorded footage.
CCTV remote monitoring is indeed a very powerful tool, lets hope this flu outbreak will trigger a pan-global CCTV deployment.
Back in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, I still don't see anyone wearing mask. Seriously even when I see someone on the street wearing a mask, I dunno if it was for the flu or the haze. In South East Asia, we are now experiencing a seasonal phenomenon call haze or smog during the midyear dry season. This haze is 'believe' to be caused by farmers in Indonesia who set illegal bush fires to clear land for planting, causing smoke to drift across the Malacca Strait into the neighboring countries. Some says those culprits in Indonesia are actually Malaysians.
Whatever it is, care to wear this elaborated mask?
Day before yesterday we talked about customers who were looking for cheap CCTV solution, today I would like to draw your attention to another group of customers.
This group of customers are those who would like to have a CCTV solution which has 'ALL' the available CCTV functions and features despite those functions are irrelevant to their application.
To me they are like asking for a overly excessive swiss knife. I dunno if it was due to their paranoid nature or greed... a little bit of both I suppose. Come to think of it, it could be paranoid turned greed. Like when we feel insecure we tend to eat excessively.
The most practical Swiss Army knife to me, is a simple pocket knife which comes with a USB drive and a laser pointer.
Wanted to write something else today, but a CCTV installer visit prompted me to share this video with you.
This CCTV installer and a long time time friend came to see me. He was furious and felt betrayed, he said he will not participate in any CCTV job tender in the future no more. He said his company had spent months in the design of the CCTV solution for the tender, and someone just took his design and hijacked the job.
At that time I dunno what to say to him but now I remember this speech by Steve Jobs and I would like to share this video with him.
My friend, if you want to be successful in business or anything for that matter, the only way to get there is to stay hungry and foolishly keep trying.
During this economy downturn many walk-in customers are looking for economic CCTV solution.
I remember one of them said philosophically, “a camera is a camera, like car, both cheap or a luxurious car can ferry you from point A to point B, only a fool will buy a luxurious car.
Ehem.... I don't mean to be rude, but how about traveling time, comfort and safety? In CCTV term, Frame Per Second, TV Line and Reliability. Of cause you can get yourself a cheap car and of cause you can choose to lock your car in the following manners too. It is cheap, it is your choice, it's your life after all.
My advice is please don't fall into the penny wise pound foolish trap.
Since the world equity markets greatly affected our CCTV business and it will continue to do so, I had included a world share market ticker for your reference.
You may have a home network with a permanent-on broadband connection that allows you to access the outside world anytime 24/7, but how do you go the other direction and access your home network from the public Internet? This is possible if you can afford to spend two to four times the money on a broadband account with a fix or static IP address. Fortunately there is an easy solution to solve this problem with DDNS (Dynamic DNS) service. A DDNS service helps a dynamic IP user (non fix IP user) to tie their ever changing dynamic public IP address to a fix IP hostname or domain name.
Most name brand IP camera comes with free DDNS services, for example;
Panasonic: viewnetcam.com
Vivotek: Safe100.net
This free DDNS is for the authorized IP camera user to perform remote monitoring via Internet or handphone. Some smart IP camera users actually free riding on this free but stable DDNS to perform the following tasks;
(1) Host a personal Web site from your own computer.
(2) Host your own FTP server.
(3) Remote Desktop or VNC into your own personal computer from anywhere on the Internet.
(4) Host your own game server.
(5) Host your videos with something like a Slingbox.
In other words, this free for life (or rather paid for) principle provided DDNS makes those IP camera absolutely a bargain. The IP camera actually paid for itself after a while with the money you saved from subscribing to a fix IP line.
In order to integrate analog cameras with IP network camera, network video server is an option and the other option is to deploy a hybrid surveillance system.
A hybrid NDVR system comes with analog composite video supporting DVR and digital network camera supporting NVR software.
Both network video server and NDVR provide surveillance users the flexibility to tailer made a most cost effective and efficient integrated cctv solution, which capitalizes on the advantages of both the analog and digital network surveillance gears.
Like this pair of shoes, hybrid gives you the best of two worlds.
"Everyone deserves a second chance" - Terminator Salvation (2009)
A factory owner came to see us the other day. He said he has a 8 years old 4 channel CCTV system at his factory which had cost him more than RM10K, it is still in perfect working condition but it does not has network remote monitoring capability.
After a 2 hours discussion, we had come to the conclusion that the best solution is to convert and to integrate the 4 existing high quality analog cameras into a new 12 channel IP based surveillance solution with the help of network video servers.
Network IP video servers provide a reliable transition from analog CCTV to IP-Based Surveillance. A video servers receive composite video data from the existing analog camera, encode it, securely encrypted and feed the signal into a Local Area Network or Wide Area Network for both monitoring and recording.
With video server, upgrading and migrating from an existing analog surveillance system to an IP-based digital system made easy and cost effective. In other words video server manage to revitalize an old analog surveillance system, like Matthew Perry (47) turned Zac Efron (17) in the movie 17 again so to speak.
A prospect came to see us and he wanted us to help him to deploy a cctv system at his house on that evening itself. He said he is willing to pay a bit extra and if we could not put up the system on that night he would bring his business elsewhere. Though it was a simple job as he required a 4 cameras system, 3 outdoor IR cameras and 1 indoor dome camera but our technicians are occupied that day.
I asked him why is he in such a hurry. He said his house was burglered twice within a month's time and that morning he drove around his neighborhood, his son pointed out to him that many houses especially most of their neighboring houses had CCTV no wonder the burglars pick their house.
Did we help the gentleman to put up the system that day? No, we sold him 2 dummy cameras that day and help him to put up a proper system the following day.
After we had put up the CCTV system, it is again fair and equal.
Do you know most business crime are committed by someone you know?
Store shrinkage, white collar crime like identity and information theft were the biggest cost to employers after payroll and medical care. Study shows that both the physical goods and valuable information were largely pilfered by the company own employee.
Posts
