Remote CCTV monitoring ? rather than traditional CCTV monitoring ? is helping to reduce crime in SA.
So said Laurence Smith, an executive at Graphic Image Technologies, in an interview with ITWeb last week.
The benefits of CCTV monitoring are clear, and apply to businesses of all sizes, said Smith. "Monitoring of CCTV footage allows you to keep an eye on your perimeter, monitor unwanted intruders as well as make use of footage to lay criminal charges against a perpetrator.
According to a paper released by the Civilian Secretariat for Police (policesecretariat.gov.za), titled "An assessment around closed circuit television surveillance with reference to the Benoni project", he said, CCTV appeared to have a reducing effect on property crime (mainly burglaries at business premises and vehicle-related crime), but only in the areas covered by the camera.
However, traditional CCTV monitoring is limited, said Smith. "For example, one has to be on the premises to monitor the footage. Also, someone is required to watch the footage 24/7 to spot any activity," he pointed out.
Remote monitoring brings a whole new aspect to CCTV - it offers users a wealth of benefits over and above the traditional CCTV monitoring, he said.
"From your control room, to your PC, to your tablet, to your phone, remote CCTV monitoring gives you 24/7 access to your sites, be they local, remote or mobile," he noted.
Smith explained technologies on the market offer efficient streaming capabilities that make remote CCTV monitoring smooth.
For example, he added, SerVision, a mobile video solution, is able to stream over GPRS, Edge, 3G, ADSL and any other IP network infrastructure.
He said the remote CCTV monitoring challenge facing organisations in SA is bandwidth affordability.
Digital video streams typically require extensive bandwidth, Smith said. While home, office LANs, and broadband connections provide reasonable bandwidth capacity, cellular networks tend to be very limited, he noted.
He revealed, in the security market, a large percentage of the applications and specific sites are subject to narrow bandwidth constraints. One of the key challenges facing remote CCTV monitoring was finding a way to transmit high-quality video over all types of IP networks.
To meet this challenge, SerVision has developed advanced video handling technologies, Smith said. "Innovative compression techniques make it possible to transmit very high-quality video recordings over narrow bandwidths. As a result, video gateways can stream smooth video over cellular network links so remote users can view live feeds in real-time via their PC, laptop or smartphone."
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