manufacturers in the electronic security industry
still continue to perform their own cyber intrusion
penetration testing (pen testing).
Recently, manufacturers of IP cameras and cloud-
based software have begun offering a closed yet highly
featured system. One such provider has attracted the
attention of several large systems integrators eager
to recover lost profitability from integration labor.
This manufacturer has also attracted investment
analysts who realize that many end users needing
small and mid-sized (less than 64 video cameras)
systems no longer want to pay separately for software
licensing; they want simplified and feature-rich cloudbased
July/August 2019 I 9
platforms.
Several manufacturers in the top ten global market
leaders in the IP video camera segment offer “open
platform” products supporting noncompetitive partners,
as well as a closed system of selected, higher featured
and profitable products.
Another interesting trend is the use of self-developed
SoCs (system on chips) by the IP video camera manufacturers
in lieu of taking advantage of the highly
competitive AI chipset market. This may result in less
supported features, so the support of the BICSI RCDD
and integrator is even more important to evaluate
the best solutions.
recognizes an automatic weapon or knife, communicates
to a cloud platform and is distributed to command
centers, mobile devices or mass notification systems.
From 2013 to 2019, a security industry solution for
an active assailant has moved from reactive response
to real-time lifesaving.
End user expectations on live video have driven IP
video camera manufacturers to offer more efficient
compression methods. Newer IP video systems use a high
efficiency video codec (HEVC), also referred to as h.265,
to squeeze multiple streams through an end user’s
network. A virtual LAN (VLAN) separates improved
critical communications and mass notification from
video streams.
The term “open platform” continues to be overused
and often does not mean plug-and-play commissioning
of IP cameras on a local or cloud-based platform. IP
cameras conforming to the popular Open Network
Video Interface Forum (ONVIF) specification that
defines communications between camera and the
recording and viewing system often require support
and pre-integration of both, as well as manual selection
and verification of the camera and its supported firmware.
In some cases, unsupported firmware can cause
failure to run embedded analytic software in the camera,
impacting the discovery of cyber vulnerabilities. Most
FIGURE 1: Latest AI innovations include IP surveillance cameras that can immediately recognize
the assailant’s weapon, moving the security industry to real-time lifesaving response.