Video Management

Mobile Access to NVR with ACTi MobileGo
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Keep watch on your IP surveillance cameras at all times even when you’re not at home or in the office.

ACTi’s MobileGo! software connects to your NVR to allow live viewing and camera control remotely via iPad, iPhone or iPod.

Free App

It’s a free application and when installed on your devices you’ll gain:

  1. Easy access to live view
  2. PTZ control: Pan, Tilt and Zoom control available for ACTi PTZ cameras, including preset points.
  3. Search and Playback video with both time based and event based search functions.

NOTE:  The free Android version will be available in Q4, 2011.


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Parking Lot Surveillance
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Recognizing that parking lots are areas of high traffic, accidents and crimes IP Video Market Info has put together a Parking Lot Shootout testing IP camera surveillance kits from leading manufacturers like Axis, Bosch, IQinVision, and Sony.

Monitoring a wide area to simulate everyday activity, they then analyzed 12 different scenes from midday to nighttime to twilight hours with several variables.

Click here for the full report.

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Designing an Intrusion Detection System
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There’s a detailed tutorial by John Honovich at IP Security Market Info titled “Designing Intrusion Detection / Alarm Monitoring” where he answers fundamental questions and shares understanding of the options and tradeoffs when designing this system such as:

  • Cost
  • Designing intrustion detection in layers
  • Control panel selection
  • Control / Input / Output devices needed
  • Use of wireless devices
  • System monitoring options

If you’re considering using alarm monitoring devices as described in the tutorial and wondering how to integrate them into your IP camera or video server systems, read this post for more details:

IP Video Management – Input / Ouput Ports


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New App Turns Mac into Video Motion Detector
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Via The Next Web, there’s a new app developed by Orbicule called Witness that “turns your Mac into a home alarm system, using its iSight camera as a motion sensor. If motion is detected, Witness sends mugshots and video to your iPhone or iPad.”

TNW explains that whether you’re trying to capture your evidence of your roommate’s sticky fingers or using the app as a simple home surveillance solution, Orbicule has designed Witness to:

“…eliminate recording hours of uneventful footage and it also saves you from wasting precious bandwidth. While operating Witness remotely from an iOS device, users can activate or turn off the alarm in addition to receiving a notification that something has triggered the camera.

When the alarm is activated, Witness …

Expert Says Video Surveillance Critical for Data Centers
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Latest news from BCS reports that video surveillance is an integral part of data centers high-security operations to augment existing electronic access control security measures:

Tom Reeve, editor of SecurityNewsDesk.com, has explained that data centres inherently have to be a ‘very high-security operation’.

‘In addition to the normal access control and electronic security you would expect in a data centre, a good CCTV system can help back up the essential audit trails you need in order to determine who’s been coming and going, for example,’ he commented.

‘Certainly CCTV [is] essential in a high-security operation like that, where you’re depending on it 99.9 per cent of the time.’

Integrating IP surveillance into your businesses existing systems gives you greater control, options, and flexibility. 

There’s …

New Video Surveillance Calculator
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Whether you’re calculating IP camera bandwidth and storage or customizing an IP camera lens selection to meet the challenges of your application, you’d like to know what the end result is going to look like first before making a decision on the products and hardware you’ll be using.

Now, thanks to Gish Technology’s vsCalc™ you can “instantly calculate Field of View, Angle of View and Focal Length based on the Object of Interest, Visual Acuity Index and Target Distance” for your video surveillance project.

Available for $9.95 from the Apple App Store, the vsCalc™ is capable of determining how sharp the cameras images from a desired scene will be based on objects of interest such as face, license plate, or vehicle.

It provides a reference …

Panasonic i-Pro Camera Application
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Panasonic WV-NW502S i-Pro CameraSourceSecurity.com has nice article outlining a real world application example for:

From the article, “Panasonic i-Pro video surveillance system to enhance security at Clarion University“:

Clarion University depends on Panasonic i-PRO systems to provide IP-based video surveillance throughout its campus in the Appalachian Mountain region of northwestern Pennsylvania. The University’s systems integrator, The Protection Bureau, is enthusiastic about the benefits of Panasonic security systems to Clarion University.

“The proof is in the picture, bottom line; the other specs don’t matter,” said Bob Burket, Senior Security Consultant, The Protection Bureau. “For megapixel cameras, Panasonic has the best picture out there, particularly in low-light situations.”

Click on the link above for more detailed information about how they integrated …

Why Is Intelligent Video Used?
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In my previous post I mentioned that I wanted to dedicate some space to the what, why, and how of intelligent video functions and I attempted to answer the question, what is intelligent video? 

Continuing in that vein, today I’ll be talking about why intelligent video is used to give you some background of how it has shaped IP surveillance systems and will continue to do so in the future.…

Guide To Selecting Network Video Recorders
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QNAP VS-2004 Pro NVRA Network video recorder (NVR) is a piece of hardware that allows you to properly manage, record, store, and view IP surveillance video. 

They differ from PC server based systems in that they are standalone, plug-and-play systems designed only for IP video tasks.  For more on NVR vs. PC Servers check out this post here.

This post however is a general guide to selecting an NVR and the questions you should ask yourself before making a decision.  …

Best Practices for IP Video Management
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My recent posts on IP Video Management turned out be 7-part series.  Who knew it was such a fascinating topic to warrant such length, right?  If you gained anything at all from this long run it should at least be that there is a lot to consider with these systems.

And that’s because IP video management is a highly important component of your IP surveillance system.  It is your window to the world in front of your cameras.  Controls, configuration, video search, and live monitoring and recording are all done from this single interface.

To sum everything up, below is a condensed list of best practices to follow to make the right selection for your application.…