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Adam Bannister is a contributor to IFSEC Global, having been in the role of Editor from 2014 through to November 2019. Adam also had stints as a journalist at cybersecurity publication, The Daily Swig, and as Managing Editor at Dynamis Online Media Group.
January 5, 2015

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Canon Q&A: H.264 Streams, Remote Configuration and Expansion Plans

Canon VB-H43

The Canon-VB-H43 PTZ network camera

Canon’s surveillance cameras now offer H.264 streams and are therefore ONVIF Profile S compliant, the company’s product strategy and planning director told IFSEC Global.

Julian Rutland also discusses the ambitious expansion plans of a venerable camera brand which nevertheless remains a relatively minor player in the surveillance market.

IFSEC Global: Hi Julian. Could you tell us about your latest products?

Julian Rutland: We’ve recently launched eight new cameras. We’ve basically refreshed all our mid-high end products so the 1.3 mega pixel and the full HD, full feature product.

We’ve taken the firmware and hardware functions from the small compact series and we’ve brought everything up to date. And that means that we now offer H.264 streams, they’re all ONVIF Profile S, they all have the same level of analytics. So from an integration point of view, a sales point of view, it’s very easy to understand our product range.

IG: What are the USPs of these products?

JR: Canon has always been a camera manufacturer so image quality is always paramount. So, colour quality, low-light performance, wide angle of lens – these are all fundamentals.

The products also have six analytics, which can be configured to get up to 15 alarms. Now that’s quite a unique offer; not many manufacturers give that level of output and configuration.

And the other thing that’s really nice, particularly about our domes, they have PTRZ – the ability to remotely configure the camera. The installer fits it, walks away and then it’s configured remotely from a utility that runs over the network. It’s almost like having a PTZ camera but using slower positioning motors to position the camera.

That’s really unique and we get lots of people from railways and from other infrastructure really interested in this because if you have to change the camera position during the life of a project, it will cost you a hell of a lot of money.

IG: What about your approach to distributing these products?

JR: We’ve also recently signed with new distributors, including SSV in Sweden, Ingram Micro in Germany and Provision in the UK.

So on the one hand we’ve got a new product, on the other we’ve got an improving distribution channel.

We’re also continuing to work with the VMS partners. So each month we update our list of compatibility. We have a partnership both with Digivod, who are big in the German market, and Arteco, who are big in Italy.

The organisation is growing. We’re scaling up the number of people we have in sales so we can get a bigger portion of the pie on a country by country basis. It’s quite exciting times for us.

IG: Where are Canon’s strongest markets right now?

JR: Well the growth potential is all across Europe. We don’t have a big market share.

Our market share is probably less than half a percent and we’re looking to get in the top 10. We need to get from where we our now to maybe 2% or 3% market share – which is a huge jump.

Our strongest markets at the moment are the UK, the Netherlands, we’re doing quite well in South Africa, we’ve got some business going in the Middle East…

So there’s some pockets but the potential in all of those markets is still huge. We’ve a long way to go yet.

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