My daughter’s perception of CCTV, and that of her peers if my eavesdropping outside a Brownies group while waiting to collect her is a representative sample, begins with the impression that anybody who commits a crime – perhaps breaking and entering – will be watched throughout the act by CCTV.
They will then be followed by still more cameras right the way to their home and all that remains is for the police to step in and arrest the culprit.
Well blame all this on the likes of TV series “Spooks”. Children and not a few adults are having trouble realising that cognitive pre-crime agencies don’t really exist.
So as we meet here in Bristol, a group of security professionals charged with deploying CCTV effectively and responsibly, we need to consider why CCTV currently has so much stigma attached to it.
Most watched nation
The McCahill and Norris figure of 4.2 million cameras in the UK has now been well and truly debunked by Gerrard and Thompson’s approach of extrapolating more rigorous research conducted in Cheshire recently. The current guesstimate is a much more credible total of 1.85 million cameras.
But even in the new Gerrard and Thompson era, the UK still has the unenviable reputation of being the most watched nation on earth in terms of cameras per capita. I wonder if anybody here today can recall, as I do, a resignation speech by Shadow Home Secretary David Davis in 2008 in which he spoke about:
“The insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms … a CCTV camera for every 14 citizens … the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this Government … the ever-intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom …”
Anybody who has seen the programme “Crimewatch” will have marveled at the low quality images which purport to be “evidence.” Individuals are rarely recognisable and efforts at identification are poor at best.
And yet, as members of the security industry, we should take pride in what has been done in the last decade to improve the performance of standard-definition CCTV cameras.
CCTV advances
I’m thinking of advances in dynamic noise reduction and colour/day-night cameras which have made the delivery of clear, ghost-free images a possibility even in very low light.
The current issue with analogue-based CCTV is that we can’t significantly improve on standard definition camera quality, and while the hackneyed phrase: “Rubbish in, rubbish out” isn’t particularly helpful; the simple fact is you can’t improve on what isn’t there.
Sicura Systems have worked with a number of camera manufacturers to facilitate the migration to megapixel and HD. Clients in the security sector can now take comfort from the fact that they are working with better source images while the bean counters in our head offices will be pleased to learn that much of the R&D cost of the new units has already been absorbed by consumer-grade devices.
Price differentials between conventional analogue and IP or HDcctv have been greatly exaggerated.
Back in October of 2010 I read IMS Research’s prediction that by 2014 over 50 percent of cameras will be megapixel or HD.
Well the feeling at the coalface is that there will need to be a sudden spike in take-up if this figure is to be reached. Nobody at Sicura doubts the likely impact of the HDcctv Alliance but projected growth figures for IP cameras are in our opinion on the high side.
Seamless convergence
But one of the positives of the IP revolution is convergence. The shift to IP means that software vendors such as Sicura can now present facilities managers with seamless solutions which allow them to take control of the many disciplines that need to be monitored at mission-critical infrastructure locations.
Sicura is currently deploying its DigiLive (VMS) and DigiWall (IP-based video wall) products at the Tyne Tunnel 2 Project. Operational efficiency and the quality of both live and recorded footage have improved dramatically.
Furthermore, the goal of a single, unified management system is here, as Standard Definition, High Definition and Megapixel cameras can all reside on a single VMS platform.
Furthermore, end-users can add technology such as video analytics and ANPR as well as previously disparate third-party components such as fire, intruder panels and access control, all operating from a single platform. Truly open-architecture platforms may soon be upon us.
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