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CCTV System or Extra Police - The Chattanooga Challenge
2007-05-13 00:17:00
The folks down in Chattanooga (as in the Choo Choo) at The Pulse are concerned that CCTV is a waste of money and could be better used in adding extra police to the streets or putting in better lighting. Nice argument but doesn't really work when considering the reality of the one off cost of CCTV installation versus other on going costs of extra police. They talk about $660,000 being budgeted for CCTV installations. Now lets assume that an average police officer earns $35,000 per annum. Then the $660,000 would pay for 18.8 police for one year. Lets round up that to say 20 extra police for arguments sake. In an average week there would be 21 shifts (7 days with 3 x 8 hour shifts). That means that our $660,000 would not even give 1 extra police officer for each shift in a week. How much crime can an extra one person prevent. The $660,000 would only pay for those extra police for 1 year. With a strategically designed CCTV system, this $660,000 would deliver evidence t...
More About: System , Police , Challenge , Hall , Extra

CCTV Links - Sunday 13th May 2007
2007-05-12 23:52:00
A Greek Bishop is asking desperate for a CCTV system in his four Peloponnese monasteries due to the recent murder of two nuns and the theft of some ancient religous relics. Can any one help? One of the last bastions of un tapped CCTV markets - Europe - now seems to be firmly embracing the technology with a new Frost & Sullivan report stating that sales of CCTV products in Europe will hit almost US$2 billion by 2012. Canada's Extreme CCTV's second quarter revenues increase by a massive 93.4% to a record $12.2 Million. Police in Malti get lucky with a shooting by police - a man was shot & killed by police on Friday in a cloud of mystery - the only witness was a CCTV camera - but by the time the video was requested it was Monday - this particular camera only records for 48 hours! Whats the point of a 48 recording system!? A house robbery in Hyderabad India - the butler did it - no, seriously, he did.
More About: Links , Sunday , May 2007

CCTV Technical Forum
2007-05-12 08:20:00
After my recent artical about Pacom's new CCTV forum I recieved an e-mail pointing me in the direction of CCTV Forum , a large and well visited CCTV tech forum where there are many CCTV tech tips and useful snippets of information from CCTV professionals all over the world. If you are unfamiliar with it - I would suggest you get on over, have a look and register.
More About: Technical , Technic

How to Back Focus a CCTV Camera
2007-05-12 02:24:00
An important procedure of any CCTV installation is the back focusing of the camera to ensure that it will be correctly focused in all conditions. The distance from the lens mounting surface on the front of the CCTV camera and the position of the pickup device (CCD or CMOS chip) is called the flange focal distance, or backfocus distance. The surface that the lens mounts up against is called the flange. On “C” mount cameras, this distance is 17.5mm. On a “CS” mount camera, the distance is 12.5mm. This distance is adjustable over a small range on virtually all CCTV cameras. “C” mount lenses may be installed directly on “C” mount cameras, or, by using a 5mm C-CS adapter ring, on “CS” mount cameras. “CS” lenses cannot be  ounted on “C” mount cameras. Virtually all modern cameras are" CS" mount. Theoretically, it should be possible to just thread in a lens and have the image in focus, but in reality, manufacturing tolerances on both lenses an...
More About: Camera , Back , Focus

CCTV Footage Embarresses South African Police
2007-05-11 00:29:00
South Africa: Five police officers have been arrested after CCTV footage caught them bungling a robbery investigation at a government building, the SABC said on Wednesday. The closed circuit television images, which had earlier captured two robbers as they stole R50 000 from a department of home affairs building near the capital Pretoria, showed the officers examining items without gloves. SABC said the five police officers had been arrested for "defeating the ends of justice". One police officer was seen picking up evidence and then tossing it aside. The department of home affairs, which has faced frequent criticism for widespread corruption, confirmed the March 23 robbery and said it was investigating the possibility of it being an inside job, SABC reported.
More About: Police , South , Esse , South African , Barr

The Need to Maintain Your CCTV System Part II
2007-05-11 00:16:00
I was in a petrol station yesterday and there were several CCTV cameras inside the store for the protection of the lone cashier working there. One was looking in the general direction of the cashier - the other three were facing the wall or ceiling. Now, as a business owner or manager - you need to be aware of these issues. You have wasted your time and money installing this system if it is not going to be maintained. If you run a small business and you have CCTV - spend a few bucks and get someone out from a security company to check the system, refocus and reposition the cameras and to get them cleaned. It would be a good idea to do that once a quarter. If you are planning on installing a new CCTV system in a business, try and use dome cameras. The use of dome cameras means that it is a lot harder for staff and others to reposition the camera and they tend not to get cobwebs on them as much, keeping the view less disrupted. If you are a CCTV contractor, you really ha...
More About: System , Part , Need , Stem

DVTel Protecting Citizens of Wollongong
2007-05-08 22:58:00
I was in Wollongong recently and had a chance to take a look at the street surveillance system they had installed late last year. It is an impressive system comprising exclusively of IP cameras and an IP head end. To date there have been at least 80 arrests based on the footage recorded. In the small control is a wall covered in small (postcard sized) images of people, on each one of those images in big writting is the word `Arrested'. This is a constant reminder to the operators about the effectiveness of the system and the need top remain alert. The system comprises of a range of DVTel IP PTZ cameras and DVTel IP full bodied cameras all converging on the DVTel Latitude head end. The image quality is excellent, streaming 25 images per second at 4 cif. The local police are apparently loving the system because of the time savings they are making in some investigations and incidents. At the rate they are going there will well over 200 arrests attributed to the DVTel CCTV ...
More About: Long , Gong , Prot , Citizen

Pixim Equipped Camera List
2007-05-05 10:19:00
Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) is a function of some types of cameras which allows the camera to see equally well the dark and bright parts of a scene at once. Most notable in the world of CCTV at the moment is the use of Pixim chipsets for high end WDR cameras. The Pixim chip in simple terms allows each pixel to have a seperate exposure time thereby allowing bright parts a short exposure (so as not to wash out) and dark parts a longer exposure time (so they can accumulate more light and be brighter). The Pixim chip also has the ADC (analogue to digital conversion) take place at each pixel on the chip itself meaning that there less cross talk to impact other pixels and a better signal to noise ratio. Read more technical data here. Many camera manufactureres have been embracing Pixim technology for cameras that require a wide dynamic range. A word of warning though - these cameras do not work very well in low light conditions - they are a purpose specific camera. There are seri...
More About: Camera , List , A list

Griffith (NSW) Getting CCTV Street Surveillance
2007-05-05 09:40:00
According to Mayor Dino Zappacosta, Griffith has been waiting a long time to get a CCTV street surveillance installed. Thanks to a grant from the  National Community Crime Prevention Program of $138,500 - this system is getting ready to be installed. The primary aim is reduce anti-social behaiour such as bashings and vandalism.  Full article here.
More About: Surveillance , Street , Tree , Lance , Veil

Power Failure Blamed on CCTV Installation
2007-05-05 09:28:00
A severe power outage in the area of Bedfordview South Africa has been blamed on the installation of CCTV cameras on the R24 highway. It took over 3 days to get the power back on because the CCTV installers had drilled through an oil pressurised power main. A local shopping center estimated that the loss of trade over the 3 days would run into the millions! I sure hope that the CCTV contractor had some serious liability insurance! Read more here & here.
More About: Power , Failure , Blame , Lame , Lure

CCTV Links - Sunday 29th April 2007
2007-04-29 01:42:00
To prove his future vision was right, the flat of  George Orwell (the author of 1984) is surrounded by CCTV cameras. Despite longer opening hours, pubs in the UK have seen a decrease of 2% in violent crime - all thanks to the introduction of CCTV cameras. Nasty images of a man being attacked by a machete wielding robber - caught on CCTV.
More About: April , Links , Sunday , April 2

CCTV Footage Confusing Authorities
2007-04-29 00:32:00
Confusion still prevails over the identification of suspect, based on the evidence derived from CCTV footage from the Pegasus hotel, in Bob Woolmer murder case, as the Jamaican police haven’t been able to ascertain who the assailant could be. Mark Shields, the deputy commissioner of Jamaican police, said CCTV footage from Woolmer's Kingston hotel room had been examined and the police had "an array of photographs which may or may not help in the investigation". He said reports that the footage showed a man leaving Woolmer's room may be wrong, because cameras on that floor were placed in the hall area near the elevator. “Our hope is that we will reach a conclusion on the case as soon as possible,” Shields was quoted as saying in the BBC. Shields will soon visit South Africa to see Woolmer's family and talk to police there. Two officers from Pakistan who went to Jamaica to help with the investigations are now leaving after working with local police for three ...
More About: Sing , Thor , Authorities , Foot , Footage

World's Largest Digital CCTV Installation
2007-04-28 09:38:00
Dallmeier's installation at the Venetian Sands Casino Macau is touted as the world's largest digital CCTV installation with  3,500 channels of real time recording already in place and another 5,000 in the works - this is truly an awesome project! The other amazing statistic is that it must also truly have the largest storage capacity of any CCTV system on earth - it has an awe inspiring 1.5 Petabytes of storage. Now a Petabyte is 1,024 Terabytes - so we are talking about 1,536 Terabytes of storage. Written numerically, that is 1,500, 000,000,000,000 bytes! So how long until we get a system with an Exabyte in it?
More About: Digital , Digi , Largest , Large , Alla

CCTV Displays at CeBIT Australia 2007
2007-04-26 23:08:00
CeBIT Australia begins next Tuesday, the 1st May and this year will be as huge as ever with many hundreds of exhibitors. Amongst these exhibitors vying for some wallet share of the technically savvy attending the show are CCTV manufacturers. Some of the exhibitors of CCTV products at the CeBIT Australia 2007 are: will be there to display all that is the latest and greatest in IP CCTV products. Drop in a say hi to Wai King Wong, Axis Australia & NZ Sales Manager. Sony will also be there in a huge way with their CCTV offering - primarily in the IP area. Also I have noticed that the low cost, DIY end of town will be represented as well with Swann Communications being present. Another lower end supplier, Proimage will be there as well. In the security side of things, Cardax, the access control company will also be displaying at CeBIT. Notable is the absence of the big boys in CCTV distribution - Bosch, Rexel, Pacom, DAS, CR Kennedy, Baxall and their ilk - but with ASIAL only...
More About: Lays , Plays , Displays , Stra

Verint Protecting the Chevy Chase Bank
2007-04-26 13:04:00
I was reading this article today about the fact that Verint (an IP based CCTV control software) is being used to protect the Chevy Chase bank. Now, I just have to ask, would anyone seriously trust a bank called Chevy Chase bank with their money - even if they are using a state of the art IP CCTV system? Not me - too many flash backs of National Lampoon Holiday movies for me! Obviously people do trust them - Chevy Chase bank has over 275 branches in the Washington area with US$14billion in assets - Fletch is doing well!
More About: Bank , Prot

CCTV and Privacy
2007-04-26 10:26:00
Just so you know - we have a sense of humour in the CCTV industry - but the reality is we have no privacy! I personally work with about 30 cameras in a 20 meter radius of my desk. and
More About: Privacy , Riva

CCTV Consultants - Who to Trust?
2007-04-25 23:28:00
I came across PGM Cons ultants today packaging themselves as CCTV Consultants. However when you look at their website, they are simply selling CCTV packages, and I'm sure that their `consulting' would lead straight to a recommendation to buy their gear. The independance of consultants is important. If you are engaging someone (and paying top dollar) to give you practical advice on how to best protect your property, then you need someone who will reccomend and design a system for you that will do the job. If the consultant is selling a product or has an affiliation with a manufacturer, wholesaler or installer, then you are reducing the odds of getting the right system for you. Compare PGM Consultants (with their product lists) to Les Simmonds & Associates - here you will find no reference to any brand or product - they simply design the best solution for their client. If you look at this list of definitions of what a consultant is, you will see they say something alo...
More About: Trust , Ants , Rust

CCTV Catches Two Purse Thieves
2007-04-25 09:50:00
The use of CCTV video in an American supermarket has lead to the arrest of two purse thieves. Everybody needs CCTV!
More About: Catch

Does CCTV Help Solve Crime?
2007-04-24 00:18:00
I was just reading a news article about a town in the UK, Little Lever, where they are installing some CCTV cameras in an attempt to catch some young `yobs' who have been vandalising the town center and shops. Reading the comments people had left, I was quite surprised to see that most commenters were not happy with the idea, feeling that all the CCTV cameras did was move the yobs on and not deter crime. The question was asked by one commenter:"Anyone ever see any conviction numbers caught through CCTV i haven't, if there are any do they pay for them self or are the sales person's laughing all the way to the bank again."So, I thought I would do a quick search and list some events over the past week to see how many crimes have been solved by the use of CCTV. This is by no means a full or exhaustive list, but should go to show that the correct usage of CCTV does indeed help police solve crime. Some are heinous crimes, others are not so serious. The first two links ar...
More About: Crime , Help , Rime

CCTV Video Reveals Likely Suspect In Woolmer Murder
2007-04-23 04:35:00
The on-going investigation of the murder of Pakistani cricket coach Bob Woolmer has recieved a boost based on enhanced CCTV footage. Although they are not able to identify the suspect, they can now begin to narrow down the field of suspects. I can't help but be pleased that CCTV may help in the apprehension of the murderer, but I also despair at the quality of the video. Cheap, inadequate CCTV equipment ends up costing a lot more money in the long run than installing good quality, correct positioned cameras. Consider the amount of time the hotel and the police have invested in searching for the correct video sequence, backing it up and then working to enhance it - only to find that their can't identify the suspect. This report from The Independant:KINGSTON, Jamaica: The investigations into the murder of Bob Woolmer, the late Pakistan coach, are reported to have reached a significant breakthrough with a likely suspect being identified through footage from the hotel securit...
More About: Video , Murder , Like , Suspect

Pacom CCTV Tech Support Forum - Australia
2007-04-23 02:51:00
I have recently heard that Pacific Communications in Sydney has begun working on a CCTV tech support forum. The forum is still in its infancy, but already shows the frame work of being a great CCTV resource to all sales and technical people in the CCTV field. It appears as though there will be technical information made available and will also provide the ability to ask questions and have them answered by the tech staff at Pacom and by other users. In addition there is information on products, new releases and promotions. You need to be a registered member to join, so take a couple of minutes and have a look at the Pacom NSW website and click on the forum link.
More About: Australia , Tech , Forum , Support , Tech Support

CCTV CABLES PART 1
2007-04-15 14:51:00
CCTV cables are one of the crucial items used in the instalation of  Closed Circuit Television Cameras. The image captured by CCTV camera is converted into an electrical signal which is transmitted to the monitor or digital video recorder through cables. High-quality cables must be used with CCTV cameras to aid in the high quality video signal transmission whereas low-quality cable provides a low quality image, often with a very low signal to noise ratio. The length of the cable must be adequate to that formats maximum transmission distance. Types of CCTV Cable s   There are basically three types of cables mainly used when installing CCTV camera, namely coaxial cable, twisted pair and optic fiber. In this 3 part series we will look at each of these cable types in turn. This article will start with coaxial cable.Coaxial Cable: coaxial cable, most commonly referred to as coax) is the most commonly used of the CCTV cables. The cable is made up of round conducting wire, c...
More About: Part

AXIS 247S Video Server
2007-04-11 11:06:00
AXIS Communications have announced the release of their new compact video server (encoder) - the AXIS 247S. The AXIS 247S Video Serve r is an ultra-compact, high-performance single channel video recorder perfect for installation close to the analog camera, where space constraints demand an optimized solution. With larger camera housings it is also possible to put the server in the housing with the camera. It is powered over Ethernet with power out for the camera, this solution eliminates the need for power outlets. The AXIS 247S provides high quality de-interlaced video at 30/25 fps (NTSC/PAL) in 4CIF. With IPv6 support, AXIS 247S insures against the growing shortage of IPv4 addresses and eliminates problems with static IP address allocation. Key features of AXIS 247S include: Compact video encoder solution Powered over Ethernet with power out for camera High quality, de-interlaced video Audio support including detection alarm Powerful event mana...
More About: S Video , Axis

Australian CCTV Standards Training Session
2007-04-09 11:59:00
As most of you involved in the CCTV industry in Australia would be aware, Standards Australia, in conjunction with some of the leading CCTV consultants of Australia have recently developed AS 4806 - Australian standards in CCTV. Here is the article I wrote about it last year. Vlado Damjanovski and Les Simmonds in conjuction with Standards Australia and SAI Global will be doing an Australia wide roadshow from the 14th - 18th May 2007 to discuss and educate us on the need to adopt and use these standards. The course will cover: • Areas of interest in CCTV: optics, electronics, imageprocessing and transmission• Different standards and formats around the world and theneed for interoperability• Technology saturation and the need for clarifying anddemystifying• The quality (and the lack of) of CCTV products• The need for guidelines in achieving good quality CCTVand the methods of verification• AS 4806.1, .2, and .3 You can download the registration form here to see...
More About: Training , Anda , Sion

The History of CCTV
2007-04-09 09:28:00
I just read an interesting article over on Video Surveillance Guide about the origins and development of CCTV. From the early analogue systems from 1965 that I  wrote about before through to facial detection installed at US schools to identify known sex offenders. The authors look for the future of CCTV was something I'm not convinved about, she believes that in future all public phone booths will have streaming video cameras built in to monitor people and add an additional level of CCTV monitoring. With the way things are going and the affordability of mobile (cell) phones, I don't think there will be any payphones in the not too distant future. The article is here.
More About: History , Stor , Hist , Tory

Welcome To Global CCTV Hub
2007-04-08 09:17:00
This is the site for all things CCTV. We have information on CCTV products, trends, consultants, projects, tools and much much more. If there is something particular you would like to know about CCTV or if you have any articles or ideas to share, please e-mail me. We are always looking for good articles about new products, projects completed and about your company and how it works in the world of CCTV.
More About: Global , Come

New Home For Global CCTV Hub
2007-04-06 13:30:00
Global CCTV Hub is in the process of moving from a hosted Movable Type site to Typepad. The current domain of globalcctvhub.typepad.com is only tempory until the original www.globalcctvhub.com is mapped over to here. All the new posts will come directly to the new .typepad domain until the old domain is transferred. This should all be complete within a few days - so until then, check out both sites!   All the existing Global CCTV Hub posts have been imported to the Typepad site - so everything from our 12 months of posting will still be available to search for your reference. Thanks, Global CCTV Hub team.
More About: Home , Global

CCTV Signs Everywhere
2007-04-06 08:04:00
As the world gets more and more regulated, the usage of signs telling the public that they are under video surveillance is greatly increasing. Some of these signs are huge and very obvious, some are small and discrete, and some are, well just a bit odd! It appears that CCTV signs come in all shapes and sizes and appear in all manner of places, as such here at Global CCTV Hub we decided to start an ongoing series looking at CCTV Sign s . If you have any good ones that you want to share, e-mail in.
More About: Everywhere , Here , Ever

One Request - Multiple Vendor Responses
2007-04-05 07:45:00
Here is an interesting website, it belongs to BuyerZone where you request information once, and your request goes to multiple approved vendors. There is a CCTV Systems section, so you punch in some basic details and you get responses from a dozen or so companies. I can't really see how this works effectively for CCTV installations. With thousands of variables involved in designing a CCTV system, I wouldn't hold out much faith that the perfect system is going be quoted sight unseen. Instead, I am guessing that the person who completes the form gets inundated with calls and e-mails from all the affiliated security companies. But these are my assumptions, I would love to hear from someone who has used BuyerZone to purchase (or at least quote) a CCTV system. If you want to share your experiences, please e-mail me. The one thing that BuyerZone does have is an great introductory description of what constitutes a CCTV system. Its a good little read for people who are new to CCTV...
More About: Request , Vend , Quest , Response

IBM SUPER CHIP - WORLD'S FASTEST AT 160Gb/s
2007-04-04 16:21:00
IBM have recently released their new prototype optical transceiver chipset capable of reaching speeds at least eight times faster than current optical components. This means the ability to transfer data at the rate of 160Gb/s - thats a whopping 160 billion bits every second! With technology like this starting to move towards us, it creates a future where it is very feasible to see network video servers being able to handle large numbers of high resolution IP camera streams. The first thought to mind on that would be the ability to run mega pixel cameras in large quantities onto a single server. The huge through put speed is great - but the part that lets us down still is the write speed of the HDD's. But, at least we know that the technology is progressing that way, and for those of you still not looking at IP CCTV - you need to consider that this growing technology is going to be vastly superior to anologue CCTV systems in the very near future - jump on board the gravy tr...
More About: Super , Test , Fast , Chip