Industry Leaders Celebrate IP Camera Anniversary, Look to the Future At ASIS
- By Brent Dirks
- Sep 22, 2011
While celebrating the 15th anniversary of the IP camera, industry leaders discussed the past, present and future of the technology during a roundtable and question-and-answer session at ASIS on Wednesday.
Panelists included Eric Fullerton, chief sales and marketing officer of Milestone Systems; and Fredrik Nilsson, general manager of the Americas, for Axis Communications. Other experts joining the group are Bud Broomhead, Intransa; Lee Caswell, Pivot3; Mike McCann, Sony Electronics Inc.; and Bill Taylor, Panasonic System Networks Company of America.
Ralph Jensen, editor-in-chief of Security Products and Network-Centric Security magazine was the moderator.
Almost 15 years to the day, on Sept. 18, 1996, Axis Communications co-founder and co-inventor Martin Gren introduced the world's first IP camera to the public at the Interop show in Atlanta.
Since that humble beginning, the IP camera market is almost a $2.5 billion per year industry on a vendor level. And the camera technology has improved just like the market.
"If you look at it from a performance perspective, we've had a more than 500 times increase in performance over the first 15 years," Nilsson said. "With Moore's Law, and a 500 times increase in the next 15 years, we might have a 300 megapixel camera at 60 fps. But probably that's not likely because the lens doesn't follow Moore's Law. Instead, that performance is going to be used for other things inside the camera."
The IP camera market has been very successful in the large installation, but Nilsson said the small installation will be a new frontier for the technology.
Fullerton said the invention of the IP camera has led to a decoupling of the software from the hardware allowing different innovation cycles for both areas.
"Fifteen years ago someone found the key to unlock the proprietary jail," Fullerton said. "Basically, the birth of IP video unlocked proprietary jail for the entire CCTV industry and end users. In those 15 years, we've seen an enormous amount of innovation as far as the performance and technology in the camera goes."
Fullerton also discussed some positive and negative trends for the IP industry. Some positives included an increased demand for security, more innovation in technology and services, movement to integrated systems, relaxing of government regulations across the globe and an increasing focus on value creation.
Challenges include some verticals being impacted by the recessions, budgets cuts, a conservative industry and a lack of standards.
McCann discussed many of Sony's contributions of image sensors to many manufacturers and its own cameras.
Some of the new technology Sony continues to introduce more solutions that attack infrastructure issue with hybrid solutions that allow IP camera signals to be sent over existing coax infrastructure.
"In the hybrid solution, there is a lot of cost savings," McCann said. "We reuse the analog coax and existing power and don't have the recable the entire facility. It's a good technology for a phased migration over to a complete IP infrastructure."
While celebrating the technology, Taylor said that there is a simple purpose to the IP technology.
"What I really want to remind everyone about is that people want to just ultimately just feel safe and secure," Taylor said. "It's our job to deliver technology that does that. That has led to a proliferation of cameras and surveillance technology that has just been phenomenal."
Taylor also said there will be more cameras sold in the next five years than in the previous 50 years.
Caswell said that on-camera storage is helping to solve issues like bandwidth crunch.
"Right now, with on-camera storage, you can take and manage the streams before you put the information across the network," he said. "IP cameras give you much better way to manage the information that is coming in. Cameras and video streams are driving infrastructure."
Broomhead said from the video surveillance storage side, he is more concerned about the location of the data.
"We'd love to see 150 megapixel cameras like Fredrik mentioned," he said. "But that's probably not going to happen. One of the things about infrastructure is that it's like closet space. Whatever you have is going to be filled up. We're not real worried about whether there's going to be a need. I'm more concerned about where the storage is going to be -- at the end, middle or end."
About the Author
Brent Dirks is senior e-news/Web editor for Security Products and Network-Centric Security magazines.