Internet cameras aid surveillance:
Digital tools work for firms of all sizes
By Lorna Collier
Published April 30, 2001 (Crain's Chicago Business)
You're a manager at a chain of stores around the country, some of them
reporting losses. You want to see what's really going on when you're
not there, but you can't be everywhere at once.
The solution for many managers in recent years has been monitoring
workers with video cameras. Increasingly, this means using new digital
technologies to view workplaces in "real time," using live feeds
broadcast via the Internet or company network.
"We are very pleased with it," says Tim Marcolini, director of loss
prevention for Northbrook-based Crate & Barrel, which recently
installed its first digital surveillance cameras in one of its stores.
Mr. Marcolini says the chain plans to convert more of its stores to
digital video surveillance in the coming months, primarily because
digital recording is more convenient and efficient: Workers don't need
to change videotapes, the cameras can be monitored from afar and the
recordings, which are saved to hard drives, can be searched more
rapidly than videotapes.
"This allows us to pull up something anytime, day or night," says Mr.
Marcolini.
According to the Security Industry Assn. in Alexandria, Va., the
closed-circuit television (CCTV) market has soared more than 186% in
the past 10 years, to $807 million in sales last year. Analysts predict
10% to 15% annual growth through 2004, despite the current economic
slowdown, says a spokesman for the association.
Last year, about 35% of business managers responding to an American
Management Assn. survey said they use video surveillance for security
purposes, while about 15% use it strictly to monitor employees' work
performance, down from 16% in 1999.
Companies turn to video surveillance for many reasons.
When employees are aware video cameras exist, they can be a powerful
deterrent to poor performance or thievery. When hidden, cameras can
ferret out employee theft or misbehavior. Security cameras also provide
evidence in case of employee injury.
One of the big factors fueling CCTV sales is the shift from analog to
digital technology, especially in the area of digital recording.
In the past, companies have used time-lapse videotape machines to store
security videos on videotapes. But with digital technology, cameras can
send videos in digital form to hard drives, CD-ROMs and other storage
media. Digital video also can be uploaded to the Internet or a private
network, provided there's enough bandwidth.
Jonathan Hale, product manager at Siemens Building Technologies Inc. in
Buffalo Grove, says that within the past year, the digital recording
market "has really exploded," thanks to new video compression software,
which allows more video to fit in the same amount of space on a hard
drive.
"There is a bigger demand for digital technology," agrees Kless Gyzen,
principal at Integrated Security Consultants Inc. in Gurnee, which
designs security systems for clients such as museums, banks and data
centers.
A year ago, says Mr. Hale, digital systems were almost 10 times as
expensive as analog systems: a typical analog system cost $6,000, while
its digital cousin fetched about $50,000. But with compression software
allowing more video storage, prices are falling steeply, and more
companies are making the digital transition.
Alissa Anderson, president of Naperville-based Sentry Asset Protection
Inc., which serves commercial and industrial clients in the Chicago
area, says she isn't seeing a great deal of demand for digital video
services.
"We are not seeing it at this point because the format has not been
standardized and due to the high cost of digital equipment," says Ms.
Anderson, who became president in February following the death of her
husband, company founder Todd Anderson.
But Patrick O'Connor, national sales manager for Video & Sound
Services Inc. in Northlake, says more firms are inquiring about digital
thanks to lower prices and the appeal of remote monitoring.
Costs for digital video surveillance systems vary dramatically.
For example, a recent system Mr. Gyzen designed used 250 digital
cameras and cost about $500,000. Yet a more modest system that can
monitor a small location, connect to the Net and send delayed sequences
of relatively low-quality video frames can be had for as little as
$1,000, Mr. Gyzen says.
"Sales for digital systems are increasing, and many companies are
adopting them because of the quality and flexibility," says David
Saddler, director of strategic planning for the Security Industry Assn.
in Alexandria, Va. "Digital products are coming to the market very
rapidly."
While digital video can be viewed via the Internet or company network,
Mr. Hale cautions that most companies still don't have the bandwidth to
handle the load.
"Companies out there that are doing it have enormous networks in place
— Internet companies, for example, have enough bandwidth available to
them," he says. But for most companies, networks would be in danger of
crashing if huge video loads were suddenly dumped into the stream.
While this is likely to change as more video compression occurs and
bandwidth increases, for now, "we are still in an analog world," says
Mr. Hale.
Some smaller businesses are finding it easier to switch to remote
monitoring because they have only a handful of cameras to put into
their networks.
For example, Bruce Watford, owner of 11 Sonic fast-food franchises in
Georgia and South Carolina, put a single camera in each of his stores,
which he can watch from his home computer via an Internet connection.
"It makes the people who are working for me a little more alert,
because at any point in time, I could be watching them," says Mr.
Watford, noting profits are up since he began subscribing about a year
ago to Zeom.net, a remote monitoring package sold by Apigent Solutions
Inc. of Oklahoma City.
Zeom.net recently became "WAP-enabled," meaning its remote video
signals can be picked up by wireless devices such as the Visor
Handspring, says Apigent CEO Jim Melvin.
Besides digital recording and remote Internet access, other new trends
in CCTV systems, says Jack Plaxe, manager of Chicago projects for
Bethesda, Md.-based CTI Consulting Inc., include track-mounted cameras,
which can be built to follow employees over the length of a particular
track (perhaps from one end of a store or warehouse to another), and
systems that are integrated with "facial recognition biometrics where a
computerized camera scans someone's face and matches it to the
database," to allow in or keep out specific people.
Newer systems also can be set to record only when a change in the
viewing environment is sensed. Just as a voice-activated tape recorder
will turn on only when it "hears" something, these cameras record only
when they "see" that something in their viewing area has changed. If
the camera perceives that nothing is happening, it won't record, unlike
traditional time-lapse video recorders.
© Copyright 2001