State of the Market: Video Surveillance 2019

“I do not think it means what you think it means,” Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride helpfully points out to Vizzini, who repeatedly uses the word “inconceivable.” 

A common buzzword in video surveillance is “compliance,” although perhaps not everyone means the same thing when they use it. Organizations such as ONVIF have a stated purpose of facilitating interoperability and connectivity between disparate devices and systems. The concept is a necessary and good one as the trend toward connected platforms continues. 

“The advancements in connected platforms will likely start to impact the commercial space as the border between consumer and commercial user will become a little more blurred,” says Per Björkdahl, chairman, ONVIF Steering Committee. “The importance of connectivity and interoperability, whether it involves the cloud or different disparate devices or systems, will only continue to increase, and will be a major focus of ONVIF moving forward.”

Understandably, manufacturers want to be seen as doing their part to make their products interoperable and able to be a part of the customers’ connected systems. But some frustration has arisen as integrators find that “ONVIF-compliant” doesn’t always mean what they think it means and manufacturers aren’t exactly throwing the curtains open, so to speak, and allowing anyone to just tie in. 

With regard to video surveillance, “ONVIF-compliant only means that you’re going to get a picture,” says Joey Rao-Russell, Kimberlite Corp. She explains that “ONVIF-compliant” means that you can record with any appliance: “NVR, server, whatever — it is going to record the video that is coming through, and it will transmit over the network a specific way. However, the feature sets of being able to monitor, being able to send push notifications, the interaction with customer — all these things are software-driven, and they are not driven by ONVIF. So they may or may not work,” she adds. “And that is very difficult.”

The difficulty is, as Rapid Security Solutions’ Steven Paley describes, that many integrators take the “ONVIF-compliant” claim of manufacturers at face value; while the products might technically be ONVIF-compliant in that you will get the picture when you plug the camera into your system, these manufacturers are all bringing their own sandbox to the party, and it’s not truly plug-and-play. “We’ve had a lot of aggravation where we’re using one manufacturer’s VMS,” he explains, “and then you go to put in this camera that says it is ONVIF-compliant — well, not really. This camera says ONVIF-compliant, and you might be able to see the video stream, but let’s say it’s a PTZ camera, and the PTZ controls don’t work with the VMS.”

In essence, Paley describes, you are allowed to play in the sandbox, but you are limited to a specific pail and shovel. “They want to be seen as being ONVIF-compliant,” he says, “that they work with everybody, but they don’t really tell you until your guy is out in the field for eight hours trying to make it work that, ‘Oh yeah, that feature doesn’t work on that camera with our VMS.’”

Rao-Russell explains, “We need to work better toward getting a more standardized model so that it can really become a kind of buffet for the customer to decide, OK, if you want to have an enterprise-level video system but an entry-level access system, they’re still going to work together, or vice versa.”

Inconceivable.

One of the themes in this year’s State of the Market report has been the increased adoption of cross-functional use of video. In fact, one of the reasons video continues to defy saturation expectations, is that there seems to be no end to the additional uses for video besides, and in addition to, security. 

Paul Garms, Bosch Security and Safety Systems Inc., says he is seeing a great deal of traction with what he calls “using video beyond.”

James Henderson, president and COO, Avigilon Corporation, Vancouver, Canada, explains: “Today there are more cameras at higher resolutions recording more video than ever before — but the vast majority of this data is never viewed. Adding more cameras increases the amount of video data collected, but if it’s not viewed, useful information is missed. As a result, the demand for video analytics is increasing globally.” And with this increase in video analytics, security professionals and end users are finding that video can do much more than capture and store pictures. 

Garms says, “We’ve developed special analytics, especially in the retail sector where you can use these video cameras and metadata to drive your business and really you have them installed already — why not have that security camera alert you when a line gets too long at your cash register? Or when you are monitoring an exterior door, what if someone were to put a pallet in front of that door and it is an emergency exit? You can use those analytics to notify you of that,” he describes.

Garms says there are countless other examples of how you can use your security cameras that are in place to help drive your business. “What we found is it also helps to open up the company’s wallet from other groups to contribute to upgrade their cameras and their systems. So now you are not just talking about the security department who is looking at their budget, but perhaps the marketing department that wants a store heat map of how customers are traveling throughout the store and these sorts of things. And so we are seeing opportunities from that aspect as well.”

Scott Dunn, Axis Communications Inc., says cross-functional use of video is one of the major drivers of market growth. “We are seeing a lot of that interesting cross-functional use whether it is for a retail business or for classrooms where you can do remote learning and do surveillance,” Dunn says. “Recently we were doing a project down in Atlanta with smart traffic. We just completed a pilot down there and now we are going to do hundreds of intersections. They already have cameras across the city for their video surveillance project, and now we are simply loading some of our traffic analytics on to the cameras and then feeding that into a traffic system. So from the same video from the cameras they are able to get better traffic flow, and you get better response and avoid traffic jams. It is saving them a ton of money, and the video has dual purpose.”

Jake Cmarada, senior business development manager, enterprise sales, Dahua Technology USA, Irvine, Calif., agrees, explaining they are seeing a demand for new sensors and other devices to be used and added to traditional security solutions to deliver new and valuable deliverables. “Incorporating new devices and increasing the AI and BI functions and reporting will continue to turn traditional security projects into robust AI/BI/smart city solutions with a variety of ROI incentives,” he says.

Garms admits integrator adoption of these cross-functional uses of video has not been as fast as it could be. “I think it has been slow,” he says. “It is outside their normal areas; they are used to talking with loss prevention guys, but I think some of the more sophisticated, larger integrators now that we’re partnering with are taking this up and are seeing the opportunity there to go beyond security and begin developing relationships with other parts of the organization.”

SDM asked several security integrators, manufacturers, and organizations around the industry: What kind of impact is cyber having on the market, and what steps can dealers and integrators take in that area to protect and prepare?

“The industry grew as demand for video surveillance increased exponentially, albeit with little regard to cyber issues until three or four years ago. Much has been done by the manufacturers to make products more secure, but much more needs to be done. The IP portion has created new markets for integrators to explore and create offerings.

We are seeing integrators morph their business into more than just physical security. They are helping clients with the operational technologies and the cyber security that these systems require.”
— Bob Dolan, director of technology, Anixter Inc., Glenview, Ill.

“In general, I think the cyber threat has had a positive effect; I think it raises awareness. …I think it helps to drive best practices and ultimately I think it will lead to customers doing a better job of safeguarding their businesses. Of course, there is never an end-all/be-all solution to cyber security, but certainly employing some of the industry best practices can get you a little closer and a little less vulnerable.”
— Tim Baker, global marketing director for commercial security, Honeywell Security and Fire, Melville, N.Y.

“If anything, the public nature of some of the incidents that have occurred — and the sensitivity to the perception of private video potentially being exposed — have significantly increased the awareness and focus from the industry on taking the necessary steps to improve our systems’ security.”
— Brandon Reich, vice president of security and IoT, Pivot3, Austin, Texas

“The threats are daunting and the security industry must continue to develop better answers that protect our clients. Password management is one common problem across all manufacturers.”
— Bret McGowan, senior vice president, marketing and sales, Vicon Industries Inc., Hauppauge, N.Y.

“Cyber security awareness has positively impacted the industry. Physical security groups have become much more aware of the impacts of cyber security vulnerabilities and how these risks can greatly impact their organizations, up to and including loss of recorded video, loss of control of systems, or ransomware attacks.”
— Fredrik Wallberg, director of marketing for security and ITS, FLIR Systems, Wilsonville, Ore. 

“The risks from poorly designed surveillance systems on the internet are now well documented, and IT is typically taking a much more direct involvement in system design and product choices. Requirements for products that offer 16-digit ASCII passwords, NIST-level encryption, multi-level identification/validation, and implementing up-to-date network security protocols are now routine in surveillance projects, and will go a long way toward providing basic cyber protection.”
— Jeff Whitney, vice president of marketing, Arecont Vision, Glendale, Calif.

“The cyber education and messaging is finally generating the kind of awareness necessary to improve out data protection standards. First off, isolate cameras on a separate network. Secondly, encrypt the video data at rest and in flight.”
— Ken Francis, president, Eagle Eye Networks, Austin, Texas

“Cyber security continues to be a key concern for end users and integrators alike. However, securing the security system starts with the integrator. Integrators need to know which technologies offer the greatest data protection. Software encryption, pseudonymization, hardware encryption and secure erase are just some of the protocols integrators should be recommending to their customers.”
— LayPeng Ong, senior director of global sales and emerging business, Seagate Technology, Cupertino, Calif.

At the time of writing, the government is currently shut down in a deadlock over funding of the border wall. The government excels at stalling, disagreeing and partisan politics. With that in mind, to what extent can we expect government regulations to be the answer for cyber security and related issues?

The government is going to mandate cyber security, says Joey Rao-Russell, Kimberlite Corp., but the government will be behind — “they always are,” she says. “There have been standards for 30 years for how we monitor things from ANSI and UL, and there are still bad companies, for lack of a better way to put it, that don’t comply. I think the legislation will always be there, but it is going to be incumbent on our manufacturers to develop products that can be compliant.”

Of course, the legislation does have an effect on the market. Take, for instance, the NDAA that was passed in 2018 banning the use of certain Chinese-made camera brands in U.S. government facilities and in U.S. government-funded contracts starting in mid-2019. Fredrik Wallberg, FLIR Systems, says these regulations have led integrators and end users to evaluate alternative products from different suppliers. “At FLIR, we have seen a stronger demand for our solutions, which are primarily manufactured in the U.S., Taiwan or other countries that are not impacted by U.S.-China trade relations. We have also seen increased awareness about the overall value and performance of video solutions as a key deciding factor, more than price point alone.” 

Rao-Russell explains that standards, legislation and compliance will never move as fast as the threats, however: “Keep in mind, by the time some kind of legislation for cyber security comes out and has made it through legislation, the hackers are already 12 steps ahead of us. So it becomes incumbent upon the general public to enlist best practices and invest. In some respects, it becomes a self-policing and, frankly, a self-preservation because I absolutely don’t want to be hacked, and I don’t want my customers’ information going out there. I think we will police ourselves more than legislation,” she concludes.

To what extent does the media’s coverage of security breaches, burglaries, mass shootings and crime play into the public’s desire to have security systems? The robust economy alone cannot account for people’s desire to be secure; people are more than ever aware of what is going on in the world, and they are fearful, says Steven Paley, Rapid Security Solutions.

It’s a common trope: Back when I was growing up, parents let us kids be kids. Nobody knew where we were all day during the summer, we didn’t wear seatbelts, people smoked in front of us, we ate peanuts and all sorts of non-organic food, and we turned out fine!

Most of these practices — free-roaming children in particular — have been, for the most part, phased out of general acceptance as the media zeroed in on one horrific kidnapping or another, covered it ad nauseam, and scared parents just enough so that they couldn’t shake the nagging thought: It probably won’t happen to my kids, but if it ever did, I’d never forgive myself. That kind of doubt can be a powerful persuader, and while the number of children abducted by strangers is miniscule and the number of total missing persons of all ages is trending down (FBI statistics show a 31 percent decrease between 1997 and 2011 according to The Washington Post), parents seem to keep their children under constant supervision more than ever.

“When I was a kid, my mother didn’t know where I was. There were no cellphones. Just be home before your dad gets home at five,” says Paley. “And now my daughter has a GPS tracker on her phone and a GPS tracker in her car, and there is not a minute that goes by that I don’t know where she is.”

It’s not that parents didn’t know crime existed. “The crime has always been there,” Paley says, “but people are just more paranoid about it.” 

Paley says this is something that comes up in discussions with clients and colleagues. “I don’t think this is specific to our company,” he continues. “I think every company is scrambling to provide newer technologies. People are asking for it. In Florida, where we are based, gated communities are a big vertical market for us. Gated communities, condos, homeowners’ associations — these people are frantic about who is coming onto their property; and they want gates, they want fencing, they want access control, they want to know who is coming and going — and it’s because of what they are seeing on the news. Twenty years ago people would say, ‘We haven’t really had an incident. We are good.’ And now no one wants to be the next victim. Some of the solutions we’re providing are more of a blanket or a perception thing, but no homeowners’ association board wants to be the ones that could have prevented a shooting or theft. So I think it’s just that instant access to the news and what is happening around the world that is driving a lot of this growth.”

Sometimes this awareness effects positive changes, such as the 1984 establishment of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and certainly the public’s awareness of digital threats and the need for greater cyber security.

This, of course, is an opportunity for dealers and integrators to come in and provide the peace of mind customers want. Regardless of opinions about the information age and the 24-hour news era, it is important to understand this desire for security and to specifically show customers how technology can make them secure.

To what extent does the media’s coverage of security breaches, burglaries, mass shootings and crime play into the public’s desire to have security systems? The robust economy alone cannot account for people’s desire to be secure; people are more than ever aware of what is going on in the world, and they are fearful, says Steven Paley, Rapid Security Solutions.

It’s a common trope: Back when I was growing up, parents let us kids be kids. Nobody knew where we were all day during the summer, we didn’t wear seatbelts, people smoked in front of us, we ate peanuts and all sorts of non-organic food, and we turned out fine!

Most of these practices — free-roaming children in particular — have been, for the most part, phased out of general acceptance as the media zeroed in on one horrific kidnapping or another, covered it ad nauseam, and scared parents just enough so that they couldn’t shake the nagging thought: It probably won’t happen to my kids, but if it ever did, I’d never forgive myself. That kind of doubt can be a powerful persuader, and while the number of children abducted by strangers is miniscule and the number of total missing persons of all ages is trending down (FBI statistics show a 31 percent decrease between 1997 and 2011 according to The Washington Post), parents seem to keep their children under constant supervision more than ever.

“When I was a kid, my mother didn’t know where I was. There were no cellphones. Just be home before your dad gets home at five,” says Paley. “And now my daughter has a GPS tracker on her phone and a GPS tracker in her car, and there is not a minute that goes by that I don’t know where she is.”

It’s not that parents didn’t know crime existed. “The crime has always been there,” Paley says, “but people are just more paranoid about it.” 

Paley says this is something that comes up in discussions with clients and colleagues. “I don’t think this is specific to our company,” he continues. “I think every company is scrambling to provide newer technologies. People are asking for it. In Florida, where we are based, gated communities are a big vertical market for us. Gated communities, condos, homeowners’ associations — these people are frantic about who is coming onto their property; and they want gates, they want fencing, they want access control, they want to know who is coming and going — and it’s because of what they are seeing on the news. Twenty years ago people would say, ‘We haven’t really had an incident. We are good.’ And now no one wants to be the next victim. Some of the solutions we’re providing are more of a blanket or a perception thing, but no homeowners’ association board wants to be the ones that could have prevented a shooting or theft. So I think it’s just that instant access to the news and what is happening around the world that is driving a lot of this growth.”

Sometimes this awareness effects positive changes, such as the 1984 establishment of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and certainly the public’s awareness of digital threats and the need for greater cyber security.

This, of course, is an opportunity for dealers and integrators to come in and provide the peace of mind customers want. Regardless of opinions about the information age and the 24-hour news era, it is important to understand this desire for security and to specifically show customers how technology can make them secure.