Stand-alone NVRs will continue to thrive in low-cost environments, such as independent retail stores and SMBs, said Jeff Whitney, VP of Marketing at Intransa. “Their main benefits are cost, simple functionality and setup. Preconfigured systems, especially those that include cameras and cabling, will continue to take up much of this unsophisticated market segment.”
- Simplicity and cost-effectiveness are big selling points for NVRs.
- One possible solution of fluctuating bandwidth is auto streaming.
- A rise of hybrid systems will precede entire VSaaS and cloud systems.
Read more in asmag.com's Cloud and Hybrid Video Surveillance Guide (Updated 2021)
How will current recording and storage solutions be affected by trends such as VSaaS and megapixel/HD
cameras?
Stand-alone NVRs will continue to thrive in low-cost environments, such as independent retail stores and SMBs, said Jeff Whitney, VP of Marketing at Intransa. “Their main benefits are cost, simple functionality and setup. Preconfigured systems, especially those that include cameras and cabling, will continue to take up much of this unsophisticated market segment.”
In installations with larger channel numbers, NVRs and servers should aim to complement, not compete. Simplicity and cost-effectiveness are big selling points for NVRs. As NVRs continue to evolve to incorporate more channels, features and integration capability, Ricky Law, Sales Engineer at Ensec Solutions, believes that NVRs are in a good position to increase market share.
On the other hand, if servers find a way to simplify the installation, configuration, operation and maintenance process, they also have good growth potential. “Centralized, server-based systems, with external IP-SAN, will continue to grow through the end of the decade, because of increased scale, reduced project costs and simplified multisystem management capability,” Law said.
HD
Megapixel and HD cameras have increasingly significant implications for video recording and storage. “The trend toward higher resolution will continue to impact the storage market over the short-to-medium term,” said Sam
Grinter, Market Analyst at IMS Research, in a prepared statement.
One big problem facing solution providers is to ensure quality, remote megapixel streaming. Fluctuating bandwidths may collapse the entire system, warned Kevin Shih, GM of FaceID. One possible solution is auto streaming, which adjusts the resolution and frame rate based on the amount of available bandwidth and the size of the monitoring window.
Improvements in processing technology will also help. “New Intel CPUs are embedding more graphical processing elements and will help increase overall performance, while reducing the costs,” said Florence Shih, GM of Thecus Technology. “Elements such as USB 3.0, HDMI or 10 Gigabits can be added much more easily.”
SSD
Solid-state drives (SSDs) are not commonplace in surveillance applications. More expensive but more dependable, they can be useful in specialized applications within video surveillance. Implications might include more efficient video analytics and video coding, said Lee Caswell, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Pivot3.
SSDs can also be used in applications where the drives might not be in a secured, fixed location, such as military, railway and police, said Chris Williams, Director for Wavestore.
Cloud
Cloud-based computing and storage are already popular in the IT and home consumer markets, Whitney said. Due to the more conservative nature of security, IP-based video surveillance is moving at a slower pace, but cloud and VSaaS, nevertheless, are emerging as a formidable competitor against on-site storage options. “Globally, vendors are starting to introduce their own cloud-like remote monitoring services. Positioned as a service not unlike the fire and burglar alarm monitoring marketplace, they are extremely simple and low-cost for the user.”
The main barrier to large deployments of cloud and VSaaS is price. Monthly subscriptions currently cost between $5 and $30, depending on the level of service and the inclusion of hardware, according to IMS Research. “The current show stoppers are the cost of powerful WAN connections,” agreed Stephen Beckmann, Video Product Marketing Manager in EMEA, American Dynamics, (a Tyco Security Products company).”
Whitney expects that a rise of hybrid systems will precede entire VSaaS and cloud systems. For example, a simple, local appliance based on commodity server hardware can retain a small amount of video that is then fed into the cloud for central recording, retention and monitoring. “That reduces the complexity and cost of the local system, while centralizing costly security resources, such as storage and operational personal, at a central security operations center or IT data center,” Whitney said. To record and store right, there is definitely more than meets the eye.