Continuous advances in technology and falling prices of equipment, has made it possible to set up video monitoring networks at a reasonable cost. A variety of businesses, manufacturing and services industries and even educational institutions can benefit from video monitoring used as an effective tool. The technology gives you the power to be almost omnipresent!

Can you be present simultaneously at more than one place like Gods and Enlightened Masters? Is it possible to attend to work in more than one place without leaving the comfort of your air conditioned cabin?

These were the questions troubling P Shetty (name changed), the proud owner of a large printing press. Starting in a unit of an industrial estate in suburban Mumbai, his press had grown into a large operation spread over five different units at different locations in the same industrial estate.

The question before him was how to monitor the entire operation efficiently as before when it was just a small set up. Having installed intercoms in all the units was just not enough and he could not keep moving from unit to unit the whole day! Neither could he afford to employ more supervisors for the job.

That is when he heard about the IP-based video cameras. Looking at the potential of these so-called security cameras, he realized that they could also be used to manage his operations equally well.

Though security was not the main concern, they could be the best tools to monitor the printing jobs running on the offset printing machines in different units and keep any eye on the machine operators. Today he is managing his operations almost without leaving his chair with much higher efficiency.

The productivity has also gone up just because of the presence of the cameras in the different units. When a customer drops in on a follow-up visit, he can even show him on the desktop PC monitor that his job is indeed running on one of the machines. With an IP camera, he can now think of setting up another unit even in another suburb and monitor the operations remotely over a broadband Internet connection.

Moral of the story
A security camera need not just be a security camera; it can play many other roles! When one talks about security cameras or video surveillance, people think only in one direction. It need not be so anymore. With the proliferation of IP networks and reducing prices, it has become feasible to cost-effectively install your own video monitoring network for a variety of applications. Many other businesses and manufacturing operations or even educational institutions could benefit from a similar set up seen in the above story.

While security is a major application for remote video monitoring, there are many situations where issues other than security are equally important. When you want to observe anything remotely, an IP camera can become your network-accessible eye.

Take for example a company that is expanding its operations in different locations by building new manufacturing plants. The CMD can now keep an eye on the construction site himself rather than depending on reports filtered and altered at various levels in the hierarchy. Monitoring of a construction site is one of the most common applications that can be served by IP cameras connected to the Internet.

Works on legacy system
Even your old CCTV cameras, which are analog cameras, can be used on an IP network using an appliance called a Video Server. A video server digitizes the analog pictures from the camera and transmits them over the IP network as clean and crisp digital images that can be viewed and stored on a desktop PC connected to the IP network.

The number of frames per second depends on the available bandwidth. Video servers are available from a single channel to multiple channels to meet different requirements. It is also possible to build a mixed network with Video servers to use old analog cameras as well as the latest IP cameras.

As and when the old analog cameras go out of service, they can be replaced with new IP cameras. If your system administrators are really trustworthy and you are sure that they would not leak out any information, you can even keep the 'dead' analog cameras connected in places that you don't really want to monitor seriously!

These work as a very good deterrent to mischief-makers. Especially in educational campuses or in retail stores, a conspicuously visible camera (with maybe a dummy Red LED lighted to show that it is ON!) can prove quite effective.

Another interesting application could be to watch the watchman himself! If you have hired security guards from an agency on a construction site or an open storage area where a lot of costly material is stored, you can keep track of the reliability of those guards using an IP camera connected to your network programmed to store images at predefined intervals. A desktop PC could be used for the recording and monitoring of images. A high-end IP camera with PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) functions can be used to keep an eye on the storage area as well as the guard on duty alternately.

DVR for surveillance
Like the video server, a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) is another piece of equipment that can be deployed on your network. A DVR is similar to a VCR except instead of recording the video and audio data to a tape, it records it to a hard disk drive, which is built into the DVR.

Unlike a VCR the DVR has many advanced features and can be viewed remotely over a broadband Internet connection from a PC. In extreme environments, embedded DVRs work better, as PC-Based systems are generally not designed to withstand such environments.

PC-based and embedded, both DVRs record in a compressed digital format, and both offer a recording time and image quality that is superior to the analog systems. Additionally, both systems allow for remote viewing of the video through a broadband Internet connection.

The only concern to drive your choice in one direction or other is the reliability and uptime required. Everyone who has used a PC and seen the OS crashes and Reboots required, will understand the importance of an embedded system when high security is really critical.

Ashok Dongre is an independent consultant and can be reached at dongre@usa.net

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