CCTV installers face competition from everywhere!

CCTV the big  Squeeze!

CCTV installers have found it tough over the last couple of years. The
reason of course has been the recession and the lack of spending on new
equipment as a result. But is this the full storey? Careful analysis is
beginning to show that the security industry is being squeezed  from
several directions and the question has to be asked is how can this be
addressed and how can the security industry as a whole fight back to
profitability .

CCTV sales on the internet

The first issue we all have in business is the Internet.
Gone are the days that prices were kept between the manufacturer the
distributor and the supplier. Look anywhere on line and you can find
comparative prices. Even if an end user has no idea where to look for
kit he can always find what he is looking for on EBAY and unfortunately
as with any auction site, the prices never really reflect the true cost
of actually installing CCTV. This is forcing prices and margins down. If you are a
CCTV salesman you will have heard more times than you care to remember how
cheaply your prospective customer can purchase exactly what you are
trying to sell him online for a fraction of the cost. We currently have a
culture in this country now for cheap cheap cheap and everyone has forgotten
the importance of quality ..most frustrating. The Internet also provides
heaps of information and this has led to the second problem facing the
sales within the security industry.

The second problem.

Electricians are no longer scared of CCTV. In the past their workload would have seen them happy to pass this sort of business onto the professionals, not anymore…….Any electrician worth his salt can install a simple analogue CCTV system and now they are doing so. CCTVHowever their lives have been made easier because insurance companies , themselves struggling for clients have loosened some of the strict criteria they used to apply to CCTV installations. No longer do they insist that a NACOSS gold installer is responsible for installing and servicing CCTV equipment. BS8148  the British standard for monitored CCTV has fallen flat on its face and insurer’s have been unable to enforce their customers to take up this option, an option that would exclude anyone outside the security industry carrying out the installation.

CCTV monitoring at home

In addition  to this, customers seem happy to monitor CCTV systems themselves bypassing the
need for affiliated central stations, add to this the fact that we have seen a
huge shift to self insuring, some people seem to have worked out that
their losses incurred during a break-in are less than the combined cost
of  CCTV cameras and insurance.

IP CCTV.

All this is bad , but it gets worse. The security industry manufacturers have made a seismic shift into the world of IP CCTV. In theory a fantastic opportunity to upgrade customers from
analogue to IP and at the same time dramatically increase quality,
functionality and ease the grunt of the installation. This move has
however opened up the market place to a whole new breed of camera
installer. Telecoms and IT integrators have suddenly seen the light. A
discipline that held no interest for them previously has suddenly become
easy, in addition they are always on the spot to include security at the
new build point and offer this service when upgrading telephone exchanges or
installing a new cat 5 infrastructure. Building firms are now even
starting their own divisions dedicated to CCTV and security. Integrated
security is also now common and the whole job of installation is now eased by IP Access control that can fit seamlessly together on the network so no security company is required.

The big fight back!

So how can the security industry fight back? Well they need to look
towards their existing clientele for starters. Treat them like gold dust
and keep them informed of new developments involving IP, HD and
megapixel camera solutions. We need to up the level of service that we
provide. The one thing that cannot be offered by a sparky and even many of
the big IT integrators is the sort of response required when a CCTV
security system goes wrong . This is the trump card and should be used
time and time again.

Cost of a break in?

In order to address the insurance issues we talked
about earlier, prospective customers need to be told what the real cost
of a break-in can mean. Disruption of business, lost clients
embarrassment and cash flow issues. The most important point though is
that we from the security industry know about security, far more than
any builder , electrician, IT  integrator or end user and we must get this
point across. As long as we train our engineers properly, inform our
sales staff and price to compete then there is plenty of scope for
expansion in the future….once of course this recession is finally over
!!!

HRXTECH CCTV

Hengrongxiang Technology Co., LTD

Founded in 2005, HRXtech CCTV is a leading manufacturer of security products. The company is proud of its a High-tech enterprise and its innovative approach to design and development work. The Headquarters are in the city of  Shenzhen based in China.

Own brand.

“Hengrongxiang” is the company´s own brand, and the product lines include analogue cameras, PTZ domes, network surveillance cameras and DVRs , all are high-tech products offering plenty of features that appeal to their growing customer base. Good service and quality have seen the companies sales increase rather well recently.  The company product is now found its way into world wide markets and strong sales are seen in places such as Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, Africa, Australia and other countries and regions.

Research and development.

A dedicated development team  has spend over 5 years of  R &D and this has seen all the product range improve to the quality product we see today. With 700 employees working within the organization and CCTV equipment produced in strict accordance with the following certification: international ISO9001: 2000 international quality system certification, CE certification, China 3C compulsory certification. In addition the company has been appraised as “Top Ten Shenzhen Security Trust Brand” and “China Top Hundred Security Enterprise”, quite an achievement.

Green.

In the future , Hengrongxiang has pledged to continue to adhere to the demands of environmental issues, and maintain this need to a high standard. To their credit they robustly, practically, progressively  provide green technology solutions, by employing low energy consumption and  low carbon emission products for their customers.

Honeywell CCTV ACUIX

Honeywell Dome camera.

The Honeywell ACUIX ES ptz dome range is a combination of camera solutions that features integrated cctv high res cameras and has been designed to fit into just about every application. With 540 TVL resolution and auto iris lenses, the internal colour cameras are available with either fixed or a zoom lens. Both these cameras are highly cost competitive and are designed to make installation simple.

External CCTV camera.

Externally, Honeywell offer two solutions , either the wide dynamic (WDR) or the true day night (TDN) models, each fitted with a zoom lens that is selectable from 18x 26x or 36x zoom. This means very large areas indeed can be covered by each CCTV camera.

CCTV benefits.

Other benefits include excellent reliability, coaxial telemetry for retrofit scenarios, remote firmware upgrades and privacy zones to name a few. The CCTV dome camera has been designed for European wide sales and offers menus in 8 different languages, the inclusion of Spanish opening up potential in other areas of the world.

CCTV dome cameras.

The marketplace these CCTV dome cameras are aimed at, includes retail, banking, schools and colleges but to be fair the ACUIX ES will fit into just about any kind of application. Cable management brackets mean every job looks neat and tidy and with Honeywell you have a reputable company with good servicing and customer support to fall back on.

Hybrid CCTV, Analogue CCTV or IP CCTV?

Decisions , decisions

If you are the  MD of a company who is about to upgrade or install a new CCTV surveillance system, you are probably going to be faced with some pretty tricky decisions on how you are going to approach the subject. The three main questions you will need to ask yourself are:

1)      Will I just upgrade my analogue cameras for new analogue cameras?

2)      Will I use a mixture of my existing equipment with new IP camera technology .i.e. a hybrid CCTV system?

3)      Will I go for the latest IP Megapixel camera solutions with a VMS recording platform?

CCTV solution? Too many choices?

The problem is there is no clear answer on this. Option 1 will almost certainly work out the cheapest at the point of installation and the results you will be able to achieve will mirror those of any previous analogue system you have used. The cameras and DVR may well have more features but overall system performance is going to be the same.

Hybrid CCTV.

Option 2 will give you a half way house solution. Hybrid systems combine analogue and IP cameras with the potential to record on either a DVR or an NVR but you will have to convert the cameras to either analogue or IP at the point of recording. Having said that some companies advocate the use of a Hybrid DVR that can handle both, but long term support for these products is distinctly questionable. However for the time being they provide a convenient bridge between the two technologies.

IP CCTV.

Finally option 3. This will mean a commitment to the future, but one that is still evolving. With megapixel cameras you really need to consider your companies network capabilities to ensure the frame rate and picture quality are maximised. It is inevitable that IP products will be the dominant force in the CCTV market place over the next 5 years. Analogue solutions have reached their ultimate performance levels and have become as cheap as they ever will do. The price of analogue will rise in time, which is why option 1 may not be the cheapest route in the long run. Conversely IP products will fall in price sharply and the options and ranges of the camera and recording products will be wide ranging.

Buy IP CCTV solution.

So as an MD the decision is defiantly not easy, proper advice should be sort to ensure that a supplier with an installation preference does not force you down the wrong route. So thought and consideration is now crucial as to the decision……… “Buy IP Camera solution”? probably …yes!

Seagate or Western digital

Seagate  or Western digital.

Hard drives! Anyone in the IPCCTV world will tell you these are the only two hard drives that are really used in most digital recorders today. They will also tell you that both are the same , there is no difference, it does not matter which one you use. This is especially true of installers who buy their DVR’s from the manufacturers and install their own hard drives .This can save a lot of money. Most manufacturers will advise against this but all in the know realize that on paper it makes little difference.

But……….

However we have come across a case where it seems some DVR’s really do need the hard drive installed that the product has been tested on. Below we carried out a series of test on a DVR that seemed to fail for no apparent reason the results were surprising and indeed could shed some light onto why DVR’s seem to fail for no apparent reason.

The test.

Below is the findings as described by the technician who carried out the testing…………………….

“I have been undertaking an extensive test on the DVR to emulate some of the issues we are seeing reported in the field”………..

The issues we were hearing were:-

  • Alarms locking up the units
  • Rebooting
  • HDD / recordings missing

I have set up a unit and  over the last 2 weeks, here are the results of my tests:-

Seagate 1Tb ST31000525SV – 2 of them to make 2Tb –  DVR 400ips unit

  • 5 cameras connected (1 camera looped to 4 other inputs)
  • CCTV Camera 1 is set up for motion and also I have turned on Sensor 1 and set to N/O – basically causing the alarm to be permanently on
  • Cameras 2-5 are set for motion
  • Recording schedule set for motion and continuous 24/7
  • Notify set to send alarm data to an internal IP address………….my laptop,……….so not always there (testing to see if a non-connection will cause lockup)

After 1-2 days of me not being present, the unit shows the ‘no HDD’ symbol with a red cross through the symbol………..looking at the System info, no HDD’s are present………reboot and they still do not appear……..when I do a full power recycle, both HDD’s appear again, the system continues recording and all video recording is still present (up to the point where the HDDs disappeared obviously)

last week, I observed the unit reboot after 3 hours, and when I checked the System info, one of the HDDs had disappeared……..a couple of hours later, both HDDs had gone after another reboot

So, I had taken delivery of 2 x Western Digital 1Tb HDDs Caviar AV 10EVDS and proceeded to put those into the  DVR in question

It is now Wednesday (5days later) and the exact same test has been performed with no reboot, lockup or HDD / Video recording loss……………….this leads me to suspect the following:-

  • The Seagate drives we were using were a faulty batch (possible but unlikely)
  • The Seagate drives we were using are actually not fully compatible with the DVR firmware, even though the manufacturer gave us the part number (possible)
  • The Seagate drives were not correctly inserted  by the client and my changing the drives to another unit is purely coincidental and corrected the fault – again  unlikely

Conclusion , it would seem that there is some subtle difference between the hard drives that has caused the DVR to crash although in practice this is not really possible the testing proves that somewhere within the firmware of the DVR a problem has occurred with the original hard drives.

When we at integrated CCTV asked the engineer if he thought there was a difference between the hard drives he replied.

“No same spec should make no difference, hard to understand, the Seagate is a good make so its not the Hard drive just the way it works with the DVR”

Feedback.

Has anyone else experienced hard drive failures on your own DVRs that may in fact be caused by a similar problem? If so we welcome your thoughts and feedback.