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CRS Alarms introduces VGuards

CRS Alarms, specialists in the design, installation and maintenance of access control systems, commercial and industrial security systems, CCTV, fire detection, display alarms, custom electronics, fibre optics and graphic software, has added another facet to its service offering. It has introduced VGuard, an advanced surveillance system that allows users to display, record, archive and retrieve images from CCTV systems by means of a PC-based management system.

According to CRS Alarms' Chris Hallendorff, VGuard boasts a proprietary DSP-based motion picture compression engine (with realtime coding and decoding) in its digital video storage/video communication solutions. "Specific emphasis has been placed on its role as a digital recording device in the security context, and VGuard's proprietary compression engine dramatically cuts the redundancy of the original colour or grey scale video, with little or no distortion, pixelation or compression artefacts so commonly found in AVI, JPEG, MPEG or H.263 based systems," he said.

Key features offered by VGuard include:

Mask utilities (motion detector)

VGuard has an intelligent motion detection mask utility that allows users to highlight specific surveillance areas on the monitor whilst recording. This motion detector utility will initiate recording when there is motion detected in that specific surveillance area, maximising the hard disk storage, and reducing redundant video recording. Such an event driven alarm can be activated whenever the motion detector detects changes in the surveillance area, and with the use of *.wav or *.voc files, in conjunction with the PC speaker, the alarm occurrence can be brought to the attention of the user.

In addition, by connecting to a modem, an alarm notification can be sent to a mobile phone, pager or other telephone number, for alarm verification.

Remote security

VGuard allows full remote monitoring of CCTV cameras, with up to 4 (or 16 cameras by means of a video splitter). The system is highly flexible with the ability to adjust image quality (14 levels) and frame size (352x288 pixels, 176x144 pixels), colour or grey scale output, recording speed, camera titles and a recording schedule for preset recording times and intervals.

Applications

VGuard, a cost-effective video surveillance system can be used in applications as diverse as ATM and branch monitoring at banks, perimeter security at schools, factories, and warehouses, EAS security in department stores, shops, as well as conventional CCTV applications in hospitals, estates, and private homes.

System requirements for VGuard include a PC with Intel 586 CPU or above, 32M RAM or more, Windows 95 or Windows 98, and of course, one or more CCTV cameras.

For details contact CRS Alarms on tel: (011) 315 1673, fax: (011) 315 9718, or e-mail: crs@pixie.co.za.

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