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Technology and more

The world of surveillance is changing. Not only are we seeing exciting advances in new technology, driven by IP, but we are seeing analogue companies still fighting to retain their share of the market by adapting to new technology and customer demands. And given the price difference between the new and old technology, it will be a while before analogue is banished to the history books.

Those who have been in the market for a long time have seen many changes in technology over the years. Unfortunately, the one thing that has not really changed is the skill sets of installers and integrators.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions holds its annual CCTV round-table to coincide with the publication of the CCTV Handbook each year. The round-table is meant to foster debate around the new trends and technologies in the surveillance market, getting input from all sides of the debate.

This year’s round-table highlighted the usual assortment of new technology available, such as intelligent analysis, high resolution and so forth, but the debate seemed to continually find its way back to the topic of training and standards. A summary of the debate can be found at 'Technology, standards and certification'.

The primary complaints of the participants was that there are no standards relating to the installation of CCTV systems and no minimum qualifications installers need before they can sell their services to the market. Anybody can sell CCTV systems and this often leads to poor installations with poor equipment and unhappy customers. Who is addressing this issue? Right now, nobody.

The ability to do the job properly is becoming more important than ever as traditional IT companies start focusing on the security market. These companies have a history of technical services done by certified personnel that meet certain standards. It will not take them long to gear up to adding IP-based security products and processes to their sales kit.

Apart from the round-table report-back, this year’s handbook contains a selection of trends, opinions and case studies offering a glimpse of the surveillance market in 2010. We hope you enjoy it and find value. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome at andrew@technews.co.za.

Andrew Seldon

Editor

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