Distributed CCTV design concept comes mainly from the concept that the *storage of CCTV cameras is distributed or *NOT put in a central location like on-premise command center. As such each camera will have its own *exclusive storage on or near to it. This concept is used by OEMs like Mobotix and many wireless/wire-free cameras when *not using cloud storage. Now the centralized IP CCTV vendors like Hikvision, Cpplus, Dahua, etc are all jumping into this domain.
An important characteristics of such system is lack of physical *wiring work and more suitability to a DIY/Retrofit installation, not requiring a professional installation and big $$$ in equipment & labor costs. Therefore, most system integrators discourage this for N number of *invalid reasons like poor quality, reliability, etc. whereas the fact is that they are equally competent. Beyond networking, it is the feature of camera like lens quality, Sensor, face/object recognition, etc. which dictate its value.
An important characteristics of such system is lack of physical *wiring work and more suitability to a DIY/Retrofit installation, not requiring a professional installation and big $$$ in equipment & labor costs. Therefore, most system integrators discourage this for N number of *invalid reasons like poor quality, reliability, etc. whereas the fact is that they are equally competent. Beyond networking, it is the feature of camera like lens quality, Sensor, face/object recognition, etc. which dictate its value.
Consider a small home installation. Less than or around 4 cameras. Retrofit as no wiring (or option to do) available. Mobile cameras in setup like kids and elderly watch. No 24x7 live monitoring but event based surveillance footage view. Smartphone as choice of viewing surveillance footage than dedicated screen inside house. Many cameras at a height, making them vandal resistant. And availability of 24x7 consumer broadband & WiFi networks. Quarterly maintenance work like cleaning, battery replacement, etc practical. This is typical scenario for many apartment or small villa. Above case immediately force you to ask whether we need to go for wired systems, whether we need to buy & maintain dedicated recorders (NVRs) with unreliable mechanical disks (HDD), etc.
Today IP cameras support the most efficient H.265 encoding, 15-20 fps, Motion triggered and AI augmented smart recording making them spectrally and temporally very efficient wrt to video storage requirement. They may generate 1-2 GB of surveillance data per day at max. SD cards come in capacities of 64 GB, 128 Gb and even 256 GB and easily available making 2-4 months quite common on SD cards. An SD card sector can be read, erased and written maybe 300 times giving a lifetime of card exceeding 10 years, which is way beyond the usable life of camera considering the rate at which technology advances. In 5 years you would surely want a better camera and want to upgrade.
Wrt to our 3 key installation considerations, our view is:
(a) Its also easy to maintain a 24x7 BB connection that reboots every night or weekly/monthly by software/hardware timer and provided the required wireless networking access, not just inside home but anywhere away from it to on your mobile device. Many cameras will support software timer based graceful reboot. All this makes the networking part very reliable.
(b) Most Wireless cameras are powered by 5V or12V supply or a battery. many support dual mode like Micro-USB charging port and internal battery with the battery providing backup in case power is lost on the charging port. DC-DC UPSes exist in small form factors. Small Solar Panels can support outdoor installations by charging internal battery daily. All this makes the Power supply part very reliable.
(c) The only nitpicking you can do is the vandal resistance [if camera lost/stolen/malfunctioned, footage access is also lost perhaps permanently], which can be worked around by having cloud storage back of a week, backup storage on LAN, etc. The real cost or value is not of the camera or the recording device, but the content recorded and we have ways to improve its security without abandoning the system design concept.
We would go as far as to say that unless you have a home where nobody stays (no maintenance) for long periods 3-12 months or more), wired cameras are an overkill and increasingly are beginning to look like the mainframes of the IP CCTV world.
Wrt to our 3 key installation considerations, our view is:
(a) Its also easy to maintain a 24x7 BB connection that reboots every night or weekly/monthly by software/hardware timer and provided the required wireless networking access, not just inside home but anywhere away from it to on your mobile device. Many cameras will support software timer based graceful reboot. All this makes the networking part very reliable.
(b) Most Wireless cameras are powered by 5V or12V supply or a battery. many support dual mode like Micro-USB charging port and internal battery with the battery providing backup in case power is lost on the charging port. DC-DC UPSes exist in small form factors. Small Solar Panels can support outdoor installations by charging internal battery daily. All this makes the Power supply part very reliable.
(c) The only nitpicking you can do is the vandal resistance [if camera lost/stolen/malfunctioned, footage access is also lost perhaps permanently], which can be worked around by having cloud storage back of a week, backup storage on LAN, etc. The real cost or value is not of the camera or the recording device, but the content recorded and we have ways to improve its security without abandoning the system design concept.
We would go as far as to say that unless you have a home where nobody stays (no maintenance) for long periods 3-12 months or more), wired cameras are an overkill and increasingly are beginning to look like the mainframes of the IP CCTV world.
However these are not suitable everywhere. Its unsuitable if you have a large number of cameras (overloaded wifi, software limitation, less capable video decoding or viewing device, etc) OR need 24x7 centralized live monitoring (like apartment common areas, offices, malls, hotels, casinos, etc). Because of this reason, our apartment CCTV system is centralized one, while we recommend that tenants needing dedicated cameras to monitor their personal car parks, main door, homes use distributed IP CCTV cameras. The apartment does not have resources to manage and monitor their personal space (besides privacy implications) surveillance.
- Suman Kumar Luthra @ APRC-P3 Telecom Sub-Committee
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