The initial handover procedure serves two main purposes;

• Initial system maintenance inspection,
• Documenting the as-built charachteristics of the system.

When proper handover is not done;

• There is no way to determine the extent of changes in the system that lead to performance degradation,

Does the end user really have no obligations when it comes to optimum performance of CCTV

A few further points on this matter are that a CCTV system cannot be expected to operate flawlessly with only a 6 monthly  or annual maintenance service.

I see so many maintenance agreements and contracts which make no mention of “user maintenance”.

The user has the most critical role in maintaining the efficiency of a cctv system.

Suggested “End User” contract clauses.

BSIA has listed some sample User Maintenance points:

6. User maintenance

User maintenance is the
responsibility of the System Manager and the System Operator.

6.1 System manager

The System Manager should ensure all fault reporting on the CCTV system is undertaken in a methodical and timely manner.

The following should be considered:

a) Ensure all operators are trained on a regular basis in the actions to take in the event of a system fault.
b) Ensure faults are reported as soon as possible after they are discovered, and that details are entered in the fault reporting book.
c) Inspect the fault reporting book weekly to ensure all faults are dealt with efficiently and effectively.
d) Decide if the fault can be corrected in-house or whether the service engineer is required.
e) Liaise with the CCTV company when a service engineer is required.
f) Ensure the service engineer has access to site and equipment at an agreed time and date.
g) After repair has been carried out, sign and keep a copy of the service call report for the CCTV system file.
h) Sign off the work from the fault reporting book.

6.2 System operator

6.2.2 Checks carried out during each shift

The System Operator should normally be the first to notice a fault with the CCTV system. To ensure the CCTV  ystem operates effectively the operator should:

a) Check the fault logbook at the start of a shift to see if there are any outstanding faults on the system.
b) Check the operation of the system at the start of a shift and report any faults to the System Manager.  In addition, details of the fault should be entered in the fault reporting book.
c) If the fault is not cleared during the operator’s shift, the next shift should be informed of the fault and what  orrective measures, if any, have been actioned.

6.2.2 Additional checks carried out by the System Operator

a) Clean the monitor screens daily.
b) Clean the control surfaces daily.
c) Change the tapes after an agreed number of recordings.
d) Carry out tape head cleaning as advised by the CCTV installing company.
e) Clean computer air vents monthly.
f) Carry out any other functions designated by the CCTV installing company.

Because most CCTV installers fail to define the users role in the proper functioning of the CCTV system, it commonly occurrs that a fault is only discovered 6 or 7 months down the line – usually when the system fails to evaluate an incident that has ocurred.

The user who apparently has no obligation to ensure the proper functioning of the system, is quick to pin all blame on the contractor.

Imagine a driver who never checks oil, water, tyre pressures in between services. These are in fact obligatory user maintenance functions that if neglected, can result in severe damage.

We at TESC strongly advise all our customers, to ensure that “User Maintenance” obligations are written into the maintenance contract, along with Preventative maintenance and Service Calls. The contract also needs to ensure that
all managers and operators are capable of carrying out the specific functions defined by the contract, and that a systematic recording process is implimented to provide a paper trail of such performances.


South African National Standards recommend such a clause, be included in the contract e) obligations of the client (end-user) – this clause will detail the client’s obligations in terms of the agreement and will cover such items as reasonable access to the premises, the provision of electricity necessary to carry out the work, and the issuing of instructions to the service provider;

It doesn’t stop at installation, Configuration and hand over recording is critical.

It is critical – that the handover procedure, records the proper function of all required features – particularly those that are subject to environmental conditions. This handover test and record creates a benchmark which is useful in detecting whether system degradation is related to hardware issues.

On the issue of motion detection – a form of video analytic, There are many different approaches to setting and checking camera  perspective. A wrongly set perspective is one of the most frequent causes of mixed detections and false alerts.

Incorrect camera perspective could create many problems with accurate detection, some examples are;

• Problems caused by shadows or foliage,
• Passers-by seen through glass frontage ,
• Areas of high contrast in light – require cameras with wide dynamic range or good back light compensation,
• Target remains in the cone-of-containment for a very short period of time.

It is critical that motion detection is tested for each channel, to ensure that the detection and false alert rates are acceptable. This test and documentation is a critical issue that should be concluded with the end user at the handover of a system.

The detection must be tested according to the reasonably expected conditions and events that might ocurr in the camera view, making provision for both day and night, as well as other unique periods. We recommend that the settings at which
the best results are achieved be documented with the system handover.

South African National Standards recommend such a clause, be included in the contract e) obligations of the client (end-user) – this clause will detail the client’s obligations in terms of the  agreement and will cover such items as reasonable access to the premises, the provision of electricity necessary to carry out the work, and the issuing of instructions to the service provider;

It is strongly recommended that motion detection, alerting, settings and recording is tested and documented at handover.

Video motion detection 

Check and document that this function is operating in terms of the operational requirement. This can be  chieved by carrying out some or all of the following tests, depending on the objective of the s ystem. This shall often depend on the security sensitivity of the area being protected. 

•  Walking at a normal pace – this would test the system in the case where the intruder is unaware of the detection system. 
•  Running – this tests the response of the timing algorithms. 
•  Head rolling – this is a very fast small area target. 
•  Paused walk – this tests the pre-alarm and detection algorithms. 
•  Slow walk – this enables the set-up to be refined. 
•  Crawling – this would represent a small target on hands and knees. 
•  Body dragging – this represents the smallest target area and the slowest speed.

Conclusion

The end user of a cctv system has a critical role to play in the efficient functioning of the cctv system, and installers need to bind the end user to these obligations. It is critical that an as-built benchmark is developed at handover of a system. This benchmark is a useful indicator to the cause or extent of any system degradation.

Author: Brandon Joubert April 2012 : BI Video Security (Pty) LTD

Currently we are experiencing an overwhelming return rate on the TVT product. The return rate has exceeded 10% in the past 4 months. We are struggling to cope with the sheer volume of returns as we cannot get any support or replacement parts from TVT in South Africa.

While standard practice at TESC is to keep spare parts and replacement units available for all equipment we provide , we have met with difficulty in this case.

TVT sent us a notification in which they refused to sell us any further DVR’s, as they felt we had not met their targets – in reality, their action was driven by their plan to take over a sales project we had been working on with Secequip. During the entire communication and proposal phase with sec-equip we copied our communications to the relevant TVT personnel. Within a few days, they had issued us with the notice that they would not sell to us any longer, and a few weeks after that they started supplying the very same solution we had proposed – to sec-equip.

During this time TVT assured us that local support and warranties would be handled by Forbattsa in South Africa which they had appointed as their agent.

This support and warranty is not forthcoming from Forbattsa, and TVT now claims to have no agents in South Africa. Despite this claim their product is being sold under various brand names here in South Africa. Provision, Esquire, Spectrum and many more – yet they insist that we must now handle warranties directly via them, although we still cannot purchase machines form them as replacement units.

We are now expected to purchase replacement components on a case by case basis direct from China – in which event the costs of the replacement parts far exceed that of the original machine cost, and the process takes about 3 weeks to deal with a single return.

Given that we have received 8 returns in the past 4 months, reports of the devices overheating, and one violent explosion in another case – we cannot handle the warranties effectively under the current conditions.

I wish to assure all our customers that have purchased the TVT DVR’s that we are now actively pursuing resolution of this matter and that we will keep you updated on the steps taken and the feedback via this forum.

—————————–

Latest update

Still no response from TVT , we have started replacing the TVT claim units that are on long time backorder with dahua units.

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12/2/2011

Update: Now we are offering our customers who are returning the TVT dvr’s at more than 15% RMA the oppurtunity to replace them with our new tesc dcr’s -the tesc dvr’s are selling at such a brisk pace that we’ve actually run out of mainboards TVT has agreed to sell us replacement boards for those cases where the dvr needs repairs – so much for warranty!! But if TVT won’t honor them – we still will!

TESC's eXPS-NAD+1

There are three inescapable facts about the future of video surveillance.

• Standard Resolution cameras are as dead as the standard
  resolution television, now it’s all about HD surveillance,
• Convergence of all business hardware and systems on the IP
  backbone is irreversible.
• Standalone DVR manufacturers are making a lot of noise about
  their switching to dual core processing power – but modern HD, H.264
  surveillance needs far more processing power than a dual core processor.

Is the drive to HD really necessary?

For many years we have put up with CCTV images, purely because that was the best we had. All of us have recognized the shortcomings -of even the best cctv camera, when it comes to forensic investigation of events.
CCTV systems have mostly been deployed to watch people or traffic due to the inherent forensic limitations.

HD is not  a nice to have function – it is what we have been missing in standard CCTV systems for a long time – more  forensic ability.

Forensic ability is one of the most critical factors in turning a CCTV system from a cost center into a profit center – delivering investment returns.

How do HD cameras benefit us?

Every-one appreciates that there is more detail in a 2 Megapixel Camera than the standard 0.4MP CCTV cameras we are currently using. More pixels allows us to use less cameras to observe a wider area.

When we use less cameras, we use less cable. As the cost of HD cameras become more affordable, the infrastructure and installation costs of HD cameras will be significantly less than for standard CCTV cameras.

You will still be doing live monitoring at D1 resolution – but now we have an abundance of additional pixel (detail) underlying the recorded image. This additional detail comes into it’s own, when we need to examine a recording in detail.

You have seen what happens when we zoom into a standard cctv camera. The pictures stretch, and start to expose the pixels. Images deterioriate under zoom due to the lack of pixel detail contained withing the image.

Now , with Mega-Pixel surveillance we can zoom into recordings and extract the kind of detail we need.

What is Convergence and why do I need it?

The best way I could describe this is with the term Synergy.

Management and planning -in any field, is not effective when the individual processes are disjointed. Effective management and planning is achieved by a holistic system, in which the components interact with one another.

In the current environment, we have POS (Point Of Sales) running on one system, CCTV on another, Access Control and Alarm Systems on another. In order to investigate an event or analyse any data from these systems – we
need to extract information manually, from numerous different devices in different formats – and try to make sense of it all.

Standalone DVR’s represent this disjointed approach to security. They are application specific devices – built to achieve a single purpose. We battle to find a way to get them to work with our POS – our engineers spend hours

to make the modifications trying to get devices to talk to one another, then comes Access Control and alarms, all from different manufacturers. Now we are trying to find ways to get them to accept IP and HD cameras. As we have more
requirements, it becomes a whole R&D project to add this to the standalone device.

Standalone DVR’s may be suitable for a residential application for simple application specific deployment, but more often we realise that they are not suitable for holistic security management.

Recognizing the need for holistic, convergent systems in the management of security – Video Surveillance is rapidly adopting the readily available IP communication protocol.

The IP protocol was designed by the military for solid, reliable interconnection of devices.

There is now no stopping the convergence of Video Surveillance Systems, Access Control, Alarms, Plant and Machine management, and factory automation, onto the common IP based communication protocol.

The Future

There is no doubt that we will see a new future, in which security management as a term , swallows up the singular components such as CCTV, Access Control, etc.

We also do not doubt that modern security management systems will use HD video almost exclusively.

The driver behind this evolution is more efficient management of security, and ultimately a visible ROI measure , related to security management devices.

So Why TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI  systems

The R&D Base

TESC TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI (Extreme Physical Security Network Application Devices + Intelligence) are designed with the future in mind. Our entire approach is driven by the need to converge security management into a single system, and to use HD video, and Intelligent Video analytics  to compliment the management process.

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI are built to sustain your security management systems into and beyond the new era.

Reliability

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI systems are not merely a few PC components thrown together with a video capture card. These thrown together systems are notoriusly associated with instability.

Some examples of instability

• Systems are based on desktop computer OS’s. These OS contain so many uneccessary components, each  presenting it’s own risk for incompatability. Being designed as a desktop, end users are lured into
  using their security system as a desktop. The problems associated with sharing physical security management with desktop computing are many -and include addition of incompatible software and updates and viruses.
• With the ready availability of so many cheap PC components,system builders are tempted to use off the shelf desktop computingcomponents. These system-builders hope to win your business with their ever so cheap systems. Using incompatible components results in instability.
• Installers don’t understand the sensitivity of digital systems, and never supply surge protection – or don’t install the equipment in an environment that suits digital equipment. Power surges or even interruptions, cause data corruption.
• System builders use price as a determinant and try to stretch the maximum  out of  components, without proper engineering application. The processor hungry, H.264 encoding and decoding processes, can easily crash even the most modern of processors.
• System builders guess at the storage requirements needed for D1and HD resolution storage. They supply systems with the same storage capacity as legacy cctv systems and they ramp up RAM memory. Ultimately the system does not meet the end users requirements.

Given the above practices, many Hybrid systems have developed the reputation for instability.

Why the TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI are different?

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI are carefully designed using stress tested components. In some models – Mainboards
have been custom designed with embedded capture chips.

TESC technicians are armed with loads of data, detailing the stress thresholds of most modern CPU’s on the market. Systems are built with a clear understanding of the relationship betweeh Ghz, CPU Clock cycles, and Camera Mbps. The load on the CPU is the most critical factor in assuring that TESC systems meet the specified performance.

Storage is designed to match the systems specified performance, and we place a lot of emphasis on redundancy and network storage solutions.

TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI do not use Desktop Operating systems – our OS is custom built and is seperated from the day to day operating processes of the device.

TESC deploys equipment to market through a specialized network of installers only. We do not provide equipment to online resellers, and fly by night installers – when you purchase a TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI system, you can be assured that your
installer understands the issues related to stability, and power protection.

TESC installers will deploy our systems in the same way that we intended them to operate.

Some extra reasons to purchase a TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI

TESC's eXPS-NAD+1

• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices do not lock you into a single manufacturers HD cameras. These systems support a wide range of the top branded cameras, including the exceptional TESC HDvca IP cameras.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices include artificial intelligence such as People Counting, Object detection and tracking, number plate recognition, virtual fence and more – contributing to the goal of holistic security management.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are designed to deliver real-time D1or HD on all channels without crashing their CPU’s.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices can integrate Point Of Sales and Access Control systems into a single device along with Video Surveillance.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are built , exactly as you need them. need two or three or four monitors? need alarm in, out? These systems are delivered as you specifiy them – no one box solution that you
  cannot modify.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are supplied by pre-approved installers only. You can be sure that an installer offering you a TESC device, is qualified to install it.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices are built with 90% locally supplied
  components, repaired and warranted by a local provider without the need
  for expensive, imported repalcement components.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices do not become redundant in a short time, as chassis and components are changed.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices will provide you with a future proof platform that accomodates your existing infrastructure while reducing the costs of future video surveillance.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices will continue to move towards absolute security management convergence.
• TESC eXPS-NAD/NADI devices deploy a software interface that is more powerful than any standalone dvr.

Comparing the IT sector to the Analog CCTV sector

I have taken a look into the health of our I.T. sector, and found many parrallells with that in the surveillance sector.

The IT sector started to see increasing business in the first few months of 2011, and then virtually ground to a halt in May&June 2011. That mirrors the surveillance market.

General recessionary view

Just like those in the surveillance sector, there is now wide spread concern of an imminent double dip recession amongst the I.T. Sector.

General economists are virtually unanimous in forecasting a slowdown in the local economy – some have indicated flags, suggesting a return to recession.

Surveillance is suffering the same ethos as IT when it comes to expenditure. large corporations are cutting budgets, and looking for cost savings and this affects the entire

economy. The IT sector is reporting numerous projects that have fallen behind schedule as corporations reign in spending.

One interesting parrallel is that the IT sector is seeing very little innovation – just like the analog surveillance market. In the CCTV world we are seeing some entry level recorders, being ramped up to real time D1 – but that’s about it.

The IT sector is keeping close tabs on emerging technologies like tablets and cloud computing, and the surveillance world is keeping close tabs on IP and HDcctv – but nothing is creating fireworks!

One divergence is that for the IT sector, the second half of the year is always tougher than the first, whereas in our sector, the second half of the year tends to be better than the first.

What could be behind the decline?

Overstocking

While the IT sector is battling to explain the cause of this sudden stagnation – some have hinted at a phenomena that often occurs in the IT sector – overstocking. We at TESC have always promoted a non stock strategy, although lately we had been
pressurised into holding some stock volume. Many distributors have already placed orders , these orders are on the high seas – but they face a problem from overstocking.

Over the past year, I can personally recount instances of surveillance distributors, or IT and alarm distributors wanting to enter the surveillance market – being duped into large stock holdings, and having to sell or dump these products into the market below cost.

Still on the overstocking front,the IT sector lists the pressure from vendors as a contributing factor to overstocking – a situation common to the surveillance sector. With South Africa joining the BRICS nations, and promoting itself as an
emerging economy – many vendors believe this is a market where growth can be expanded and they have high expectations.

Natural Recessionary effects

Another causal effect suggested is that the economy was always going to suffer. The world cup merely cushioned the natural effects of the recession in some sectors, but did little to cushion the effect on consumers and other sectors. With the world cup out of the way – we are all left to face the natural condition that the consumer and other sectors had already found themselves experiencing. This translates into a poor economic environment , potentially yet to bottom out.

ZAR Exchange rate strength

The strength of the South African Rand has also played it’s part. Despite increasing volumes in some cases, revenue has failed to increase proportionately. In the Surveillance sector this has been exacerbated by aggressive price competition amongst asian surveillance manufacturers. Distributors and service providers have had to double, or treble business volume- just to meet the previous years revenue.

New “routes to market”

Exacerbating the problem has been the paradigm shift in “routes to market” that are ocurring in the global market. Direct to user strategies have emerged, manufacturers and distributors have adopted various strategies which have confused
the traditional “route to market”.

The I.T sector and the surveillance sector have both responded in like fashion – which could lend credence to the overstocking asumption. In an overstocking situation – distributors are forced to sell off stock at cost or below,in order to convert holdings to cash. We have certainly seen a vicious price war in both sectors in the past two months.

Convergence

Strangely enough, the IT sector has been hit by the drive to convergence – almost as hard as the surveillance sector. The large network players with SLA’s have had as much impact on the traditional It distributors -as they have had on the
analog cctv sector. In this sense network is not purely related to IP -but the GSM network providers have also been making inroads into traditional data, voice, video and other telecoms sectors.

How will it all end?

Generally the forecast is that things will remain as they are for the rest of the year – very slow business volumes and nothing exciting as the economy limps along.

The IT sector is approaching the future with a twofold strategy of increasing effectiveness and squeezing value. Advocating a return to basics – Focus, give good service and protect and develop your relationships with your clients -so that others don’t get a foothold in your business. If you’ve always been nice to your clients – you are going to have to be even nicer.

One spin off has been the demise of many smaller and some larger IT retailers and mergers between the larger distributors. We have also seen the larger surveillance players merging in various forms , in some cases merely merging logistics and
procurement strategies.

The mergers in the surveillance sector have also had a serious impact on the smaller integrators and resellers, exacerbated by the agressive, at cost, and below selling off of overstocked suppliers.

Smaller players in the IT sector have approached the challenge of mergers, and agressive cut price retailing , by forming alliances with one another. TESC has been at the forefront of this strategy in the surveillance market through our
network partner approach.

There are many parrallels between the current market conditions faced by the IT sector and the analog cctv sector. The future is sure to prove difficult in the coming months.

I hope this article re-inforces the need for us to strengthen our network alliance in the coming months.

Regards
Brandon

Chinese supply chains are unstable and unreliable – when compared to other market suppliers. Why such a statement?

The Chinese mass market model depends on an insatiable cycle of consumption. The factories are unable to survive on anything but mass volume, given their low margins. Rather than sustaining consumption through technological improvement Chinese manufacturers continuously produce cheaper and cheaper models.

The traditional import agreement is based on volume, and initially the distributor purchases a massive volume of product from the factory. Within a short time the factory has produced new, cheaper models – past sales won’t keep the factory going, so they need new sales. The distributor is stuck trying to sell off more expensive products, in the face of cheaper and better featured new models. Now the original distributor cannot sell, hence cannot buy more from the factory – so the factory cuts off the distributor and appoints a new distributor, which proceeds to buy a container load of product, and so the cycle repeats.

Now that we have experience of the Chinese model – the examples of casualties are plentiful.

Perhaps the Chinese may learn that it is good to continuously enhance features – but to continuously reduce the price of new models with better features is an unsustainable policy. Distributors have to keep doubling volumes just to keep their income at the same level as last years.

As a result of this cycle – the conclusion is that purchasing Chinese products, results in an unstable supply chain. You find the distributor that sold you the product initially doesn’t carry the same product 1 year later. market development and sustainability suffer as a result.

This is the main reason, why we have shifted our focus to suppliers in other markets.

Innovations abound – HDip, IP, HDcctv, Video Analytics  – and yet there are supply and market constraints that prevent us from utilizing these exciting new technologies.

Well we couldn’t sit around and wait for the market to decide where it’s going to – so we will lead it – once again.

The TESC HD DVR has arrived.

You specify the configuration and we give you what you want – HD SD-I cameras? HD IP Cameras? Connect your existing analog cameras?

The new professional TESC DVR’s are just that – Professional Series DVR’s. These are not for homes or small corner stores.

Future proof your surveillance system – without discarding your existing investment in cctv. Get HD where you need it – without a complete overhaul to an HD system – get IP where you need it , without upgrading to total IP solutions or stressing your corporate network under the load of high definition video.

All the TESC systems come with High end analytics, such as facial recognition, people counting, and more.

TESC DVR systems integrate with major POS systems

TESC DVR systems have been tested with hundreds of the leading brand IP and SD-I cameras – you have the peace of mind of brand name hardware of your choice, and whatever picture resolution you desire.

Contact a TESC dealer now for professional design evaluation and advice.

The future will be harsh on those who choose to invest in legacy cctv – future proof your business now.

Amongst the leaders in the switch from capture cards to embedded systems.
Amongst the leaders in offering H.264 Compression systems.
Amongst the leaders in bringing full D1 recording to the market.
Among the first to offer 24 & 32 Channel Embedded Systems.

With embedded h.264 dvr’s now “state of the art”, and very little differentiation between offerings – we have now made the TESC range of dvr’s available to our dealers.

Once again the vision behind the release of our dvr’s, is to add value – at competitive prices.

TESC DVR’s have been put together with attention to detail – encompassing best of breed functionality.

Contact our dealers to discuss a CCTV system, with best of breed functionality – from the new TESC Standalone Embedded DVR’s.

Ask for the TESC DVR!

Dahua, Hikvision, Avtech, X-Vision, Samsung, Avermedia, Raysharp and all other brands of DVR are now available and supported by TESC.

The full range of DVR’s will be available – while the TESC DVR will still only be available through our dealer network.

Contact TESC at admin@tesc.co.za or on 031 464 0781 for more information on the Light-Bulk purchasing solution.