Video surveillance system

iDeviceDesign has more than five year's experience in developing video surveillance and video-analytics equipment for mission-critical customers in various industries. iDeviceDesign has developed IP cameras with embedded video content analytics (VCA) and edge storage, multiple-channel video-analytics encoders, thermal-camera modules, and network video recorders.

iDeviceDesign is the world’s first company to deliver an i-LIDS-approved primary detection system on DSP, an ONVIF-compliant video-analytics system, and an ONVIF-compliant network video storage with Profile G support. iDeviceDesign is the main contributor to the ONVIF Device Manager open-source project.

Encoder with high-quality embedded video analytics. Dual-channel video-analytics encoder is a ready-made device compatible with products which support ONVIF standard. i-LIDS certificate holder.

• Two analog video inputs and two video outputs
• H.264 Main Profile or MJPEG streaming
• DSP video analytics for perimeter security
• Advanced tampering detectors
• Digital image stabilizer
• POE/POE+, digital I/O, PTZ, and audio
• ONVIF 2.2.1 / Profile S certified
• Edge storage and push notifications to mobile devices
• Industrial heavy-duty design with ESD protection and backup power

OEM-component with high-quality embedded video analytics, i-LIDS certificate holder. Single-channel video-analytics encoder was designed as a part of thermographic camera or other products.

• Analog, LVDS, HD-SDI, and BT.656 video inputs
• H.264/MJPEG dual streams
• DSP video analytics for perimeter security
• Advanced tampering detectors
• Digital image stabilizer
• POE, digital I/O, PTZ control
• ONVIF 2.2.1 / Profile S certified
• Thermal-camera support
• Industrial heavy-duty design

The camera was designed for professional needs and provides stable high-quality video.

• 1.3 MP censor with 720p30 H.264 streaming
• DSP video analytics for perimeter security
• Advanced tampering detectors
• Digital image stabilizer
• Advanced-image sensor control over ONVIF
• ONVIF 2.2.1 / Profile S certified
• Industrial heavy-duty design

Home Video Surveillance & Security Cameras

Can someone else access the wireless camera signal and view the images captured by the cameras in and around my home?

ADT wireless security cameras use an encrypted wireless protocol known as WPA2. This is an industry-recognized method to limit access to wireless networks and communications so that your wireless signals remain private between the surveillance camera and the iHub.

Can I use wireless cameras with the ADT Pulse ® system that I purchase on my own?

Only wireless cameras provided by ADT can be used with the ADT Pulse ® system. Off-the-shelf cameras cannot be registered to the system.

Can I listen to what is happening in my home with the ADT Pulse ® system, and record audio as well as video?

Due to federal and various state laws, the ADT Pulse ® system does not provide the ability to deliver or store audio along with the video.

Can ADT Pulse cameras record images in the dark?

ADT Pulse outdoor security cameras can see in the dark. Currently, the ADT Pulse indoor bookshelf security cameras cannot see in the dark. Many people use an automation to turn on a light when requesting video. An automation is an option that allows you to preprogram an action to occur when triggered by another action.

Video surveillance from ABUS for private houses and apartments

Video surveillance from ABUS enables fast localization of threats and protects persons and material assets. If worst comes to worst, detailed recordings help answer questions. A broad range of cameras, components, and accessories guarantees an optimal video solution for your specific requirements and budget.

The ABUS product range includes surveillance cameras and recording devices for all fields of application. We supply a full spectrum of unique products in our portfolio, both as analog video technology as well as IP video surveillance, also encompassing our innovative hybrid solutions which combine analog technology with the convenience of network technology.

Video surveillance will help you not only if an actual incident occurs, but also as a preventative measure and to solve crimes. Potential intruders are scared off by video surveillance, which will thwart any crimes in the first place. During critical situations, the surveillance video from your camera will allow you to maintain an overview at all times, to take action or coordinate the intervention by security staff. After an incident has occurred, the video recordings allow you to reconstruct the events quickly and clarify the circumstances.

Camera Vision - video surveillance on C#

A C# video surveillance application, which allows monitoring several IP cameras simultaneously.

Looking at today’s tendency of video surveillance systems, it can be easily noticed that popularity of IP based solutions is growing really fast. There are quite a lot of manufacturers, who provide great range of IP video cameras and video servers, meant to serve in a professional IP-enabled video surveillance system. More than that, many companies provide solutions aimed at converting current CCTV video surveillance systems to IP based systems, keeping current equipment and infrastructure. In addition to these companies who provide not just hardware solutions, but software as well, there are a lot of other companies who focus on the software part of IP video surveillance systems mostly, providing complete solutions for small or enterprise business, as well as for personal use.

In the article, I would like to share some of my experience in working with different IP video cameras and video servers from different manufacturers. The provided information is related mostly to accessing these cameras from your own application, which may be a simple application for your personal needs, or something more sophisticated and even close to some sort of video surveillance application.

As a demo application to the article, I am providing a C# application, which allows single camera viewing as well as multiple camera viewing simultaneously. The application allows simultaneous view of not only several cameras from a single video server, but allows many different cameras of different manufacturers at a time. The range of supported video sources by the application is:

• Continuously updating JPEG source;
• MJPEG (motion JPEG) streams;
• Some Axis cameras and video servers (205, 206, 2100, 2110, 2120, 2130R, 2400, 2401, 2460);
• D-Link cameras (JPEG support only);
• Panasonic cameras;
• PiXORD cameras;
• StarDot cameras (NetCam, Express 6);
• Local devices, which support the DirectShow interface;
• MMS (Microsoft Media Services) streams.

1. convert an analogue image to a compressed digital image (some cameras/servers have an additional compression microprocessor in addition to the main CPU for the purpose);
2. provide access to the image via IP network (usually these cameras run a web server, which provide the ability not only for accessing digital images, but also camera configuration information through the HTTP protocol).

Video servers are much more sophisticated devices, and usually come without cameras. Instead of this, they are equipped with several video input connectors (usually from 1 to 6), and the user may plug any analogue camera he would like to these connectors. Like IP cameras, video servers also convert image from analogue cameras to digital form and provide access to it through an IP network, but they also provide additional options for video archive creation (for this reason, video servers are equipped with hard drives).

The fact that IP cameras and servers can be accessed over an IP network is a great benefit. It allows monitoring not only from the actual location of these cameras, where you have specially equipped monitoring systems, it also allows doing it from any other IP-enabled point of the world using special video surveillance applications, like web browsers (see image below). And do it as from a usual workstation, or from PDAs and cell phones. The range of applications for IP-enabled video solutions is far away from just doing monitoring and storing video archives. The digital output of these cameras/servers allows them to be easily integrated with hundreds of applications:

• motion detection/tracking (in the whole video frame, or in specified areas of interest);
• traffic control and plate numbers recognition;
• people tracking with ability for person identification;
• etc.

The simplest video format, which is supported by almost all IP video cameras/servers, cannot be even called a video format. The format is just usual JPEG. Most cameras allow retrieving a single image from them by accessing a special URL (should be documented by the camera manufacturer). For example, the following URL allows retrieving an image from an Axis camera: http://webcam.mmhk.cz/axis-cgi/jpg/image.cgi.

This approach has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that it is required to send a new HTTP request to the camera’s web server each time you need to retrieve a new image, which adds some speed loss because of the extra data (HTTP headers) being sent/received. The advantage is that a monitoring application can easily control the maximum frame rate on its own – it will access the URL to get the next frame with any arbitrary speed (once per minute or 15 times per second, if the network and camera speed allows it).

The second popular format is MJPEG (Motion JPEG). This format allows to download not just a single JPEG image, but a stream of JPEGs. As in the case of the normal JPEG format, the client application does an HTTP request to a special camera’s URL, like this one: http://146.176.65.10/axis-cgi/mjpg/video.cgi. But the camera replies to this request with not just a single JPEG, but with a stream of JPEGs delimited with a special delimiter, which is specified in one of the HTTP headers. When the client application does not want to receive video data any more, it closes the connection with the camera.

The MJPEG approach seems to be much better, because it has one obvious advantage - it requires sending an HTTP request only once and then receiving JPEG from the camera continuously. But in this approach, you cannot control the frame rate so easily. Accessing such an MJPEG URL, your camera will feed you with some sort of predefined frame rate. In case you would like to change it, you will need to add some extra parameters to the URL. This sounds not so problematic, but in reality, it may lead to some problems. I’ll try to describe the most common one. Suppose you requested (or it was the default setting) 15 frames per second from a certain camera. But, it so happened, that somewhere on the way between you and your camera network speed went down and you receive only 5 frames per second. Suppose your camera has buffer for 30 frames, for example. So, your camera generated 30 frames per 2 seconds, but you consumed them only per 6 seconds. That means that you will see the last frame with a 4 seconds delay – which will be too late in most cases. Of course it is just a sample, cameras will flush their buffers from time to time and do something else to avoid such sort of delays. But, here is a real sample I saw. One guy once entered a room monitored by some camera, spent there a short period of time, and then he went to another room and saw himself walking in that previous room in the camera monitoring application (the application provided by the camera manufacturer).

Many cameras from many different manufacturers support much more than just JPEG or MJPEJ formats. There are cameras which support MPEG-2, and some others that support MPEG-4. Also, some cameras support not only video, but sound transmission as well, and even bidirectional.

Further in this article, I will talk a little bit more about accessing some cameras - accessing single JPEG frames, and MJPEG streams (the MPEG format is not covered by the article). Most camera manufacturers provide APIs and SDKs on their sites, so these information could be learned in more detail.

Displaying data from any JPEG source (camera) is really simple – you just need to continuously create HTTP requests to the source, download response data, and extract a bitmap from them. Here is a quick sample of retrieving a single JPEG frame from an IP camera:

But, don't forget that most cameras are not free with open access like in the sample above. Most probably, you will want to protect your camera with a password, which should be specified somehow:

Accessing MJPEG sources is much more complicated. First of all, let's take a look at the response content type. It should look something like this:

Maybe, it will not look exactly the same, but its type will be multipart/x-mixed-replace for sure, followed by a certain boundary. In this case, the boundary value is "--myboundary". Now, let's take a look at an actual stream data:

1. Parse response content type to extract the actual boundary value;
2. Read the initial portion of the stream, searching for the first boundary;
3. Read binary data until the next boundary;
4. Extract an image from the read buffer;
5. Process the image (display, do whatever else);
6. Continue with steps 3-5 in a loop.

Actually, the idea of accessing an MJPEG source does not look so complicated as I stated before, but it is for sure, that its implementation will be not so trivial as in the case of the JPEG source.

Axis cameras and video servers seem to be the best IP video cameras I managed to work. From the user's perspective, these cameras provide good video quality and frame rate, as well as it is very easy to install them and configure. From the programmer's perspective, these devices are even better – the company provides the best developer's documentation I’ve ever seen for IP cameras. The company provides complete documentation on how to access these cameras over HTTP as well as provides an SDK [^ ].

The following are URL formats to access JPEG and MJPEG stream of Axis IP cameras/servers:

Both of these URLs may accept some parameters, which may make impact on the result. The most popular parameters are resolution (to specify the desired size of the video output), camera (to specify the camera’s number in the case of a video server), and the desired frame rate (only for MJPEG sources):

To get the complete HTTP API and the list of all supported parameters, please, refer the Axis support web site.

It looks like StarDot does not have a great range of IP cameras and video servers, and the range did not change for the past two years. All they have for now is one model of IP camera and one model of video server. As to me, they have the only benefit – their video server supports up to 6 analogue cameras. But everything else does not make them a competitor to such companies like Axis. For example, the frame rate of their IP cameras is really small (not acceptable for security) and these cameras do not support MJPEG. The amount of information for developers also seems to be poor.

URL formats to access their products are really simple:

The product range of PiXORD mostly consists of different models of IP cameras, which seem to be rather nice cameras providing good quality and frame rate and supporting MJPEG streams. The company provides SDK for their products, but it becomes accessible only after the registration procedure.

Here are URL formats to access their IP cameras:

I did not work a lot with Panasonic cameras, just found several cameras on the Internet, which you can also browse from the sample application provided with the article.

URL formats to access Panasonic cameras:

D-Link has a wide range of IP video cameras, and is known as one of the first companies who started to use MPEG-4 in their cameras. Actually, these cameras have MPEG video as their primary goal – they don’t support anything else, like MJPEG. Most of their cameras also have audio support, and some models even have bidirectional audio support. From the user's perspective, it is rather simple to install and configure these cameras, which support a lot of different settings. From the developer's perspective, these cameras are not so easy. The company does not want to share lots of development information, and it is really hard to find any developer's information on their site. This fact makes these cameras not so nice in case you want to develop your own surveillance software instead of using their own (which is buggy). By the way, that story I told before about a guy who viewed himself walking in another room was about a D-Link camera.

At this moment, I know only one way to access D-Link cameras (JPEG format):

Many other video sources can be accessed using other approaches than HTTP. For example, you can easily access such video sources like local web cameras connected to your PC through an USB port, or you can access remote video streams over MMS (Microsoft Media Services). One of the most common approaches to access these two types of video sources is to use DirectShow. The sample application demonstrates the technique, and you can study more about it using several other articles on CodeProject dedicated to the topic.

The main goal of the application was to make it flexible and extensible. The application itself can communicate with any video source – it may be an IP video camera or a server, it may be a local camera attached to USB, it may be an MMS stream from a remote server, or it may be any other video source. And more of it, the application can work with all these video sources simultaneously, displaying them all on a single screen.

Another main feature of the application is that it can be easily extended on the fly. The main application module knows nothing about any video sources and how to configure them; it knows only how to display them. All the logic of communication with a particular video source is hidden in separate modules, and the application is not tightly coupled with them. If you have a new video source and you want the application to work with it, you don’t need to change any line of code in the application itself. You just need to create a new module which is responsible for communication with your custom video source, and place the module to the application’s folder.

The key approach to implementing the idea was to create an interface which describes all the common functionality of all video sources. The interface is IVideoSource. Then, a set of classes were created which implement the above interface and encapsulate all the routines for the communication with the particular video source and extracting image data from it. Each such class is fully responsible for all the work required to provide the application with images to display. The code of these classes does not go to the application code, but it goes to separate assemblies, which represent those application modules, which can be easily added to the application to extend its functionality.

Each video source module may contain an arbitrary amount of video providers – classes, which provide access to the video source. Most of such modules contain only one video provider, but some of them have several – it may be preferred to group video providers somehow (all video providers to access cameras/servers of one manufacturer goes to the same module, for example).

All these video providers can be used as complete classes to access different video sources from your application. But there are still two missing things, which are required to implement to make the application extensible and configurable. First of all, all our video providers should be self-describable and self-configurable. For this purpose, two more interfaces were added: IVideoSourceDescription and IVideoSourcePage. Each class, which implements the IVideoSourceDescription interface, provides the name and description of the provider, which allows saving and loading its configuration and the creation of the configured video provider. Classes which implement the IVideoSourcePage interface represent a property page for the video provider configuration. These additional classes also go to the video provider’s modules. Combining all these together makes clear that a simplest module, which contains only one video provider, should contain three classes: provider description, provider configuration page, and the video provided itself.

And the last thing to make the solution working should be implemented on the application side – the application should find all modules and collect all information about the video source providers which live there. This actually can be done very easily through reflection. First of all, the application searches for all DLL files in the application folder. Then, it tries to load each the file as an assembly and enumerate all types in the assembly, searching for types which implement the IVideoSourceDescription interface. Once such a type is found, it is instantiated and requested to provide the video provider’s name, description, and other information. This module's investigation procedure is called only once on the application startup, but the application can be easily modified to call the procedure by user request (it may be useful if the user added a new video provider module, but does not want to restart the application).

There is one known bug of the .NET 1.0 (and 1.1) framework, which is actually not a bug, but a feature. But the feature makes a great problem to communication with some cameras in MJPEG mode. The problem is that some MJPEG video sources don’t conform to the HTTP standard 100%. Or to say it in a little bit different way – Microsoft was too picky, and implemented the first version of their framework very strictly conforming to the HTTP standard. Some cameras have something very little missing in the HTTP header and .NET immediately refuses to work with them, generating a WebException with the following description:

Fortunately, it is a known feature of .NET and it is possible to fix it. First of all, you will need to get at least the 1.1 version of the framework and install the first service pack for it. Then, you will need to create an application configuration file for your application, and place it in the application folder. Here is a minimal content of the file to make the MJPEG sources working:

The second problem is that the HttpWebRequest class of .NET has such a feature as connection group. By default, all HTTP requests are created in the same connection group, but each connection group has a limit of simultaneously opened connections. So, this creates such a problem, that you cannot monitor many cameras at the same time. The good news is that the problem can also be solved easily – the HttpWebRequest class has a property called ConnectionGroupName. so you can manage connections grouping on your own.

The attached application demonstrates all of the techniques described in the article, and allows monitoring of many different cameras from different manufacturers. The application lets you monitor a single camera, or several cameras on a single screen at a time (full screen mode supported). Please don’t consider the application to be a complete video surveillance application, but treat it as a demo, as a proof-of-concept, as a starting point for your own software. However, the application may be useful for many personal reasons.

You can find one more interesting application here on CodeProject. which also works with video cameras, and is based on techniques I described in the article.

The demo application includes many free cameras from all over the world: Las Vegas, Stuttgart Airport, and many many more. You can easily find more freely accessible cameras on the Internet, add them to the application, and enjoy monitoring them.

IP Video Surveillance Solutions

Video Surveillance is an integral part of modern security systems, found in premises ranging from airports to shopping malls, corporate buildings to train stations. It proves a great deterrent to malicious behavior and an excellent tool in solving the mystery of past misdemeanors.

In this digital world, security has also embraced the advantages of instant access to images stored and retrieved on computers. Allied Telesis offers a diverse portfolio of products, and a suite of features, that can enhance the ability to securely and reliably transport security video footage across an IP network. IPTV surveillance systems generally involve a number of devices — IP cameras, servers, and clients — and involve multicast technology to deliver video streams to every intended recipient.

Following are a variety of reference designs for Allied Telesis-based network solutions that support IP video surveillance. The smaller installations are based on Layer 2 switching technology, while the larger scenarios include options for a Layer 3 routed environment.

The pure Layer 2 approach is preferable in small to medium installations, due to simplified network configuration and maintenance. It does not require a complex multicast architecture involving multicast routing protocols. However in larger systems, it is likely that the video data will be transported in an environment divided into separate IP subnets, in order to enable scalability and provide a network that is both robust and easily managed.

In a Point of Sale (POS) and security camera installation with a limited number of cameras, a single or small group of Allied Telesis WebSmart Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches is an ideal solution because of its simplified network configuration and maintenance requirements.

The retail store is a single unit within a strip mall. To prevent shoplifting and employee theft/fraud, the owner installs a surveillance system. This improves employee and customer safety as well as deters shoplifting. This type of project requires multiple cameras due to the layout of the store. Most of the cameras are installed inside the store, with a few cameras installed outside to monitor the front and rear entrance. The physical layout of this site is small, so all of the cameras are connected to a single switch.

The security network uses existing Internet connectivity, but must be kept separate from the POS system installed in the store — a requirement of the POS vendor that provides support for that system.

The Allied Telesis GS950 PS Series of high performance, eco-friendly Gigabit WebSmart switches provides simple yet secure management features at an affordable level, improving the delivery of converged data. The AT-GS950/16PS provides standards-based IEEE 802.3af PoE to all 12 10/100/1000T ports at 15.4W. It also supports IEEE 802.3at PoE+ for up to six ports at 30W. For high-definition cameras, automatic doors and VoIP phones, the GS950 Series supports double the amount of MAC addresses supported by competitive products — double the number of devices may be connected to the network, ensuring that infrastructure installed today will support future needs. Security protocols such as 802.1x, RADIUS and port MAC address security administration facilitate the protection of the network for both local and remote connections.

The diagram above shows the AT-GS950/16PS WebSmart switch connected to 10-12 surveillance cameras, using standard CAT5e copper cable operating at 1000Mbps. A computer is connected to the switch via a Gigabit Ethernet connection on the uplink port of the switch that provides monitoring capability on all cameras connected to the switch. A Windows 2008 Server is connected to the switch, using a Gigabit Ethernet connection on the uplink port of the switch. Recorded video is stored on a hard drive that can be viewed on the computer. The switch can simultaneously power cameras, cash registers, VoIP phones and barcode scanners. An Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) is connected to the switch, providing continuous power in case of a power failure in the retail store.

In medium-sized IP Surveillance networks, or a LAN, the video surveillance system is typically distributed with one or more switches in each location connected together.

A corporate building spans multiple offices across an area. which requires a reliable, secure, scalable and easy-to-configure network. It requires IP cameras on a high performance, reliable converged Ethernet/IP service network. Video is isolated from voice (VoIP) as well as employee administration data traffic, but all services use the same physical, high performance, reliable Ethernet network. This saves initial capital and reduces the costs of maintaining and supporting multiple physical networks.

Each office desk requires an IP phone as well as network ports for a PC and networked printer. In addition, there are IP phones and many LAN ports throughout the building. A camera is placed in every entrance as well as several in key hallways, the parking lot, cafeteria and other public places.

The Allied Telesis x610 Series is an advanced Layer 3+ stackable switch for the access and aggregation network with Gigabit service interfaces and a 10 Gigabit uplink interface where resiliency, reliability and high performance are the key requirements. Allied Telesis Virtual Chassis Stacking (VCStack™) provides resiliency by allowing the creation of a single “virtual chassis” from multiple x610 Series devices. It allows management of the stack as a single node on the network, greatly simplifying management tasks. Comprehensive low-latency wirespeed QoS provides flow-based traffic management with full classification, prioritization, traffic shaping and min/max bandwidth profiles. The x610 Series embeds a RADIUS server, enabling network access control through 802.1x without any added NAC device.

The Allied Telesis x510 Series of stackable and scalable switches offers another cost-effective alternative, with the same features and capabilities — on a smaller scale and at a lower price.

The 8000S Series of high performance, fully managed and stackable Fast Ethernet switches provides advanced enterprise features at an affordable investment level to improve the delivery of converged data. The AT-8000S/24POE provides standards-based IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) to support video surveillance and VoIP applications. The switch supports administration of port-based MAC address security, facilitating the protection of the network for both local and remote connections.

Featuring the industry-standard AlliedWare Plus™ CLI and Web interface, the advanced features of the x610, x510 and 8000S Series are accessible to a wide range of system administrators. The CLI and Web interface significantly reduce learning time and minimize the cost of deployment.

To ensure the protection of data, it is important to control access to the network. Protocols such as IEEE 802.1x port-based authentication guarantee that only known users are connected to the network. Unknown users who physically connect can be isolated to a pre-determined part of the network, offering guests such benefits as Internet access while ensuring the integrity of private network data.

The diagram above shows the x610 Series at the core of the network and 8000S Series switches at the access edge, providing PoE to surveillance cameras throughout larger schools and retail stores. Alternatively, x510 PoE models could be used on the edge, providing even more PoE power (PoE+) and resilience, or as a cost-effective solution instead of the x610 Series.

• Schools
• Large Retailer
• Sports Stadium
• Shopping Malls

In large IP Surveillance networks, or a metro-area network, the video surveillance system is typically overlaid on an infrastructure that has been designed to carry multiple applications and services. Such a network, supporting a significant number of end-users, needs to be very reliable, manageable and scalable. These requirements are best met by a network design in which different services are partitioned into separate VLANs and transported over resilient rings that are protected by an extremely fast failover mechanism.

A large Town Center shopping and entertainment district spans multiple buildings, spread across a campus that requires a highly resilient, reliable, secure and high performance network. A campus consisting of four buildings would require 12-16 cameras on each floor of a typical four-story building. Many cameras would be installed inside buildings, with some installed outside to monitor the entrances. The physical layout of this site would be large, so cameras on each floor would be connected to switches located on each floor. Every switch on each floor would be connected to another switch, creating a stackable solution that can be managed by a single IP address. These Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) switches would be connected to a modular Layer 3 switch, providing a highly resilient, secure and easy-to-manage network.

The Allied Telesis SwitchBlade® x908 is an advanced Layer 3+ modular switch for the modern enterprise network core where resiliency, reliability and high performance are the key requirements. Allied Telesis x510 Series advanced Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3+ stackable switches support PoE+. The SwitchBlade x908 provides port and speed flexibility by using expansion modules (XEMs), which are all hot-swappable allowing maintenance and reconfiguration of the network without affecting networking uptime. Ethernet Protection Switched Ring (EPSRing™) allows the SwitchBlade x908 — with a number of x510 switches — to form a protected ring with 50ms failover that is perfect for high performance at the core of the Enterprise network.

Allied Telesis Virtual Chassis Stacking (VCStack™) provides excellent resiliency by allowing the creation of a single “virtual chassis” from multiple physical devices. It allows management of the stack as a single node on the network, greatly simplifying management tasks. Comprehensive low-latency wirespeed QoS provides flow-based traffic management with full classification, prioritization, traffic shaping and min/max bandwidth profiles.

The diagram above shows the SwitchBlade x908 at the core of the network and x510 Series switches at the access edge providing PoE+ to surveillance cameras on each floor across the campus.

Video Surveillance Systems: Wireless, Home Video Security System

Video surveillance cameras connect homeowners with their properties, homes and families in a way no other home security device can. Strategically placed security cameras inside, outside, and even around the perimeters of your property put homeowners in control, allowing them to see what they otherwise could not, whether because they’re away from home, or because they’re in another part of the home. Video surveillance systems help prevent crimes—their mere presence is a deterrent—and they can provide valuable evidence needed to prove a crime and convict a criminal. They can also secure a home in terms of making sure family members are safe, the dogs are in the yard, or an expected delivery arrived on the doorstep. Video surveillance security allows a connection with one’s home and family as well as the protection against intruders.

Agasio is a well-known brand in the security technology industry, and offers this surveillance system that features the newest Auto-Iris (or Auto-Brightness) technology which automatically adjusts the lens according to lighting conditions. Can integrate with traditional alarm systems.

This surveillance system is able to hide away discreetly due to it’s understated design, and features built-in f 3.6mm lens for wide view and built-in 28 IR illuminators for night vision.

Zmodo is another established company that specializes in high quality surveillance systems and security products, and offer this sleekly designed surveillance system that has a 330′ super long IR night vision, Sony Color CCD Image Sensor, and super weather resistant body.

This surveillance system is a more affordable option that doesn’t sacrifice quality and functionality, with consistently clear picture during both day and night and great field of view.

One of the best in the Loftek line of surveillance cameras is this model. This camera features slightly different technical elements than other models by other makers, which makes a noticeable difference picture and playback, such as the use of four LED chips for better lighting, bold exterior appearance, and Super Wide Color Temperature Adaption.

The Samsung brand may be known for smartphones, but most people will be very impressed with their line of surveillance systems as well. This model is one of their best, featuring great weather resistant, night vision up to 82ft, and crisp images with a 600TV lines resolution. The exterior is also very attractively designed, which is no surprise coming from Samsung.

The TriVision Bullet is a surveillance system built for those who want the best and most advanced features for their security needs. This model packs a multitude of high-end technical features, including but not limited to Hi-Resolution Wireless IP Security Camera with excellent infrared night vision via 12 infrared high power LEDs, built-in DVR to record 4 days (or more with expandable Micro SDHC card slot), and weatherproof IP camera with dedicated free iPhone/iPad and Android Apps.

This Swann video surveillance camera is yet another highly-rated, highly recommended option for your home security solution since it has both the advanced features you expect from your video surveillance system, yet it is easy to use. It easily mounts to walls with cable threaded through the bracket for added protection, and it can also be plugged directly into your DVR for recording or into your TV’s yellow video-in socket for immediate surveillance.

What are the Benefits of a Video Surveillance System?

The best thing about a home video surveillance system is the extra sets of eyes. How many times has someone left home and realized twenty minutes later that the thermostat wasn’t turned off or that the front door was unlocked? Perhaps the nanny is new and the ability to check in would be invaluable. Each family’s individual needs will dictate unique benefits.

• 24/7 surveillance capabilities everywhere a camera is installed
• Recording feature keeps a log of past events
• “See” other areas of the house or areas outside from anywhere
• “Watch” for kids to arrive home from school
• Check in on elderly relatives’ safety
• Monitor pets’ activity
• See who’s outside the door

How Does Video Surveillance Security Work?

A surveillance security system will typically consist of several cameras connected—either hardwired or wireless— to a digital video recorder (DVR), which records the images and displays them on a monitor. The monitor may be a closed circuit television, which can be monitored from the home, or the DVR can send the images to a web-enabled device such as a computer, tablet or smartphone, where they can be watched live or upon demand.

Video Surveillance Features

While there are many bells and whistles available for home video surveillance systems, the individual mandates of home and family members make choosing relatively simple. The size of a property, the age of family members, and even the safety of a neighborhood are a few things to consider. A few worthwhile features are listed below:

• Motion detectors
• Night vision
• Recording capability
• High resolution photography for clearer viewing
• Microphones and/or speakers
• Weather and/or vandal proof cameras
• Remote alerts
• Expandable to accept additional cameras to the system

Who is Video Surveillance for?

Both the ability of day-to-day connections to home and family, and the stepped up protection from intruders, a video surveillance system is an invaluable part of any home security system. So, who should consider this extra set of eyes?

• Homeowners looking for a 24/7 visual connection to home and family
• Anyone who is away from home all day or travels frequently
• Families with several people coming and going often—gardeners, housekeepers, babysitters
• Families with elderly members, infants, or small children and pets who may need monitoring from different parts of the home
• Homeowners who want the added security and peace of mind that come with video surveillance

For more information on video surveillance for your home, see our Buying Guide for Outdoor Security Cameras .