Interview with Joanne Herman, Samsung Techwin Europe

With its IP network-based video surveillance solutions, one manufacturer has wholly adopted and indeed contributed to the technology advances of recent years. In this brief interview, Joanne Herman, Marketing Manager for the Security Solutions division of Samsung Techwin Europe, explains the benefits of IP and why the time is right to adopt this new technology.

GIT SECURITY.com: Joanne, why do you believe that Samsung Techwin can make such a big difference to how customers utilise Video over IP?

Joanne Herman: Our product development strategy has been based on the understanding that in the current challenging economic environment, businesses and organisations are understandably looking to achieve maximum long term benefit from their investment in video surveillance systems. End-users want to purchase a solution that is not just fit for today's purposes, but is also future-proof in terms of its expandability and its ability to integrate with new technology in the future.

There are many manufacturers of CCTV cameras and recorders who would say that their products are flexible, scalable and future-proof too. Why do your IP solutions stand out from the crowd?

Joanne Herman: Simply put, it's the open platform capabilities of the WisenetIII DSP chipset that is at the heart of all our latest cameras and domes.

The term 'Open Platform' is widely used in the software world. How does this apply to the chipset that is inside your cameras?

Joanne Herman: We believe it is an exciting game changer in that the truly open platform allows users to effortlessly upload Apps and run them on any WisenetIII camera or dome.

And why would customers want to do this?

Joanne Herman: Video Analytics is perhaps one of the best examples in which the functionality of a camera can be enhanced with the use of Apps and the processing power of the WisenetIII DSP chipset is such that we can now give customers the complete freedom and flexibility to choose the edge-based video analytics App that best matches their individual requirements. I am certain that we will look back in a year or so and be amazed at the diversity of Apps that have been introduced. Many video-based Apps are already available. Retailers for example, may wish to use a video analytics App available from AgentVI, which is designed to provide business intelligence on customers' in-store behaviour. It can produce heat maps which show busy areas of a store, by hour or day of the week, to enable a store's merchandising department to identify where to locate in-store promotions or perhaps relocate slow selling items. Data can also be collected to allow analysis of how long customers have to queue to pay and this can be used to help inform store managers to establish how many check-outs should be open to ensure that the customer experience is not adversely affected by long queues. Similarly, security personnel responsible for mission critical sites may wish to use the Foxstream video analytics App, which is ideal for perimeter protection applications where there is a need to have a high performance solution to detect and track would-be vandals and thieves. It's really easy to upload an App to one of our cameras. After connecting a camera to the network, installers or operators simply need to upload their preferred App via the camera's browser. All the 1.3MP, 2MP and 3MP models within the family of WisenetIII network cameras and domes are extremely easy to install and set up, as are all our 'plug-and-play' network recording devices. We believe, however, that it is the open platform capabilities of this chipset that will have the most significant impact on the demand for IP network-based video surveillance solutions and create considerable sales growth opportunities for our business partners, installers and system integrators.

Can users upload more than one App at a time to the camera?

Joanne Herman: Yes. In fact a key feature of this chipset is that it has the ability to run multiple applications simultaneously, such as People Counting and Cloud Storage. This offers a clear advantage over competitors' chipsets which only have the capacity to upload and run a single App.

Do all the leading independent VMS' support these models?

Joanne Herman: Yes. Indeed this is another very important aspect of the open platform nature of the chipset, in that it is very easy to integrate with virtually any video management software package. We are continuing to accelerate our integration programme and are now supported by a large number of VMS' including Genetec, Milestone, Axxon, Ipronet, Exacq, Genetec and Seetec