How to "Secure" Your CCTV Video Security System?

Recently, my friend left his country two weeks for holiday. When he returned, he found his CCTV system was disabled by the burglars. After that, the burglars took the safe box from his bed room. One of the key values of CCTV system is to deliver forensic evidence when something bad happens. What if the footage is just missing or your recorder is taken. You need a secondary recording system to make sure you critical data is available even the primary system is compromised. How can we back up recording in our CCTV?

Recording in the cloud

You can choose cloud recording service for your cameras. Most of the cloud services require subscribing fee. You pay for the bill like you pay for your phone. Also, the cloud recording will eat the bandwidth as it needs to be always uploading the video or footage to the server.

On-board storage within camera

Some of the cameras have TF card slot which supports on-board storage. You can insert a TF memory card which is the same as the one you use in your smart phone. The camera will generate secondary recording inside the camera while it is streaming to your NVR. Image you have several cameras with on-board storage in the field. It is less possibility the criminal can completely destroy all your cameras in one. The on board storage is the effective solution to apply the secondary recording.

FTP upload

If you have ftp server such as NAS device, you can configure the cameras to upload the image or video footage to your ftp server. Most of the cameras require trigger event to initiate the upload operation automatically, like motion detection. When the camera detects the object in the scene, it will take a snapshot and upload to your ftp server. The video upload needs TF card memory on board inside the camera, because the footage has to be created and storage in the memory card before uploading.

Email backup

This is the economic solution to generate the backup. You can create email account to receive the image from your camera or NVR. One of the important things is you need to learn how many email your account allow to receive each day especially you are using the free email account. If your CCTV system keeps sending email every minutes, you could violate the policy and be blocked by your email service provider. You can set the time line to activate the email upload, for example activate email upload only from 8 am to 6 pm when the camera detects object in the field.

Covert Camera

You also can mix the covert camera with on board storage in your security system. This is the useful solution if the security system is existed. The covert camera will be working independent from your existing CCTV system. You can retrieve footage remotely with smart phone or PC software like your CCTV system, but the criminal may never know there is camera recording. In my friend's case, he may identify the burglars if there was covert camera in house.

The video surveillance system is popular these days. Criminal could easily get a system and study how it works. It is time to think of how to secure your security system before they can easily crush it.

Tricks of deploying the budget NVRs on the middle even large surveillance projects

Dedicated NVR is the video recording box with built-in embedded Linux system. Since the hardware platform is designed for dedicated video processing, it can achieve the cost-effective in video surveillance. There is no extra license fee for the software or operation system. However, the function of dedicated NVR is not versatile as pc based VMS. Today, the dedicated NVRs are popular especially in small project, due to simple maintain and easy-to-go operation. Can we deploy dedicated NVR for middle even large project? If the surveillance system doesn't require versatile function such as face recognition. The answer is properly yes. We just need some tricks.

The dedicated NVR require each IP camera link back to one specific NVR, and those NVRs don't communicate each other. That means there no center server to know the status of all those cameras and NVRs. If you have 200-300 cameras on the field, you are going to deal with 7-10 independent NVRs plus the cameras separately.

To knowing status of all those IP devices, we will need a server platform more than CMS (Clients management software). The server platform is the center server which can monitor the status of the IP device in real time. It doesn't like the CMS software, each of IP device will continue uploading the heart beat (status) to the platform server. Once the IP camera or NVR are off line even alarm is trigger, the platform sever will know immediately.

Since each NVR is independent units, the operator needs several mouses on the table with name tag on each to control the NVR. This is very unconventional operation. The operator takes time to locate the NVR, find the mouse, move to the position and start control of that NVR, the operator could miss the critical event during the switch. The NVR switch can speed up this operation. All the NVR output link to a specific switch by VGA, and there is single output to a monitor from the switch. With the hot key on the keyboard, the operator can easy switch between different NVR units without leaving hands off the table. After that, the HDMI port from NVRs still can connect to one new monitor to build the TV wall.

To make the control room clean and tidy, we may need rack mount solution. We can put all NVR units including the NVR switch into a rack housing. Maintain the proper temperature inside the rack case. This is simple but important trick to keep the system running for 24/7. The other thing is the power supply of dedicated NVRs. Choose the sever-based power supply instead of the low-cost ATX power. With reliable power and right temperature, the dedicated NVR will be very reliable.

Backup recording is necessary for all video system. It is easy to achieve with dedicated NVR. Simple plug a new dedicated NVR to the network and make the connection to the camera you can have your redundant recording. 

In the practical deployment, it may have old analog camera with coax cable on the field. With Hybrid recorder or analog HD recorder, the coax can be reused and upgrade to HD video with minimum cost and reduce the business downtime. Both dedicated DVR and NVR will be monitored in the platform server.

Dedicated solution always has cost advantages but less versatile function. What to choose depends on the project demands. Sometimes, we can even mix the VMS software into dedicated NVR to gain advantage from both systems.

How to ease the motion blur (ghost) from a security IP camera?

"Why the image look so fuzzy from my new CCTV camera at night? When people approach in, it looks like ghost walking in my garden." The HD security IP camera or analog (TVI/AHD/CVI) are equipped with CMOS sensor which can do an excellent job during the day. However it doesn't perform well in low light condition. People choose CMOS sensor basing on the performance at day for the cost. CMOS is cheaper than CCD. Eventually, the performance at night is compromised.

To improve the night vision, adding the Infrared LEDs to the camera is the first step. However, it doesn't help much, the infrared is still too weak to generate the fair image at night, then activating the frame accumulation (or slow shutter). This is the main reason cause the image fuzzy or (ghost). "Shutter speed can have a dramatic impact on the appearance and quality of photographs, especially when moving objects are involved" (Wikipedia) Let's take a example, when you walk from your garden to the living room, the camera should take 80 pictures, now the camera only takes 40 pictures in order to accumulated more illumination for each picture. The detail should be stay two separate picture, mix into one. The picture looks very good and bright if everything stay still. As long as you walk, you lost the details and see the ghost on the monitor. How can we fix it? After all, the criminal is not going to stand still and say hello to your camera.

Firstly, don't choose the camera with low cost sensor. Even the low cost sensor can perform pretty well at day. The difference is the night vision capability. Pick up the camera with 1/3 inch even bigger size sensor. The bigger the size is, the better the night vision will be. Like human eyes, one person can see clearly if he or she has better vision capability.

Disable the slow shutter. This can tell how well your camera performs at night. Find the camera setting. Disable the slow shutter. The image will become darker and higher frame per second (fps). Don't complain the darkness. No criminals will stand still under your camera. The ghost image doesn't deliver useful information for identification at all.

Add extra illuminators. It could be Infrared or visible lamp. The infrared can project further distance than visible light, however, you have to scarify the image's color details, because the infrared always affects the color reproduction of the camera, making the image looks over purple. Most of the camera will eliminate the color when it sees Infrared. The PIR lamp is another option especially when you have some existed street light. It can pop up unexpectedly and generates the deterrence when the criminal approach in. 

SONY have release new sensor which increase the sensitivity. It calls Starvis. People name this technology as moonlight, light fighter, starlight, or super low lux. This technology allocates the components to the button of the sensor in order to reserve more space for sensor in front. Most of these starvis camera are equipped with Infrared leds, which can ease the fuzzy issue, because the sensor just has better night vision capability. With IR illumination, it requires less slow shutter or frame accumulation to achieve the same performance. You will find the difference when you walk around in front the camera. Actually, the starvis can do even better than that, it can produce the color night vision if some of your installation spot has street light such as front door. The color image delivers much more information than black and white image. The camera is still equipped with Infrared LEDs in case it is too dark. However, it needs to postpone the switch point of Infrared and keep the camera working under color mode when the installation location has some street light. Normally, the regular IR camera just switch to black and white even it has significant light at night. The color night vision camera not only can deliver color image in low light conditions, but also can extend the use lift of the camera, because the camera has less time with Infrared on (heat issue). The below is compare between SONY starvis 291 and SONY EXMOR 322.