TAMPA, Fla. and WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn.—SureView Systems on August 10 announced it had successfully completed the integration of Videofied’s alarm and video verification system into its Immix automation platform. The integration will allow central stations to take advantage of what RSI president Keith Jentoft calls Blended Video.

What is Blended Video and how is it better?

“We came up with the term ‘Blended Video’ because we combined two different systems to evolve into a stronger unified solution,” Jentoft said in an email interview. “We split ‘video’ into two separate categories and optimized the technology and strengths of each one.” According to Jentoft, video can use portable, wireless devices and a central station to detect and notify, or use wired devices and DVRs accessed by the end-user to stream and document.

“We not only blended two vastly different technologies with different capabilities, but the monitoring was blended, as well,” Jentoft continued. “Most video is self-monitored, and Blended unified the central station and self-monitored into a single solution.”

SureView EVP Matt Krebs feels the integration of Immix and Videofied offers a powerful new way to do video. “When someone walks by the sensor in the field, it will send the notification back to Immix in the central station, and then we would set up a rule: ‘If this Videofied device trips, let the operator have access to this PTZ camera,’” Krebs said. “Then that operator can take control of that single pan/tilt/zoom, drive the telemetry of the camera through Immix and cover a lot of ground using just one camera—but also many of the Videofied units, which are relatively inexpensive.” From the single Immix platform, central station operators can now detect and notify on alarms as well as take further action to stream and document, either taking control of the PTZ themselves or passing that function along with the alarm notification to the end user.

Dominic Dello Russo, national program manager for Niscayah, says Blended Video offers a powerful and affordable alarm/video solution. “One of my customers uses it for outdoor tent sales. Instead of moving all their stock indoors every night, they put a Videofied system in, so when the store turns on the alarm inside, it automatically arms the motion detector cameras in the tent. They can leave the product in the lot protected,” Dello Russo said. “It’s the only system I know out there that ties in the detection equipment with the video.”

Jentoft says the big difference with Blended Video comes from its affordable scalability. “Is there a good scalable video monitoring solution for the typical central station? The answer has been no. People sell all kinds of CCTV, but you don’t make any RMR on it,” Jentoft said. “We use Videofied’s outdoor motion viewers as remote sentries for a more sophisticated system using mega pixel PTZs … The whole system typically costs 25 percent less than a normal security system.”