VideoIQ raises the camera bar

BEDFORD, Mass.—One of the products sure to get a thorough examination from integrators at this year’s ISC West show is VideoIQ’s new iCVR, what the company claims is “the world’s first high-performance, day/night network camera with content aware storage, intelligent networking, analytic detection and object search built right into the camera.” Theoretically, all the camera requires is a network connection and a monitor to affect a working IP surveillance system. There’s no need to buy additional servers, software or power supply. “We believe this to be revolutionary,” said president and chief executive officer Scott Schnell. The initial camera offering comes with 160 GB of storage on board, controlled by the analytics engine to only record on alarm events. The on-board software can be integrated with video management software like that made by OnSSI or Genetec, but also can be used on its own, and provides functionality like “click-and-search,” whereby you can click on any object in an image and search for that object throughout all of the recorded video stored on all of the cameras in a network and bring up all the video clips with that object for review. “That doesn’t exist in anyone else’s product,” Schnell claimed. “The searches are all performed on the cameras. There’s no need for central processing.” However, he said, if you wanted to perform searches going back through six months of video for some kind of business analysis, you’d need more storage and processing to do that. Schnell also acknowledged that this initial camera offering is more for outdoor perimeter use, as any location that would need constant recording would also need much more storage. He said VideoIQ estimates the cameras can store two months of video, assuming the camera is recording roughly five percent of the time. He said, however, that this is just the first in a string of intelligent edge products that VideoIQ, a spin-off of GE Security, will be releasing in coming years, aimed at bringing video analytics to the mainstream. “To really hit the mainstream,” he said, “you have to have everything in the camera, it dramatically reduces the cost, increases the ease of use, and makes the system very scalable.” Schnell said the iCVR will start at $1,725 per camera and a 16-camera system would cost less than a typical 16-IP camera system, which he pegged at $34,000. The iCVR will begin shipping shortly after ISC West. SSN