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VisualGate brings IP-over-powerline to security

VisualGate brings IP-over-powerline to security

TORONTO--Looking to install an IP surveillance system in a building without Ethernet infrastructure? Sure, wireless can work, saving the cost and time of wiring the building. But what if there were an easier way still? VisualGate Systems may have an answer. A private company based here, VisualGate has brought surveillance-video-over-powerline (or SVOP, in the company's parlance) to the security industry. Four months into commercialization of the product, the company has recently signed an agreement with ADI and other distributors to get to market, and David Kerzner, president and chief executive officer, said there's been a "huge response" from integrators. "We remove the two major obstacles, cost and complexity," he said. "That opens up a lot of channels that might not have been there, both in the commercial and consumer market." The technology basically became a possibility in 2000, and while other companies work to move broadband Ethernet over powerline to the home or business, VisualGate has focused on moving data around within an establishment. "Very simply," said Fauzi Zamir, chief financial and operating officer, "we can take, with hardware and software solutions, any analog camera, plug it into the wall, and transmit over powerline. And that's a crucial point: Now we can make those analog cameras transmit the same digitized and compressed signal as an IP camera." "We turn an analog camera into a smart IP camera and transmit it over powerline," Kerzner reiterated. VueEDGE, for example, is a powerline-based IP video server that digitally compresses and transmit video, alarm events and control data. The video can be managed with VueSOFT, which offers the standard features of your average DVR. The big advantage, said Zamir, is that "it's no new cables." Reducing cost in materials and labor, as well as the simple time consumed by the job, is the technology's big benefit, he said. "It's as if I pre-wired the world," Kerzner joked.

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