QNAP’s VioStor range of NVRs are now available from our webshop.

QNAP are a well known ‘Quality Network Appliance Provider’.

Their award winning range of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are very well known and respected in the IT world.

They now have a great range of Network Video Recorder (NVR) devices, specifically designed and built as an optimised network appliance to record CCTV from IP cameras on your network.

We have added the following NVR models:

• QNAP NVR-104P – up to 4 IP cameras recording to a single hard disc unit of up to 1 Terabyte capacity
• QNAP NVR-104V – as above. The only difference is the mix of compatible camera manufacturers (essentially P for Panasonic, V for Vivotek).
• QNAP VioStor VS-2008 – up to 8 IP cameras recording to two HDDs to max total capacity of 4TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-2012 – up to 12 IP cameras recording to two HDDs to max total capacity of 4TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-5012 – up to 12 IP cameras recording to five HDDs to max total capacity of 10TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-5020 – up to 20 IP cameras recording to five HDDs to max total capacity of 10TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-8024 – up to 24 IP cameras recording to eight HDDs to max total capacity of 16TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-8032 – up to 32 IP cameras recording to eight HDDs to max total capacity of 16TB
• QNAP VioStor VS-8040 – up to 40 IP cameras recording to eight HDDs to max total capacity of 16TB

All of the units are supplied without hard discs. You can very simply fit your own – see the series of unboxing photos for the VS-2008 to understand how simply the drives are fitted or replaced.

You can purchase your drives from us or any supplier of your choice – they use standard 3.5″ SATA HDDs.

Anyone who has ever had a drive fail inside a traditional Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and been told by the manufacturer that “replacing drives is a specialist job and that’ll be £500 please” feel free to exclaim your delight in the comments below.

QNAP have a great website dedicated to their NVRs at www.QNAPsecurity.com with loads of information and useful resources.

They are compatible with a wide range of IP cameras – you can check for the latest list of proven cameras here.

Finally, just in case there is any doubt, these units are supplied with CCTV recording software to record your IP cameras. They’ve just released a free firmware upgrade to further enhance the feature set of their built-in NVR software, but more on that in a later post …

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JVSG, the Joint Video Surveillance Group, have developed a great software tool which helps you to calculate the bandwidth needed for network CCTV cameras.

This is one of the major concerns expressed (typically by IT Managers) when people suggest adding video cameras to their network.

The software can calculate the bandwidth requirements for cameras with all the common resolution specifications and allows you to calculate the effects of varying resolution, frame rates, numbers of cameras, the video compression standard (H.264, MPEG4, MJPEG) etc.

You can even estimate the impact of varying amounts of motion activity in the scene.

See below for more information on the settable parameters, or click the image above to visit their website.

You can download and run a FREE 45-day evaluation copy of this software from their website, and if you decide to buy it’s just £39 to licence the software for continued use.

• Resolution – Camera resolution in pixels. You can select resolution from the drop-down list. The list contains most popular PAL and NTSC camera resolutions (like 352×288 CIF PAL, 704×576 4 CIF PAL) as well as some typical network cameras resolutions (like 640×480) including megapixel resolutions (1280×1024, 1600×1200), HD and full HD resolutions (1920×1080) as well as others.
• Compression – Video compression. You can choose from MPEG4, H.264, four levels of Motion JPEG (MJPG) compression (from Low to High) and “RAW Data”. If you use Motion JPEG you can use different JPEG compression levels. If you use low MJPEG compression (level 10) you get best quality of picture and about 10 times lower frame size. If you use Medium MJPEG compression (level 20) you usually obtain a good picture quality and an optimal Quality/Frame Size ratio. With a JPEG level of more than 50 your picture becomes bad for video surveillance purpose.
• FPS – Frames Per Second. Typical FPS for video surveillance system is from 5 to 15 frames per second. In some applications (like CCTV in casino) it is required to use higher speed values (25-60 FPS). Alternative name for FPS is IPS (Images Per Second).
• Days – Required length of video archive in days (24 hours). Used for storage space calculation.
• Cameras – Number of cameras in your CCTV installation with the same parameters.
• Recording % – Estimated motion recording activity. 100% for constant recording. This parameter is used to calculate disk storage space in case the video is recorded on a schedule or on a motion detector.
• Image Complexity – Frames from some CCTV cameras are more detailed and have a higher frame size.
• Motion % – Motion activity (100% for constant activity). This parameter is used for MPEG4 and H.264 bandwidth estimation.

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As our home networks extend to connect more and more devices utilising our broadband internet routers, gigabit switches, media centres, wireless networks, multiple family PCs etc. it is becoming ever simpler to share any data on the network.

We don’t normally comment much on developments in televisions here, but just in case it has passed you by, we think it is worth mentioning the advanced connectivity options available from sets such as Sony’s latest Bravia range.

This HD TV comes with ethernet connectivity and is ready to connect to the internet:

Sony’s new XBR9 and Z-series models feature an Ethernet connection, allowing the sets to directly access Sony BRAVIA Internet Video content using an existing broadband connection. The service offers one of the largest selections of free and premium movies, TV shows, sports, music and more from an array of partners like Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube®, Yahoo!®, Slacker(sm), and others.

Read more details over at engadget.

The XBR9 and Z-series models are also Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA®) compliant, enabling easy access to digital photos, music and video stores on a PC or other DLNA server using the XMB® interface and the TV’s remote control.

This capability should enable you to connect to a PC or Network Attached Storage (NAS) on your network and access stored network CCTV video.

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HD Network Camera delivering 180° seven megapixel images!

We found this over at Geek.com:

The D7 is a 7 megapixel camera capable of processing 100 megapixels of information per second. It also doesn’t have just one lens, instead incorporating 5 separate lenses allowing for a full 180-degree capture at 15fps.

As well as the high resolution capture, the camera doesn’t need a connection to a power point as it is powered over Ethernet. That means with a single cable you can have a very wide-angled security camera capturing HD footage.

Great for wide-angle CCTV surveillance!

Scallop’s Press Release says:

A single 180° Digital Window camera feeding into one DVR port can replace multiple conventional cameras for most security applications, enabling significant cost savings and faster ROI upon deployment. Customers benefit from an extraordinary increase in capability, at lower cost and lower bandwidth requirements than present IP camera solutions. The Digital Window camera delivers a down-sampled 180° situational awareness view simultaneously with a full resolution zoom window.

Digital Window also offers:
• Excellent facial recognition, in place of existing wide angle solutions that produce only a blur;
• Instant pan and zoom, with no camera movement;
• No fisheye distortion or blind spots;
• paired units can provide a 360° field of view;
• Compatible with video analytics software;
• Power over Ethernet (PoE);
• H.264 image compression; and
• 15 fps video streaming with seven megapixels of detail over standard 10/100 Ethernet networks.

Visit the Scallop Imaging website

Checkout the panoramic images with digital zooming

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Internet CCTV is in great demand, CCTV system owners want remote access to their security cameras.

Virgin’s announcement today of their new 50Mbps internet service to the home marks a milestone in the development of internet connectivity and speed.

People want to be able to monitor:

• CCTV at their office from home
• their holiday home CCTV from anywhere
• their home CCTV when away
• CCTV at multiple business sites
• In fact CCTV any place from anywhere
• And then, check their CCTV from their iPhone, Blackberry, Windows mobile ….

In the early days of the internet we all used dial-up telephone internet connections with a connection speed of 56 kbps (kilobits per second).

In those days you may recall that a picture on a web page used to build in a series of horizontal stripes as the image data was downloaded to your PC from the website’s server. To build a single static picture might have taken several seconds …

When ‘Broadband’ first became available our download speed typically increased ten-fold to 512kbps.

Before too much longer 2Mbps (Mega bits per second) was common place.

Followed by offers of 8, 10, 17 & 20 Mbps …

Today, Virgin Media are announcing the roll-out of their 50Mbps internet connection speed to the home.

Virgin have a pre-existing fibre-optic network to street cabinets which enables them to provide this class-leading speed. From their site:

There are now two main types of broadband. One uses copper phone wire; one uses fibre optics. One was invented in the 1870s for phone calls; one was designed for the Internet. One is struggling to keep up with the growth of the web… the other is from Virgin Media.
There is only one fibre optic network. It’s the Mother of all Broadband.

BT will not be out-performed and they have their own plans in-hand to install fibre networks that will allow them to catch up with Virgin’s offer.

The main driver for the demand in increased internet speed performance is the number of home PC users who are now using their internet connections to stream video from services such as the BBC’s iPlayer – their phenomenally successful service which allows you a second chance to see your favourite TV programmes online.

BT, ITV and the BBC are teaming-up to offer some competition to Virgin.

IP Video needs a fast internet connection to stream video smoothly, and to get the data onto your PC before your player runs out of playback data.

The Virgin offer is potentially available to 12.6 million UK homes, and Virgin are aiming to complete their upgrade rollout by Summer 2009.

The service is still asymmetric, that’s to say it has a faster download speed than upload. It’s important to bear this in mind for remote CCTV applications – as your CCTV system is effectively serving images ‘up’ to the internet it is the upload speed which is the bottleneck. With this new 50Mbps service Virgin have increased the maximum upload speed to a class-leading 1.5Mbps which will prove a real benefit if you can get (afford?) this service at your CCTV site.

This competition for ever faster broadband connection speeds is great news for internet CCTV – it is essentially the same thing – video over the internet OR IP Video (IP = Internet Protocol).

As internet speeds increase, and performance improves, connecting to remote devices (anywhere in the world) will simply become a given.

A fast internet will allow the World to become one large network, and you will be able to use-IP to connect to any media, place, device or service.

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