In preparation for an upcoming project we decided to put together a little test scenario involving the exacqvision VMS and an Arecont AV8185 180 degree view 8 megapixel camera.

Our setup on the street
Our setup included an Alienware Laptop running the exacqVision enterprise server & client, an Arecont AV8185 camera mounted on a 3 meter AV stand, a Netgear 8 port POE router, a 5 meter IP cable and power from the nearby flower stand.

Video of the Setup (including lots of interested onlookers)

Results
Here’s a video of what the system was showing us. Forgive the resolution – remember this was compressed once for the screen capture & again when uploaded to VIMEO.

Although the video appears choppy this appears to stem from the 5.5 fps limitation on each of the 4 cameras when running at full 2 megapixel res – 8 megs across the board. In reality the 5.5 fps is plenty fast enough to capture vehicle license plates and other fast-moving objects in the camera’s view. All things being said we were extremely pleased with the performance of the solution – especially considering there was absolutely zero configuration of the cameras prior to shooting the video.

The original-resolution exacqVision video export is here:
http://nnodal.com/sharedfiles/180cam.exe  (350MB)

Below are some screen captures from the video export. Click on each for a larger view:

Using the exacqVision digital zoom, we can clearly read the license plate number:

And again using exacqVision digital zoom:

Other views from the Arecont cameras:

The original nnodal blog post is here. Our thanks to Tony Luce and everyone at nnodal for this interesting experiment.

Exacq (booth #347), Firetide (booth #447), IQinVision (booth #353) and Pivot3 (booth #453) will be showing a real-world example of how easily standards-based solutions from open-system vendors can be integrated and supported from the field.

The live demonstration will feature wireless distribution, storage, and playback of HD/megapixel video over a wireless network across these four separate booths on the ASIS show floor.

Video from IQeye megapixel cameras in each booth will be streamed over a Firetide wireless mesh network connecting the four booths. The video will be subsequently captured and displayed remotely using the exacqVision Video Management System (VMS) running on Pivot3 iSCSI SAN storage with embedded virtual servers. Centrally captured video will then be viewable and searchable from remote computers in each of the partner booths and on smartphones.

A detailed description of the demo is in this flyer. The press release for the demo is here.

The November issue of Security Products magazine has devoted a rather in-depth look at the theft. Sherleen Mahoney, associate editor for the magazine, starts out:

Love often drives people to do some crazy things. One man, Larry J. Hopkins, tried to steal his way into a woman’s heart. On March 14, he entered Carroll’s Jewelers in Doylestown, Penn. After more than two hours of looking at various engagement rings (i.e., waiting for the right moment), he palmed a $47,000 three-carat diamond solitaire ring in a platinum setting, one of the most expensive rings in the store, when the salesperson’s back was turned. Within two minutes, he was gone—and the salesperson didn’t realize the theft until a few minutes later.

We previously posted the frame-by-frame, digitally zoomed-in images of the actual theft here.  Ms. Mahoney continues on:

In a lucky twist of fate, a few months prior to the incident, Access Security Corp. of Warminster, Penn., a provider of integrated security systems, had upgraded the jewelry store’s legacy CCTV system, which consisted of a 10-year-old time-lapse VCR system linked to four analog cameras. The system had been replaced with an Exacq Technologies hybrid NVR and two megapixel cameras from IQinVision.

Dan Cogan, president of Access Security, was called in to bring the surveillance system up-to-date with the latest IP cameras.  The store also wanted to continue to use their analog cameras:

“Using existing infrastructure was important to the client,” Cogan said. “The exacqVision hybrid NVR system was chosen because it allowed us to integrate the existing analog cameras with the new high-resolution megapixel cameras from IQinVision.”

After realizing the theft had occurred, retrieving the video evidence and exporting it for law enforcement was easy:

A powerful feature of exacqVision is exacqReplay, which provides instant playback of video from any camera simply by right-clicking in that camera’s window panel and selecting the desired time segment, up to the last 15 minutes. This is a useful tool to assess alarms, as well as to quickly review something that just happened. The video or individual images can be easily exported for e-mailing, printing or burning to a CD or DVD.

It was the IQeye 753 that provided the critical surveillance video that led to Hopkins’ arrest. The video clearly shows a white man in his 50s with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a navy baseball cap with a tan trim, a black leather jacket, blue jeans, a polo shirt and wireless glasses, holding the ring and quickly covering it with his fingers. Access Security exported approximately 10 minutes of video and still images to a CD for the police and media.

The thief, Larry Hopkins, was caught in two days, and was sentenced to up to 23 months in the county jail.  And he did it all for love:

According to a local newspaper, when the prosecutor asked Hopkins why he did it, Hopkins answered, “For love. I loved her so much that I went out of my mind.”

- The complete Security Products story is here.
- The original blog post with frame-by-frame images of the theft is here.

The original, high-resolution video clip is available to all exacqVision resellers.  It makes for an amazing demo of the capabilities of the product.  If you do not already have this clip, contact us here.

The installation of IQinVision megapixel cameras at a jewelry store in Pennsylvania by Access Security Corp., an integrator based in Warminster, PA, was more successful. In a recent incident, a man allegedly stole a $47,000 engagement ring from the jewelry store. The man, who spent more than two hours in the store, was able to palm an engagement ring while the salesperson was busy putting away multiple rings he had already viewed.

A few months prior to the incident, Access Security had upgraded the jewelry store’s standard resolution camera system with IQeye megapixel cameras and an Exacq Technologies DVR.

The upgraded surveillance system caught the entire crime on video. That evening, Access Security was called to help retrieve the video. After positively identifying the man stealing the ring, Access Security exported the video to a CD for the police department and created a still photo for the local newspapers. After the picture appeared in the local papers, it took only two days for the police to apprehend the suspect. The owner of the jewelry store was impressed. “With our old CCTV system, we would not have been able to catch this guy and our ring would be gone,” the store owner said.

The chief deputy district attorney was quoted saying the video was “critical” to the arrest.

The customer enthusiastically shared the video clip with IQeye and us, and the pictures tell the whole story.  The image detail and clarity from the IQeye 703 megapixel camera is simply astonishing.  The video clip of the incident was exported from the exacqVision NVR system.  The exacqVision player allows anyone to then view the exported video, step frame by frame forward and backward, digitally zoom and pan around the video, save off specific images as JPEG files, save off clip segments as AVI files, and so forth.

Here is a scaled-down image of the full camera view (click to view the full original 2048×1536 image):

Using the exacqVision Player, we used the digital zoom to look at six successive frames where the actual theft occurs. In this first frame the alleged thief is looking at the ring; the clerk is distracted throughout.

In the next frame he is getting ready to palm the ring in his left hand.

The next frame shows the ring actually being palmed in his left hand:

The next frame shows him getting ready to grab another ring to look at:

And the next frame, with the three smaller fingers in his left hand concealing the palmed ring:

And the next frame.  When the clerk finally looks back up, he appeared to be still holding the original ring, and the clerk was not aware one was missing.

A low-res version of the video clip is here.  The frames above occur at 1:54 in:

Our thanks to both IQeye and Access Security Corp for this successful exacqVision NVR installation.  They can be reached as follows:

	Access Security Corp. www.accesssecurity.com
	IQinvision www.iqeye.com

Version 2.9 can be downloaded here.  Key Features in the Version 2.9 Release:

• Megapixel Camera Cropping – save bandwidth and file size
• Soft Trigger Event Buttons – Create user-defined event buttons on the client.
• Linux Release – Now available in Linux or Windows across the entire product line, same feature set on each.
• 48-Camera View – For wide-screen monitors
• Right-Click Camera Properties – view/set camera properties with just one click
• IP Camera Enhancements – expanded functionality with Axis and Panasonic
• POS/ATM Enhancements – Definable in number of days up to two years

Here are some of these features in detail:

Megapixel Camera Cropping
The IP megapixel cameras from IQeye and Arecont Vision can produce spectacular images with great detail. With those increased-resolution images also comes increased file sizes and increased network bandwidth usage.

In many cases, there are areas in each megapixel camera image that are not necessary to view or record. For example, an exterior camera aimed at a parking lot may also include sky or buildings or landscaping in the view, which you do not need to record. With the new Cropping feature of exacqVision, you can crop out those areas you don’t wish to record, thereby maintaining the high-resolution for the areas you do want to see, but reducing file sizes and network bandwidth usage. This feature is particularly useful for systems that may have a large number of IP megapixel cameras connected.

Roger and Dan put together a video for this feature:

Soft Trigger Event Buttons
This is a feature that allows client buttons to be created that can perform any definable task, created through the exacqVision Event Linking feature. For example, on a client station monitoring a remote location, a soft trigger button can be created that lets the person monitoring that site unlock a door at the remote location to let someone in.  This is a powerful feature.  Roger and Dan put together this video to explain it:

Linux
The exacqVision Linux release is now out.  Beginning with Version 2.9, exacqVision software will be available in both Windows and Linux.  The Linux release, based on the Ubuntu 6.06 distribution, is identical in functionality and features to the Windows version.  The two releases are completely compatible: Windows clients can be connected to Linux servers, and Linux clients can be connected to Windows servers; you can have any mix of Windows and Linux clients and servers.

Ordering is easy: any exacqVision Hybrid server or exacqVision NVR server is available in either Windows or Linux; with a ‘-L’ added to the part number for the Linux version.  For software-only purchases to be installed on existing servers, the part numbers are the same; we generate a license key that is the same for either Windows or Linux.

Both the Windows software and the Linux software are now available on our Downloads page.

48-Camera View
A new 8×6 48-camera live view is available on all clients running on wide-screen monitors.  This is especially useful when running one or more large-screen monitors.

Right-Click Camera Properties
A long-requested exacqVision feature had been added: the ability to see camera properties without having to leave the Live View page.  A right-click in any camera window now has the added feature to show that camera’s properties: 

• system name
• manufacturer and model number
• IP address
• MAC address
• firmware version
• Current resolution and frame rate
• Direct link to camera’s setup page

Among other things, this feature is especially useful if you want to quickly change attributes or text overlay on a given camera.

IP Camera Enhancements
Panasonic: New support for the Panasonic NW-484S i-Pro Super Dynamic III Vandal Proof Network Fixed Dome Camera.  Version 2.9 also improves efficiencies and compatibilities across the Panasonic camera line.

Axis: exacqVision now controls unique PTZ cameras on each input of the Axis multi-input video servers: 240Q, 241Q and 241QA. 

POS/ATM Enhancements
Improved POS and ATM data retention, now definable in days from 1 to 730 days (2 years).

Recent Releases
We’ve made rapid progress in the last year, with incremental releases averaging about every 2 months.  Here are some highlights of the most recent releases:

exacqVision Version 2.8 release (October 31, 2007)
exacqVision Version 2.7 release (August 8, 2007)
exacqVision Version 2.6 release (June 19, 2007)
exacqVision Version 2.5 release (May 7, 2007)
exacqVision Version 2.4 release (March 27, 2007)

As always, the latest versions of exacqVision client and server software can easily and quickly be copied over existing versions while retaining all user settings.  The latest version can always be downloaded from our Downloads page, or you can click on ‘Check for Updates‘ within the ‘About‘ box in the exacqVision software.

The IP megapixel cameras from IQeye and Arecont Vision can produce spectacular images with great detail.  With those increased-resolution images also comes increased file sizes and increased network bandwidth usage.

In many cases, there are areas in each megapixel camera image that are not necessary to view or record.  For example, an exterior camera aimed at a parking lot may also include sky or buildings or landscaping in the view, which you do not need to record.  With the new Cropping feature of exacqVision, you can crop out those areas you don’t wish to record, thereby maintaining the high-resolution for the areas you do want to see, but reducing file sizes and network bandwidth usage.

This feature is particularly useful for systems that may have a large number of IP megapixel cameras connected.

Dan and Roger created a YouTube video for this feature as well:

A full Blog post on all of the Version 2.9 features will hit when we release the new version.

Rodney writes:

In June, Diamond — which has been at the epicenter of the contaminated pet food story — contracted with American Digital Security (ADS) of Liberty, Mo., to install a state-of-the-art IP-based video solution to strengthen its quality control initiatives, and bolster the security and safety of its facility and employees.

How the company came to choose the services of ADS is a testament to the superior images offered by mega-pixel cameras, and also how the systems integrator is finding success in its effort to catch the Convergence Wave.

Buddy Mason of American Digital Security chose exacqVision for the IP video surveillance software:

During its research preparing for the new frontier, ADS elected to employ exacqVision client/server software for its IP systems. Engineered by Indianapolis-based Exacq Technologies, the platform provides a common user interface for video surveillance that appealed to Mason.

“They bring me a decent cost and real ease of use. That has been key for us. Their GUI looks like Outlook™ so people feel comfortable with it. You can play back video on the live screen and burn it right there. They made it very simple,” Mason says.

Later in the article, Buddy highlights the opportunities that moving into IP-based systems brings to security integrators:

Mason suggests the many dealers/integrators waiting on the sidelines as IP-based systems become more prevalent are missing out on onsite learning experiences similar to his at Diamond Pet Foods.

It’s high time to jump right in, Mason says. “For Diamond Pet Foods, we were the answer at that right time for them,” he says. “A year from now, there might be four or five answers out there.”

The article is a great read, well written, on a timely subject.  You can read the full article here.

Last week, TJ and Matthew traveled to California to perform just such qualification and testing at the Arecont Vision headquarters.  Using our stock exacqVision server, used in our rackmount NVR systems and rackmount Hybrid systems, Arecont furnished more than 64 megapixel cameras which TJ and Matthew connected to the server through standard NETGEAR Smart Switches.  The cameras were primarily AV2100 2-Mpixel (1600×1200) IP cameras, but there were also a mixture of other cameras, including AV3100 3-Mpixel (2040×1530) cameras and AV8360 360-degree panoramic IP cameras.

Our real-world testing once again confirmed our virtual testing.  The exacqVision system achieved expected frame rates and network throughput, while maintaining a low processor load.  We were able to specifically and definitively qualify a number of pending installations in which large numbers of megapixel cameras have been specified by our resellers for use with our NVR video surveillance systems.

Our thanks to Arecont Vision for hosting us at their facility and for providing all of the cameras and lenses we used for testing.  Below are some pictures from the testing.