Intelligent Analogue Decoding

The security and surveillance industry’s ever-increasing adoption of digital networked technologies is making life much easier for manufacturers, integrators, installers and end-users of CCTV products.

One of the major benefits that digital video streaming brings about is the ability to receive multiple live and recorded streams at full resolution and frame-rate to the standard desktop computer.

Managing Video Streams
As more and more IT infrastructure is introduced into control centres and monitoring stations, the desktop PC, or some variant thereof, is becoming the tool of choice for displaying and managing video streams; pushing aside the analogue monitor / keyboard / joystick combination which has been the keystone of the CCTV industry since the early days.

However, as with most things, there are exceptions to the rule, and a significant demand for displaying video in the traditional manner still exists. For example, a control centre upgrade programme may specify that as much existing equipment as possible, including analogue displays, is re-used. There are also many situations which are unsuitable environments for a desktop PC, such as garages or railway stations where a ruggedized analogue display is far more appropriate.

Video walls
Video walls are another area where the desktop PC just doesn't fit the bill. Modern systems using flat panel technology need to make the most efficient use of screen real-estate and therefore generally dispense with any user interface. Those video walls which are made from multiple individual analogue monitors still require some form of matrix switch.

While digital video manufacturers frequently offer dedicated hardware decoders with analogue video outputs, the limiting factor is that they generally only support one video stream format - that of the manufacturer's own encoder. In a closed, end to end installation this isn't a problem, however in a modern open-platform, future-proof installation this can be a show stopper.

There is therefore a need to be able to specify control rooms or monitoring stations for IP video installations which are capable of supporting not only existing analogue and IP based video systems but which are also capable of supporting any systems which come along in the future. There should also be the possibility to utilise the full current and future range of display technologies.

Quorum Wall
At Codestuff we realised the potential advantages of such a solution. Our innovative Quorum Wall provides composite video or VGA output and can receive streams from over 50 different IP video devices from a wide range of manufacturers. It also has multi-view video wall functionality built-in.

Suddenly a single channel viewing device - seen by many manufacturers and integrators as a necessity but low-revenue component for many projects - becomes a valuable asset in securing business.

Customisable
From the fully customisable web front-end it is possible to selectively display IP video streams from any supported IP video device accessible over the network onto the display device attached to Quorum Wall. This interface also provides access to the more advanced configuration features such as video panel layout and setting up monitor salvos allowing standard monitors and displays to be transformed into multi-view video walls with advanced switching capabilities.

This development brings the security and surveillance industry one step closer to a truly universal and open digital networked environment.