Sen aug15 by Security Electronics & Networks Magazine

westfield

CCTV Shootout

l Security 2015 Expo Full Report l Stage 1 of Parramatta CitySafe l Monitoring: Do it Yourselves l Product review: Axis M1125 l Interview: David Lenz, Hills l Hikvision Appoints Ingram Micro

August 2015 Issue 368

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editorial s ec u ri ty e l e ct ro n i c s & netwo r ks AUG UST 20 15 issue 368

Our unfolding future

ITH Security 2015 and SecTech under our belts it’s possible to get a more complete sense of the unfolding nature of the electronic security industry’s future. It’s a multilayered future, with economy and performance battling each other for sales in equal measure. In many ways it’s a proto-future that poses as many questions as it resolves. The move to digital continues and it’s part of social change, not just the evolution of our own technology. Today’s consumers and end users interact with information in multifarious ways. When it comes to electronic systems, we want remote access and this year we’ve seen that. 2015 is the year the mobile application really broke through, in my opinion. The number of mobile apps at Security 2015 increased exponentially over last year. What’s fascinating is that it’s not only end users who’ll benefit but installers, too. Cloud – how will it work? Is there a viable model for cloud applications? There was cloud at Security 2015 but there was less fanfare this year. You could make a strong case that cloud has still not arrived for some security solutions. The technology is there, certainly, but the method and the market are not quite ready. You can see the

By John Adams

Most importantly for the market, access control is going to become accessible to more installers as technology simplifies the process of a thing that’s deceptively complex. shape – Inner Range’s Inception with its amazing remote support for techs, as well as a squadron of security and home automation solutions. Video in the cloud was less prevalent this year – perhaps Australia’s sad network bandwidth is constraining our ability to offer the best possible performance. A recent report from yet another research company claimed Google and Apple will dominate the home security market in 20 years time. Exactly how these companies will come to dominate is more difficult to answer. There’s a human element to security applications that no provider has ever successfully stepped away from. Security 2015 suggested that our industry’s home automation developers are better than the corporate upstarts. They’re capable of serious security and home automation solutions with global appeal. Honeywell also showed us something of the future with an allenveloping integration of its products across access control, intrusion, fire and CCTV. Genetec showed us something, too, incorporating a drone-based mobile camera into its latest version of Security Center and driving it in real time from its stand at the Convention Centre. The access control industry was one area that really interested me. The industry leaders showed their highly evolved and proven solutions, as well as brilliant new cloud-based

gear. Then there were IP systems like Paxton’s Net2 plus from Security Distributors Australia and ISONAS from Brassets - both simple and powerful solutions in their own right. Are we going to see a tide of change in the access control industry? I think we are seeing change at multiple levels that will continue over an extended period of time. Most importantly for the market, access control is going to become accessible to more installers as technology simplifies the process of a thing that’s deceptively complex. Ultimately, the winners in access control will be end users and installers. When it comes to CCTV, I think Vlado Damjanovski will be proved right. Within the constraints of storage and bandwidth, UHD is superior as a surveillance technology and so many manufacturers are offering it we can expect to see prices fall. Coupled with clever new interpretations of H.264 and new developments in H.265, the future is likely to offer compact and affordable cameras with unprecedented image quality. The keys to this future will be leaps forward in UHD’s low light performance, as well as lower bitrates. This does not mean the end of 1080p, however. The future will see ongoing improvements in 1080p camera performance, particularly when it comes to handling variable lighting conditions and motion blur. zzz

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Camera Shootouts Best in low light Best in Backlight 1080p vs UHD vs HD-SDI/CVI Best compact all- rounder

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50: Scentre Group

AUG 15 22: Security 2015 Expo As ever, Security 2015 Expo was a great opportunity to take a look at the best new electronic security products. There was plenty of good stuff and it was readily possible to discern the ongoing development of key trends in the market. 36: Parramatta CitySafe Parramatta Council has completed Stage 1 of its CitySafe project, which includes a Milestone XProtect Corporate VMS managing Axis and Sony cameras supported by a blown-fibre backbone. The solution was designed by Tavcom based on a Masterplan by Amlec House. VMS, poles, and camera installations were by the lead contractor, Telstra SNP, and fibre was installed by GM Cable.

Scentre Group’s CCTV Shootout held at Westfield Mall in Bondi Junction covered ID, mall and low profile cameras. Among other things the shootout showed the vital importance of avoiding motion blur when you want face recognition. 62: Axis M1125 Review AXIS M1125 network camera is a low cost, compact PoE camera designed for internal applications. It has a couple of notable strengths – WDR performance and Zipstream technology – the latter of which gives very noticeable reductions in bitrate, particularly in scenes low in movement. 70: Back to basics David Lenz brings Hills broad experience in sales, distribution and marketing and he combines formidable focus with unhesitating honesty. Lenz says Hills got some things wrong in the past and he’s on a mission to set the business to rights. 74: Security 2015 People Security 2015 in Melbourne gave the industry

80 62

an excellent networking opportunity. Held at Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre for the second year, Security 2015 was another successful event, with plenty of new stuff and good crowds.

WESTFIELD

CCTV SHOOTOUT

regulars 14: news Latest business, product and technical news from Australia and around the world. 58: monitoring Market Research suggests DIY is going to make significant inroads into the monitoring market and not just in terms of users opting for self monitored solutions, either. 78: editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s choice Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new from our manufacturers. 80: helpdesk Our team of electronic security experts answers your tough technical questions.

l Security 2015 Expo Full Report l Stage 1 of Parramatta CitySafe l Monitoring: Do it Yourselves l Product review: Axis M1125 l Interview: David Lenz, Hills l Hikvision Appoints Ingram Micro

PP 100001158

August 2015 Issue 368

Editor John Adams Advertising Manager Monique Keatinge Customer Service Annette Mathews tel 61 2 9280 4425 annette@bridge publishing.com.au Design Tania Simanowsky e: taniasdesign@ optusnet.com.au Subscriptions 11 issues per annum One year (11 issues)

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Gosford Council Moves on Safer Streets p.16 RACV Installing Bosch 3000 and 6000 Panels p.18 Hills Appoints New NSW Sales Manager p.20

news in brief august 2015

Cliff Simons Joins Hikvision

c o mpi l e d b y j o hn a d ams

Cliff Simons

Security 2015 Expo Best New Product Awards

■

ORGANISERS of Security 2015 have announced the winners of the best new product award. Winner of the best new product at Security 2015 was the Ness Mezzo home security and automation hub. Second place went to Avigilon for its 7K HD Pro camera, while LEDA Security came in third with a networked boom gate that displays advertisements.

Other awards at Security 2015 went to Security Distributors Australia for best shell scheme stand, Mobotix won best custom stand 36sqm and under, while Ness scored best custom stand over 36sqm. It was a deserving double for Ness Security Corp, whose MD Naz Circosta made the decision to bring just one product to the show – the new Mezzo solution. It was a wise decision.

HIKVISION has continued the expansion of its Oceania team with the appointment of Cliff Simons as regional sales manager for Victoria, Tasmania & South Australia. Simons has 25 years’ experience in the security industry and has spent the last 10 years at Q Security, most recently as general manager – Sales & Marketing. “This is a very exciting appointment for Hikvision as Cliff has vast experience, particularly in the project space, and is very highly regarded in the industry,” said Michael Bates, Hikvision Oceania sales director. “Cliff’s decision to join our team is a great endorsement for Hikvision as the brand continues to assert its dominant market position.”

Hikvision Appoints Ingram Micro A Distribution Partner for ANZ

David Charlton (R) with Michael Bates

n HIKVISION has announced the appointment of Ingram Micro as a distribution partner in Australia and New Zealand. “Ingram Micro fits perfectly with Hikvision’s distribution strategy as it will complement existing channels and facilitate

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greater penetration into the IT & project space,” said Michael Bates, Hikvision’s Oceania sales director. “Having achieved 95 per cent growth last year and with anticipated growth of more than 80 per cent growth in 2015, this is an important strategic move to help us sustain that

growth over the next few years. Our existing strong partnerships with CSD in Australia and Atlas Gentech in New Zealand will continue to operate unchanged.” Ingram Micro is the world’s largest wholesale technology distributor and a global leader in IT supply-chain, mobile device lifecycle services and logistics solutions. “We are very pleased to be working with Hikvision,” said David Charlton, general manager ANZ for Ingram Micro’s Physical Security Division. “Hikvision is global marketleader in video surveillance and solutions for security and boasts extraordinary growth not only globally

but also locally.” Ingram Micros’ continued expansion and investment throughout Australia and New Zealand is in-line with Ingram Micro’s global expansion into the physical security market. According to Charlton, the security and surveillance market is evolving rapidly as solutions move from analogue equipment to IPbased solutions. “Security solutions complement our existing portfolio of networking, server, storage, UPS, monitor and software products, which not only enables our customers to achieve new revenue opportunities but also allows them to order a complete solution from the

one distribution partner,” Charlton said. Security is a rapidly growing market in Australia with the Australian Security Industries Association (asial.org) recently estimating the hardware, installation and monitoring market at around $A2.3b.

Hikvision is global marketleader in video surveillance and solutions for security and boasts extraordinary growth not only globally but also locally

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From Tyco Security Products

news august 2015

Gosford Council Moves on Safer Streets cctv n GOSFORD City Council has gone to tender to upgrade its Gosford Safer Streets Program CCTV system, which is part of a total spend of $A680,000 for CCTV on the Central Coast. The tender, which closed July 28, seeks supply, installation and maintenance of fixed and mobile video surveillance systems and lighting

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in the Gosford CBD. The system will be installed and operated in a way designed to reinvigorate local shopping strips and precincts that have been compromised by anti-social and unlawful behaviour. Funding for the upgrade was provided by the Coalition’s Safer Streets Programme, which employs proceeds of

crime to fund local crime prevention projects. At Gosford CBD this will include $A240,000 for closed circuit television cameras for Gosford CBD, which includes Baker St car park, Baker Lane, Donnison St and Manns Rd. A further $200,000 will be spent on closed circuit television cameras for the Peninsula (Woy Woy, Umina, Ettalong Beach);

$60,000 for closed circuit television cameras for Kariong Underpass and skate park; $60,000 for closed circuit television cameras for Mitchell/ Langford Dr Shops; $60,000 for closed circuit television cameras for Arunta St Shops; and $60,000 for closed circuit television cameras for Kincumber Underpass. “Any expansion of

our CCTV network is welcomed as there is a clear link to increasing community safety,” said Gosford Council’s CEO Paul Anderson when the funding was announced. “This major funding for additional CCTV cameras will make sure residents, business owners and tourists feel all the more safer when they’re out and about on the streets of Gosford, Kincumber, Kariong, or the Peninsula.” According to Brisbane Water Local Area Command Superintendent Daniel Sullivan, the community of the Central Coast is enjoying the lowest crime rate in 20 years. “This is due to a number of factors including crime prevention though the use of CCTV,” Sullivan said.

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news

Electrocraft Expands Into Alarms and CCTV

august 2015

Hills Appointed Master Distributor of Vivotek n HILLS has signed a master distribution agreement for Australia with IP video surveillance pioneer, Vivotek. Daniel Lee, head of Hills CCTV and IT practice welcomed the Vivotek range to the Hills stable. “We are committed to meeting the diverse range of customer needs which is why we are delighted to bring Vivotek to our range,” said Lee. “Hills is proud to be able to offer our customers one of Australia’s biggest ranges of network camera

options.” Vivotek says it is pleased to work with Hills as a distributor in the Australian market. “Both Hills and Vivotek are committed to deliver innovative, best in class surveillance products to customers,” said William Ku, vice president, Vivotek. “Hills is a strategically important partner of Vivotek, with expertise in surveillance products and channel management, and we believe both companies can be benefit from this partnership.”

RACV Installing Bosch 3000 and 6000 Panels n Bosch Security has signed a 3-year contract to supply intrusion alarm systems, including Solution 3000 and 6000 panels, for insurance giant RACV. RACV has over 2 million members, as well as its own Home Security

business handling nearly 8000 domestic and small commercial monitored lines. The organisation undertakes hundreds of installs and system upgrades annually. Along with existing clients, RACV Home Services also

Aaron Flavell (L) with Chris Dellenty

does Emergency Home Assist and has 50,000 members in that space. As a whole, RACV’s security business is expanding rapidly and boasts an 88 per cent retention rate of existing customers. According to Toly Christofakakis, sales & service manager at RACV, installations using Bosch products will be mainly for intrusion alarms with the potential for automation and video surveillance capabilities. “We are focused on building recurring monthly revenue through innovative security products that provide our members with valuable services while growing our monitoring base,” said Christofakakis. Meanwhile, RACV’s general manager Home Services Aaron Flavell said RACV

is particularly interested in combining alarm monitoring with CCTV capabilities. “A respected security brand like Bosch, which offers intrusion alarms, automation and video surveillance capabilities, gives our members an attractive solution,” Flavell said. “As an organisation, we wanted a product that provided a full security solution and that’s what we’ve got with Bosch.” Bosch Security’s Chris Dellenty said he was pleased with the new relationship with RACV. “We’ve been through a process of changing our business model in Australia but the strength of our brand and the quality of our security solutions is as robust as ever,” he said.

Hikvision Hits 67 Per Cent Growth, Hires Regional Sales Managers n HIKVISION Oceania has announced year-on-year growth of 67 per cent for the first half of 2015 and will shortly announce key new appointments. “After achieving 95 per cent growth in the 2014 financial year, Hikvision Oceania was set an

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extremely challenging target of 80 per cent growth in 2015,” said Michael Bates, Hikvision’s Oceania sales director. “Our half year figures of 67 per cent growth indicate that we are well on track to meet and exceed that target,

and we still have some exciting announcements over the next few weeks, including the appointment of regional sales managers in both Victoria and Western Australia. “We are also excited to be launching a number of

new products at Security 2015 in a few weeks’ time, including Smart H.264+, a new Hikvision codec which will reduce bandwidth by up to 50 per cent.” Hikvision is distributed in Australia by Central Security Distribution.

Electrocraft, an Australian electronics wholesaler specialising in the distribution of both domestic and commercial systems for the TV and satellite, data and broadcast industries, has expanded into intrusion alarms and CCTV. “Our aim is to ensure our clients have access to the latest technology and we supply the best solutions to suit application and budget,” said Electrocraft MD Heidi Schmidt. “We have many associations with overseas and local organisations and are constantly sourcing equipment to ensure Electrocraft markets a large range of leading brands, including Bosch.” According to Electrocraft, the company’s latest innovation is the introduction of its own Ecraft brand. This range of products is constantly expanding to offer retail and professional clients competitively priced products. The Ecraft brand includes a large range of cables, smart home equipment, digital modulators, HDMI leads, wall brackets and more. To support the equipment and systems marketed, Electrocraft has built a specialised workshop, repair and calibration facility for the company’s experienced technical sales staff, consultants, designers, engineers and product managers.

Michael Bates

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news

Hills Appoints New NSW Sales Manager

august 2015

HILLS has appointed Bill Barbagiannakos as its new NSW sales manager. Barbagiannakos joined Hills on July 1 after 7 years at Axis Communications in a number of key roles, including northern region sales manager. Hills head of sales, David Lenz welcomed Barbagiannakos to the role saying his appointment and the skills he brings are the next step in building the right Hills team to grow the business further. “Hills is getting its management and sales house in order and Bill’s appointment is key to bedding down the NSW sales team,” said Lenz. “Hills is serious about getting its distribution solution right for its customers and bringing onboard key personnel like Bill is critical for our long term success.” Most recently, Barbagiannakos was responsible for business development with key global system integrators across Australia and New Zealand. Bill will have responsibility to drive engagement into the managed accounts across NSW/ACT.

Smart Home Report Finds Security is Core n ICONTROL Networks’ State of the Smart Home report has found for the second year running that consumers are most interested in the security capabilities of home automation solutions. Among 1600 consumers surveyed, including 1000 from the U.S. and 600 from Canada, 90 per cent agreed that personal and family security was the most important driver of smart

home adoption. Perhaps more interesting still, was the finding that the chance a potential customer would purchase a system was 93 per cent among consumers who had seen home automation technology in operation. In terms of interest levels in integrated devices, interest focused on devices that offer functions that improve comfort, reduce costs, enhance convenience

Among 1600 consumers surveyed, including 1000 from the U.S. and 600 from Canada, 90 per cent agreed that personal and family security was the most important driver of smart home adoption.

and improve security. The survey found 72 per cent of consumers wanted self-adjusting thermostats, 71 per cent wanted doors that could be locked from a remote location, 69 per cent wanted indoor lighting that automatically adjusted, 65 per cent wanted outdoor lighting that automatically adjusted and 65 per cent wanted CCTV cameras they could access remotely. When it came to

Tyco and Alarm.com partnership extended to commercial n TYCO Security Products has announced the expansion of a strategic global partnership with Alarm.com that will enable smart interactive services for both the residential and small-to-medium commercial market. Alarm.com is a leading platform solution for the connected home, making connected home services

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broadly accessible to millions of home and business owners. “We’re excited to bring the next generation of smart technology to the commercial space with PowerSeries Neo powered by Alarm.com,” said Dan Kerzner, chief product officer, Alarm.com. “The integration of PowerSeries Neo and

Alarm.com offers a unique solution that anticipates the future needs of the connected environment, whether a residence or a multi-tenant commercial property, and provides infinite opportunities to maximize the system,” said Tim Myers, director of product management, intrusion, Tyco Security Products.

demographics of interest, 79 per cent of millenials, 76 per cent of parents, and 50 per cent of the overall population were interested in home automation. Meanwhile, 74 per cent of consumers agreed they would like at least some help with the installation and set-up of their smart home devices, while 52 per cent said they would like someone to do all of the installation and set-up for them.

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s p e ci al re p o rt

security 201 5 exp o

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Hikvisionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new intercom

Security 2015 Expo As ever, Security 2015 Expo was a great opportunity to take a look at the best new electronic security products. There was plenty of good stuff and it was readily possible to discern the ongoing development of key trends in the market. 22 se&n

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Over-arching trends across all technologies? Definitely mobile interfaces - I lost count of the number of times a product was demonstrated to me using a smart phone or smart watch.

ELD in Melbourne for the second year, Australia’s eponymous major security event, Security 2015 Expo, saw good numbers – as usual, the biggest day was Day 2 – and loads of fun things to play with. If I had one gripe with the event it was that I needed one more whole day to get around all the stands. Yet again there were stands I did not spend time on and when you’re talking about the latest developments in the industry, it’s poor form not to have seen everything before drawing your conclusions. I think we can agree the electronic security market is now mature. We are not going to see the same lateral technological steps we saw in the giddy years between 2005 and 2010 when anything seemed possible. Instead what we are seeing is a market fulfilling the promise of those years. Over-arching trends across all technologies? Definitely mobile interfaces - I lost count of the number of times a product was demonstrated to me using a smart phone or smart watch. From being the precinct of pioneers, mobile interfaces for users and installers are a wider industry movement. Another trend is that cost reduction in some hardware at the low end is resulting in products that are feeling a bit flimsy. Things that struck me straight up were the ubiquity of alarm and home automation solutions – this is now the new normal – but there were variations in the way such solutions are packaged. We’ll come back to this later on but Ness’ Mezzo, which scored the organiser’s Best New Product Award, was the standout in this regard. I think the alarms market has been reaching for a solution that captures form and function in a way that fires user imagination for 5 years or more. That this product

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was designed and built in Australia at Ness’ Seven Hills factory makes Ness Mezzo very cool. There was plenty more in alarms and automation. Hills released Tyco’s DSC NEO, which picked up best product at ISC West 12 months ago. Combined with the Alarm.com app and a swag of remote devices, NEO is a solution we’ve admired for some time and it’s great to see it hit the market. I spent some time getting a run-through of this solution and it’s powerful, even fun. The ability to monitor energy usage – I liked that. Something else that was good to see was the Alarm.com enabled Impassa controller, which turns existing Impassa solutions into security and home automation systems. CSD was showing Paradox Insight, which leverages HD video and audio with a motion detector and a self-monitoring app that lets end users remotely monitor home or office. Bosch was showing the Solution 3000 and 6000 security and automation systems we’ve discussed before but what was interesting was the event which took place on the last day of the show when RACV signed up with Bosch to supply Solution 3000 and 6000 panels to its members – alarms and automation functionality. RACV puts in hundreds of systems a year, so it’s no small win but in the wider sense it shows what the end user market is coming to expect. More, much, more.

s p e ci al re p o rt

security 201 5 exp o

Axis PTZ shedding water

There was a new Tecom Mobile app that allows users to perform the most important functions on their favourite Apple or Android device. The latest version of Challenger panel firmware gives the ability to control lighting via CBus automation controls. A display showed Challenger 10 linked to a constellation of controllers, DGPs, relay cards and RAS units. Honeywell has had security and automation covered for a number of years with VISTA Automation Module (VAM). With VAM, users can also view cameras, control their security system, lights, locks and thermostats, locally or remotely via their mobile device — with no monthly fees. The Honeywell team was also showing off new Z-Wave automation devices and these were excellent rubber-meets-road enablers that allow enterprising installers loads of latitude to let their imaginations go in a modular and affordable ecosystem. At Security 2015, Honeywell was also showing off the results of a program to integrate all its solutions into umbrella management solutions. Using the term ‘proprietary PSIM’ is probably inappropriate but when it comes to Honeywell, which has such a huge spread of product, it’s a phrase that gets the message across. You can link and manage anything Honeywell with anything Honeywell - fire, security, access control, CCTV, automation, intercom – whatever. While we are talking about alarms, I was taken with the Xtralis VESDA VLQ smoke detection unit on the Hills stand, which links to any alarm panel and allows installers to put A Grade smoke detection into small and medium business environments. The price to the trade is around $A700, making VLQ a beautiful add-on. In the past, specialist installers would be been required and a small VESDA system may have cost $A4000. Along with its range of industry-leading PE beams which are impervious to movement of

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Axxon Next from Sylo

shrubs and grass; condensation, including rain and fog; as well as strong light sources, Takex was showing the striking new PIR-T15WE sensor that incorporates an LED array allowing precise detection area adjustment, ensuring you get greatest sensitivity where you need it most. The T15WE can be installed at heights of up to 6 metres and has a 15m x 80-degree coverage. Access control was another area that was of interest to me and the products that caught my eye included Inner Range’s new Inception cloud-based access control panel with full remote intelligence. Inception is in beta at the moment – Inner Range is a stickler for long shakedowns – but I really like this system. One of the challenges of access control is managing the database, applying permissions and all that painstaking stuff. Inception makes all that evaporate thanks to a remote app that nearly does all the work for installers. My initial take away from viewing Inception, which we’re looking forward to reviewing very soon, was that the cloud function provides greatest support for the installer. But then the boys showed me its mobile management capabilities for end users. Also taking access control to new levels of simplicity was Paxton’s Net2 plus IP access control, alarm and intercom system, which is distributed locally by Security Integrators Australia. Paxton Net2 plus, which is further empowered by a great software management solution, was a bit of a revelation to me, though I’ve seen it before. The Net2 Plus supports 500 doors, 50,000 users, has a 5-year warranty, flash memory and the ability to use Paxton or 3rd-party readers. Well worth a look for those installers interested in adding access and intercoms to their alarm installation business. On the Mainline stand I got a look at OMGATE, which is a system that allows your gate to open when you arrive with no need to press buttons or muck about. There’s an OMGATE controller with wireless connectivity that links to the gate

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controller and everything is handled by app. Mainline was also showing the Genesis Series II IP 4-door controller and 1-door controller. Something else that was noteworthy in access control was Safran’s MorphoWave biometric reader, which features high-speed touchless fingerprint matching. Users pass their hand over the MorphoWave sensor. The technology was designed allowing direct and easy integration into existing access control and time and attendance systems. Neat too, the reader can run standalone as it did at Security 2015, to provide highly secure access control levels. Registration was easy and authentication was fast and accurate. A couple of people, myself included, tried to trip over MorphoWave without success by moving our hands more quickly. When it came to intercoms, there was plenty on show. Maybe Hikvision’s new intercom on the CSD stand was the most notable. It was handsome, complete seemed very strongly built and is likely to be price competitive. I also noticed intercoms on the Axis stand, the Mobotix stand, Net2 plus, as well as MiVision intercoms on the Mainline stand. The Fog was another product I liked at Security 2015. These glycol-based devices have been around a while but The Fog is notable for a range of sizes to suit vulnerable retail outlets or high value merchandise stores. I think what attracts me to The Fog is that it has the capability to respond to an attempt on human life by generating a blinding fog through which an attacker cannot see, so must retreat. Electronic security systems are reactive, not proactive and we’ve seen a number of incidents in which there’s been great loss of life that may have been averted by solutions like this one. Any system that makes occupants more or less invisible for 5 minutes while emergency services are summoned makes a lot of sense in small and medium-sized spaces. It’s painful to say this but in the event of

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PTZs – there were plenty of them and they are wonderfully powerful and very affordable.

Genetec displayed remote camera integration

an attack with firearms when the attackers’ only goal is to cause maximum loss of life, products like The Fog have serious merit, in my opinion. There’s really no other useful form of response that’s not armed teams onsite. We’ve been living with different types of cloudbased solutions for a while now and one of the cleverest and most worthwhile I saw at Security 2015 was RiskWorks’ Procedures Online (POL) app. It might seem somewhat oblique to folks on the technology side, but procedures are the things that take over after electronic security systems have done their job. In the past, procedures might have been committed to memory or stored in vast bibliographies behind a security manager’s desk, as mystical and remote as a book of runes. POL takes the procedures for every conceivable incident a site or organisation might face and presents them as an app on any authorised mobile device. It’s deceptively simple. Whatever the event – an alarm intrusion, a fire, a lost child, an injury, a lift failure, an assault on the premises, a flood, a gas leak – you call up the app, tap the incident heading and the procedures unfold before your eyes. POL is as useful for security managers as it is for a facilities manager, a security officer, a fire warden, or simply for informing emergency services arriving on site after an incident. POL is built on RiskWorks’ long experience handling risk management for blue chip clients – there’s nothing Johnny-come-lately about it. POL is simple and it’s awesome - every organisation should be using it. When it came to video surveillance, what I noticed that was new was the presence of H.265 from Vivotek, Etrovision, and Samsung with iPolis. Other developments came in H.264 with SMART H.264+ from Hikvision and ZipStream from Axis – those last 2 are compatible with everything H.264, so the benefits are immediate. I’ve not

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Something else that was noteworthy in access control was Safran’s MorphoWave biometric reader, which features high-speed touchless fingerprint matching. looked at SMART H.264+ yet but if it’s anything like Axis ZipStream, it will make a big difference in bandwidth and storage. Another big thing was 4K from Dahua, Hikvision, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Uniview, Bosch, DVTel and others, including OEMs like Mainline with its MiVision IR bullet. It’s true not many VMS solutions can handle 4K resolutions – Genetec was showing this capability on its stand at Security 2015 – but I think it was a pointer. For a little while I’ve been sold on 4K thanks to its ability to enliven digital zoom. It’s not for every application mind you, but for deeper scenes – 40-80m – there really is nothing like UHD that’s not an optical PTZ. Of the 4K cameras, Sony’s SNC-VM772R stood out for me in terms of its image quality, low latency and colour rendition. The Sony team was also testing the new 4K camera in a dark box to show off the power of the back illuminated 1-inch 20MP Exmor R CMOS image sensor. Something I missed at the show was Avigilon’s 7K camera which took out a best product award – I’ll hopefully get a chance to see it at SIG. PTZs – there were plenty of them and they are wonderfully powerful and very affordable. Hustling 30x zooms, rugged housings and in many cases IR arrays (Hikvision has IR and laser) with hundreds of metres of coverage, the current crop of PTZs have got it going on. For applications where you’ll have manned surveillance, it’s impossible to go past a combination of a quality fixed wide angle camera and a tough and optically stellar PTZ. Alongside PTZs there were a growing number of cameras with multiple camera heads. QSS launched the affordable new FLIR IP Visual 30 se&n

bullet, dome and PTZ cameras and recorders with 1-5MP resolution cameras, third-party VMS software compliant/ONVIF and remote cloud based viewing via iOS, Android, PC and Mac. Uniview was on the C.R. Kennedy stand – in the flesh these are nicely made cameras with good specifications and looks. I’m keen to test one to get a sense of their performance. There were new Illustra cameras from Tyco on the Hills stand. As well as its new Vivotek range, Hills also had Genetec, Mobotix, Panasonic, Interlogix, Arecont, Tyco Security Products, Juniper, Pacom,

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ISONAS IP-based reader controller shown by Brassets was another very clever thing in access control. superior to the compact or dome cameras I see. It comes down to dollars and the demands of the application. There are too many cameras at Security 2015 to adequately cover in a review like this one. Something I notice is that all the manufacturers now have very wide ranges, some of which are designed for specific verticals. Axis probably does cameras for verticals the best, in my opinion. Hikvision’s range is also very large and Panasonic, which released a heap of new cameras this year, also has some specialist cameras. One IP camera I saw (I can’t recall the brand) was designed with a fast frame rate and the ability to capture licence plates – no need for expensive and specialised cameras to handle the job. Someone said there was less IVA at Security 2015 – perhaps it’s true it was less front and centre but products like Briefcam were there and are showing promise in real world applications. Canon had new things, too. A great low light camera was especially appealing. Canon has its own way of designing cameras and revealed some great looking solutions at Security 2015 – not just internal and transport cameras, but powerful PTZs as well.

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Xtralis, Xandem and all the rest. The busiest stand at the show – probably, yes. Something else that was interesting at Security 2015 was the MiVision range from Mainline – it covers all the usual bases and some higher end stuff, too. The 3rd Generation of the Panomera multisensor CCTV camera system now features ultralow light capability and even higher resolution - up to 149MP at 25 FPS. Seadan was showing Dahua’s long range 2MP analogue HDCVI technology, 4K, IP solutions in dome, box, bullet and PTZ cameras as well as NVRs and DVRs. Seadan also showed the Pelco range including Evo 360, the Sarix Series, the Spectra and Digital Sentry range. Seadan was showing Pelco’s new Optera camera, which Pelco describes as offering a panomersive experience. Seadan was noteworthy for its growth and the professionalism of its display and staff. We test a lot of full body cameras at SEN and that’s simply because it’s easier to move a camera and tripod around between scenes on the end of a 20m cable. But as some people have observed to me recently, full body cameras are the smallest part of the camera market. Walking the floor, I think this observation is correct but in the right applications, a high quality fixed camera is

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Downlight camera from Hikvision

Trying to decide which of all the products at Security 2015 was the best is tough to do. There’s a tendency to lean toward Ness Mezzo. VMS is always a key area. We saw the latest version of Security Center from Genetec, which is more capable than ever, Sylo’s AxxonNext, which combines powerful management with genuinely capable IVA, Camvex was on show, DVTel was showing its latest management solution. Honeywell HUS was also flexing muscle at Security 2015. I also like what Synology is doing with its latest Surveillance Station 7.

Conclusion Trying to decide which of all the products at Security 2015 was the best is tough to do. There’s a tendency to lean toward Ness Mezzo. When I was on the Ness stand an installer said “Finally, some innovation in the alarms industry” and while the home automation market is actually awash with innovation, Mezzo is a worthy solution, clever and beautiful. I liked Safran’s MorphoWave biometric reader. It’s fast – faster than a prox card – MorphoWave is

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the best biometric reader I’ve ever used. VESDA VLQ by Xtralis and Heitel mobile/wearable everything for police or security personal also caught my eye. Inner Range’s Inception – a year or so ago I considered it Best Un-released Product of the show and it’s a much better solution now than it was then. ISONAS IP-based reader controller shown by Brassets was another very clever thing in access control. Axis ZipStream and Hikvision Smart H.264+ are also key developments that make a real difference right now. I thought Dahua’s integrated tester was a great tool and I liked Dahua’s thermal camera. Then there was RiskWorks’ Procedures Online app. POL deserves plenty of approbation. It’s one of those rubber-meets-road solutions – a powerful interface between technology and humanity. Of the 4K cameras, I liked Sony’s SNCVM772R. Best in show? I can’t put space between Axis Zipstream, Ness Mezzo, RiskWorks’ POL, Safran MorphoWave and Inner Range Inception. zzz

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Parramatta CitySafe

Parramatta CitySafe Parramatta Council has completed Stage 1 of its CitySafe project, which includes a Milestone XProtect Corporate VMS managing Axis and Sony cameras supported by a blown-fibre backbone. The solution was designed by Tavcom based on a Masterplan by Amlec House. VMS, poles, and camera installations were by the lead contractor, Telstra SNP, and fibre was installed by GM Cable. 36 se&n

By john adam s

CitySafe is designed to allow Council, with support from NSW Police, to ensure Parramatta CBD is safe and secure during major events when there’s very heavy foot traffic between big sporting and entertainment venues.

HEN I worked here in the late 1980s, Parramatta was a sleepy country town on a winding brown river, streets wide enough for horse teams and a sandstone past poking out of every corner - from Old Government House and tiny golden shop fronts, to broad-brimmed farm houses - and shimmering through this, the deeper history of Pemulwuy and the first Australians. In 2015 that layered history remains but the city has changed. Parramatta hums with a commercial

and social gravity that has ignited a process of accelerating and continuous growth. Arriving by car and following my nose towards the old George Hotel, I immediately get lost between a cavernous bus station and a canyon of high rise and ducking frantically to the left, accidentally find a parking station. My instinct and memory of the one-way streets and pedestrian mall here tells me finding Parramatta Council’s CitySafe Operations Centre is going to be easier on foot than on wheels. Later on when I’m listening to the story of the CCTV system unfolding, it occurs to me that everyone else feels the same way about Parramatta CBD. The geography and anthropology of foot traffic are key drivers of the CitySafe surveillance system’s design. Showing me around the CitySafe system are Parramatta Council’s crime prevention officer Rob Williams and consultant Lee Evans from Tavcom. Throughout our conversation, Williams exhibits a strong operational focus, with an accent on technology. I get a sense that if a cutting edge solution could be shown to offer real benefits to the city, he’d be interested. Evans meanwhile, has a technical mind and a fierce commitment to objective standards. Conversations with Evans are drawn towards standards like iron filings to a strong magnet. The boys have worked together on this project system for a long time and have a mutual understanding of what CitySafe is meant to achieve now and in the future, sharing each other’s frustrations and sometimes finishing each other’s sentences as they explain system evolution and key challenges. According to Williams, the evolutionary process of CitySafe means that it’s an expansion of an existing solution designed to support pointy operational requirements, not a greenfield solution installed to meet a narrow objective. But while there’s no over-arching CitySafe mission statement, the CCTV masterplan Williams and Evans are working on has an identifiable, plural nature. CitySafe is designed to allow Council, with support from NSW Police, to ensure Parramatta CBD is safe and secure during major events when

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Parramatta CitySafe

Our cameras are all 1080p running at 25 frames per second and we store images at full frame rate for 30 days in a 54TB array. there’s very heavy foot traffic between big sporting and entertainment venues. Further, the system is able to view unfolding events in real time, day and night, as well as providing detailed court admissible recorded evidence to police investigators. Finally, the CitySafe monitoring centre can be used by emergency services for crisis management. Williams points out that additional key aspects of the system were that Council could not be locked into a proprietary solution and wanted its infrastructure to allow CitySafe to grow in terms of bandwidth and camera numbers. Further, the system had to be capable of supporting remote sites.

History and planning Like many things in Parramatta, getting a handle on CitySafe’s present means understanding the past. Williams joined Council in his current role back in 2009 and he says prior to this, Council operated a few security cameras giving a small amount of incidental public surveillance in Centenary Square, formerly Church St Mall. “This was a hotspot for antisocial behaviour and there were a small number of cameras adjacent to this area,” Williams explains. “When I arrived there

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was no plan for expansion and not the necessary level of procedure in terms of who was monitoring the system, or managing the processes of getting images to police. “Obviously, this was a concern to Council, which had looked at the issue of public space surveillance and had commissioned reports and debated the issue but discarded it due to cost and internal policies of the time,” he says. “When I arrived, I started a program of rapid deployment cameras in response to incidents around the CBD and that was the first real application of public surveillance in the Parramatta CBD.” Those first rapid deployment units were solar powered Mobotix cameras built into self-contained units which take an hour to install and incorporate on-board storage and remote 3G accessibility. “We started with 4 of those rapid deployment cameras and they proved very successful for monitoring things like dumping and crime hotspots – we could move them around as we needed,” Williams says. “That rapid deployment surveillance program expanded and in the space of 5 years we’ve gone from 4 to 40 of those Mobotix cameras.” But according to Williams, it was the success of the first rapid deployment cameras and the shape the mobile CCTV network took in response to events in the Parramatta CBD that informed his plans for a fixed CCTV solution. “We found there were cameras we did not move – they were covering hotspots,” Williams says. “There are a couple of large sporting and entertainment venues in and around the Parramatta CBD that are widely spread out. At certain times we found large numbers of people moved between those venues on foot and we had trouble when some groups met. We were finding we needed coverage of those paths of movement more or less constantly. “I put to council that if we were going to have a permanent installation, then solar-powered rapid deployment cameras were not the right solution,” says Williams. “Experience had shown us that over a period of days without sun, they’d power down and stop transmitting until their solar arrays recharged their batteries, which is perfect behaviour for a mobile camera, but not for a fixed camera in a busy CBD.” After Williams had made his submission, he received funding from Council to develop a master plan for CCTV. “Part of the research involved looking at other local government CCTV applications around Australia,” Williams says. “We then commissioned Chris Cubbage from Amlec House in WA as a consultant and together developed our CCTV master plan around a wireless network in order to save on installation costs. Council allocated funds for Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the system and we received a Federal grant of $A1 million, under the Safer Streets program, which provided $A50m to Councils

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around Australia for CCTV, lighting and security infrastructure.”

Stage 1 After funding was allocated, getting started on Stage 1 was not without its challenges. “Initially we were engaged in discussions with a utility to share poles and power for our cameras and the receivers and transmitters of the planned wireless network,” explains Williams. “But there were technical limitations. We would have to run our own power and we were told we couldn’t drill into the poles – this made sharing poles unviable. We decided that given we had to do extensive trenching for power, it would be better to run fibre and provide a future-proof infrastructure. “As a result, we have more than 2km of blown fibre in the CBD using a combination of open trenching and micro slotting, our own power supplies and when we put in cameras, we put in multi-function poles with LED lighting,” Williams says. Blown fibre is a nice piece of infrastructure. Typically, when you lay conventional fibre you’d install a particular number of fibres and some dark fibre to cover projected future growth. “With blown fibre it’s an empty 24-tube barrel,” explains Williams. “Once this is underground you blow a fibre into one of the 24 empty tubes when you need it – there’s no need to install dark fibres. Each

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Parramatta CitySafe

tube in the barrel takes a 24-core OS1 fibre, so that’s a lot of potential bandwidth in the network. You can also suck a fibre out of blown fibre infrastructure as easily as you blew it in, so as technology improves, we can upgrade our fibre without needing to retrench.” The 2km blown fibre backbone supports 55 cameras - a mixture of Sony 6 Generation WR632 30x PTZs and Axis P1355 fixed cameras mounted on multi-function poles and supported by large IR arrays. Out in the field the cameras are supported by microsens switches, with a Gigabit Allied Telesis PoE switch at the heart of the system. Multiple workstations in the CitySafe control centre support Milestone Corporate VMS and the video wall. “Our cameras are all 1080p running at 25 frames per second and we store images at full frame rate for 30 days in a 54TB array,” Williams says. “With 1080p resolution, we’d rather pay more for extra storage, which is now much less expensive, in order to get admissible evidence. Crimes in public spaces tend to be rapidly moving so when you get events like brawls and bag snatches you need high frame rate and good resolution in order to get incident continuity. “We had an experience with a 16 frame per second rapid deployment camera in which only a single frame of our footage showed a knife in the offender’s hand because it was such a rapidly moving night time scene,” he says. Without that frame it would have been hard to prosecute and CCTV is something prosecutors really rely on. There’s an expectation from the public that there will be CCTV footage.” According to Williams, it’s a false economy to spend millions of dollars on a CCTV system and then scrimp on storage so the system fails to give its best possible resolution and recording speed. Interestingly, there’s more headroom in the storage department, according to Evans. “We are actually getting more than 30 days recording from the system and that’s without using Axis Zipstream,” he says. “There may be even more benefits to be gained using that technology.” In terms of camera coverage, Williams says cameras are installed at key locations that allow system operators to identify and follow people moving through the CBD. “Sometimes while they are in the CBD people try to cover up their identity but because of the nature

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Parramatta CitySafe

of our coverage we’ve already identified them on multiple cameras,” Williams says. “The camera network has been specifically set up to look at all the various choke points so that we will see people entering or leaving the CBD, the direction they leave in, as well as seeing where they go when moving through the city.”

Installation Same as other major public surveillance applications, there are multiple interest groups in Parramatta and that has had an impact on lead time and the shape and nature of the installation. The actual construction took 12 months but according to Evans, planning started 12 months earlier. “In terms of the process, Rob told me what he wanted and I wrote the specification, the fibre infrastructure was installed, and then TelstraSNP did the installation,” Evans explains. “But the actual process wasn’t as easy as that.” Williams agrees. “It’s been a rather dynamic project,” he says, smiling. “There’s so much development around Parramatta and this development – much of which we did not know about - impacted on what could be done and when. Many times we had to adjust our plans to take into account other projects. As a result, we’ve ended up with a system that’s different from the CCTV master plan, particularly on the river front, where we’ve chosen to wait until that project is completed before planning our network configuration.” According to Williams, the issues during the build were almost all project issues though there were technical challenges in the early stages. “The issues started with the shelved plan to share utility poles – this meant a significant change

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Sometimes while they are in the CBD people try to cover up their identity but because of the nature of our coverage we’ve already identified them on multiple cameras.

Axis fixed camera on pole

of technology - and expanded as other parts of Council’s plans for development in Parramatta constrained our CCTV master plan,” Williams says. “That was the biggest challenge. Finding our way around external pressures meant we were changing the project almost weekly and this went on for the first 6-9 months.” Unsurprisingly, Parramatta’s history kept intruding into the process. “There were also challenges of construction,” Williams says. “You’d do all your investigation of a path for trenching and as soon as the digging started you’d find services under the ground were unexpected or undocumented. And there were archaeological issues, too. Original parts of roadways from early Parramatta had to be embedded in sand and covered over and the position of poles had to be moved – that happened 2 or 3 times. If we hit something archaeological we have to down tools and get appropriate departments and experts involved.” Because of the historical nature of Parramatta and its importance to the Burramattagal people, there are areas, including parkland near Prince Alfred Square, that were considered to be too delicate to be negotiated by the system. “This park has Aboriginal, historical and archaeological significance right down to some of the trees growing on it,” says Williams. “After consideration, we decided it would be easier and much faster to excavate along the footpath and go around it.” According to Williams, now that Stage 1 is finish it will take another 12 months to finish Stage 2. “But there are a lot of variables to take into account,” he says. “Obviously, we don’t need cameras everywhere in the city but there are areas that may need more coverage, depending on evolving development plans. If the stadium precinct is redeveloped we will need to look at covering areas leading to that, for instance. “It’s not about camera numbers but getting the right views,” Williams adds. “You can do more with 100 well placed cameras than 200 cameras that are poorly directed. And there comes a point when it’s impossible to watch hundreds of cameras effectively. “From the point of view of design here, it’s about aligning coverage with pedestrian routes and centres of activity. At the moment we are along Church St, Macquarie St and George St and we may look to expanding to Charles St and Parramatta Park as part of Stage 2.” While there’s LED lighting in key locations on the poles, there are also areas where it’s darker that had to be managed during the install. “There are some areas that are more challenging as well as areas where cameras go to black and white after hours,” Williams says. “But we’ve actually set the cameras to stay in colour and they work very well in low light. We want colour so as to be able to recognise attire as people move through the CBD.” According to Evans, a quirk of the installation is

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Parramatta CitySafe

The control room

Rob Williams

that the heart of the system is Town Hall, not the CitySafe control centre as might be expected. “Because the redevelopment of Parramatta Square and the new Council building will see widespread demolition of existing buildings, all the fibres come into Town Hall, which is one of the few structures that will remain,” he says. “That was deliberate as we wanted to get close as possible to Parramatta Square. The way it works at the moment is that a pair of fibres come from Town Hall to a patch panel in the rack in the network room behind this control room, to a switch, to servers and to video walls and workstations in the control room.” When it comes to technical challenges of the installation, Evans says these related to changing comms technologies and getting the go-ahead on slot trenching, which was an unfamiliar technology to Council. “We also chose to go with slot trenching for the final part of the works to the new Council office – it’s less invasive and less expensive. Basically it’s a sawcut with the blown fibre cable laid into a cut that’s filled with bitumen all by a single machine,” he says. “This micro trenching allowed us to get the network from one side of the railway line to the other with a minimum of fuss and disruption to the CBD. Now it’s been done, Council is delighted with it but it was a process to get everyone on board with that concept.”

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Before we take a walk around the CBD, we spend some time in the control room itself. The monitoring room is nicely laid out – Thinking Space supplied the hardware - desks, chairs and racks fitted with monitors and a compact video wall. From a comms perspective, the monitoring centre is stand-alone and separate from the Council systems on its own subnet. If you want into the network, you have to come to the control room. The room has a nice atmosphere, there are big desks outside to facilitate crisis management and access to the room is via a proper man-trap. Everything is sensibly laid out and conforms to appropriate standards at every turn. The network room is adjacent to the control room on the sterile side, which is great from a security perspective. The network room, too, is well done, with no stray cabling or mess outside the locked racks. “This monitoring centre is manned during peak periods and it is planned this will be staffed full-time as the system expands over a 4-5 year timeline,” explains Williams. “It works well with the number of cameras we currently have. If you look at the way crime works in a city, it’s more prevalent in the summer in good weather, around major events. For that reason, we won’t be monitoring 24x7 initially but that will change over time.” Highlighting the evolving nature of the system and Parramatta CBD, this monitoring centre will move in October to a space in a nearby building and will then move yet again when Parramatta Square is completed. “Everything along Darcy St will be demolished to make way for Parramatta Square – a new Council building will be built and in that new building there will be a new monitoring centre very similar to this one – that’s probably 4 years away,” Williams explains. When manned this monitoring centre is phone or radio-linked to local police officers depending on the nature of the event being covered. “In such instances we work closely with police to support them with CCTV monitoring and that partnership is obviously an ongoing consideration of our CCTV master plan,” Williams says. Now Williams drives the system to show the nature of the CitySafe solution and the capability of the Sony PTZs and it gives me another opportunity to take a look at the performance of the Milestone XProtect Smart Client which is the front end of XProtect Corporate and its integrated smart wall functionality. XProtect is a good solution, simple to operate and with a collection of capabilities that makes it ideal for public surveillance applications. Importantly, this VMS has been modified to meet the demands of Council operators – there are maps with camera directions depicted via click-through icons. In terms of network hardware, there’s one PC per workstation and one PC per video wall screen – but

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cas e st u dy

Parramatta CitySafe

This monitoring centre is manned during peak periods and it is planned this will be staffed full-time as the system expands over a 4-5 year timeline.

the boys manage to strain the system into latency when steering the PTZs, suggesting a workstation processor upgrade might be in order to handle the demands of the 55 full resolution, full frame rate image streams. The Axis fixed cameras are solid in their own right day and night but as soon as Williams grabs the joystick and peers 2 city blocks with the Sony PTZ you tend to forget about everything else. The PTZ cameras are sited so they can get the longest possible views in the most possible directions and with such deep street scenes you can see how a 30x PTZ gives operators profound real time capabilities to monitor unfolding events. With the Sony PTZ the field of view is narrower than the fixed cameras but it’s distortion-free and snaffles face recognition deep into scenes – right at the limit of sensible viewing 250-300m there’s valuable layers of detail. What’s really impressive is the zoomed depth of field. PTZs typically have the best CCTV camera optics in my opinion, and it’s really noticeable when you are getting valuable depths of field of 40-50m even when zoomed halfway through a scene, with excellent sharpness, colour and contrast. We get nice snapshots and can identify faces, clothing, even tattoos, in great detail from considerable distances. We also look at footage from the fixed Axis camera of an incident that occurred in the past and the coverage and quality are easily sufficient to support police investigating that crime. It’s the sort of footage that comes from a well-designed system using quality components. These cameras aren’t facing in precisely the right direction to capture faces in an open public space accidentally. The Axis fixed cameras do the job well. There’s a wide angle view, good depth of field, good colour, and the combination of ambient light and LED light is sufficient to give nice images in colour at night. “I’m very pleased with the 30x optical zoom on the

46 se&n

Sony PTZs – I can see all the way from the Mission on Macquarie St down to Parramatta Park – 250-300m away – and read a license plate - that’s how good they are,” Williams says. To prove the point he steers a PTZ down Macquarie and yes, licence plates – and near court admissible face recognition, too - even on a very windy day with a lot of pole shake. “In tighter scenes our Axis fixed cameras are great,” Williams says. “But for longer scenes, I think with 1080p resolution, having an optical zoom is advantageous, especially in an application like this one with such long street views. You simply can’t zoom into a 1080p image without rapid degradation of the image quality but with 30x optical you can get full resolution images all the way through the focal length of the camera. “PTZs work best when handled in real time but outside those times you can schedule home positions to change at different times of the day or week, which is a great help. The other thing I like is that you can’t be certain where they are facing until you get to the camera – that’s a deterrent.”

Walking the system Next, I take a walk through the CBD with Evans. Parramatta CBD is built on river flats and the roads are straight and long, laid out grid-like between the station and the river. One of the things that’s most noticeable when walking the system is its geographical size. Even for a public surveillance system, CitySafe is big and the reason Williams and Evans went with 30x PTZs quickly becomes clear. We take a look at the camera poles and their LED arrays. Each of the poles has a fixed camera, a PTZ and an IR panel on it. The work is tidy and the pole locations are thoughtful. Good too, are clear signs that proclaim the presence of the CitySafe system. I also get a look at the Mobotix rapid deployment cameras with their solar panels, which are still a vital and flexible part of the system. It’s a nice place, Parramatta, I think, as we press forward into a howling westerly gale. There’s a lot happening, plenty of bustle and oceans of people. Something that’s noticeable is the cranes on the skyline along the river. You really do get a sense it’s all happening here and the plans show there’s plenty more to come. We walk all the way down from Centenary Square, across Parramatta River where cameras monitor the walkways in both directions. As we walk, Evans explains that the fibre comes

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cas e st u dy

down Church Street, picks up this remote group of cameras and then heads off around Parramatta Park. “The installation will be more comprehensive along the river in the future but because of the planned redevelopment here, that part of the installation is delayed until redevelopment plans are finalised,” he explains. The plans are big. The Lennox Bridge Car Park is currently being transformed into the Lidis Riverside Tower development. This huge development will include ground floor river-facing cafes, restaurants and bars; a Council-owned exhibition centre, a 1000-seat conference centre, a residential tower

Something that’s noticeable is the cranes on the skyline along the river. You really do get a sense it’s all happening here and the plans show there’s plenty more to come.

48 se&n

Parramatta CitySafe

with 37 stories of apartments, and adjacent to this, a public domain upgrade of the foreshore, including new pedestrian links and cycle paths. Taken as a whole, Parramatta is in the midst of a vast urban transformation. On our way back, Evans points out the choke points, street corners that act as portals to carry foot traffic onto central streets that funnel pedestrians from the outer parts of the CBD towards Centenary Square and Parramatta Station. Finally, we have a look at the micro trenching under the railway overpass. It’s surgical and I can easily see the attraction of slot trenching from the point of view of Council – a single machine cuts then lays blown fibre pipe and fills the few-inch wide trench.

Plans for the future Typically, plans for the future of a public surveillance system are modular – a new camera here, another camera over there. Parramatta is a different animal. The system is not only going to grow in the CBD, it’s going to bring in satellite town centres as well. How many? That depends on many things, including the possibility of Council amalgamation, which could see Parramatta Council grow to regional size. “When Parramatta Square is built that will bring in another 50 cameras,” says Williams. “And there are

conduits are being put in – all the project managers are talking to each other.” In terms of integration, Williams says there may be integration with access control at Parramatta Square and the new Council building but that’s down the track – perhaps literally. “Because of all the development we are also looking at a light rail system for Parramatta and that may mean a combined operations centre,” Williams says. “When the light rail comes in there will certainly be a need for transport monitoring and we may look at bringing in security and city management functions in the new Council facility.”

Conclusion

multiple other major developments in Parramatta – including the entire Parramatta Stadium precinct. These will increase the number of visitors, residents and workers and that will lead to greater demand for surveillance in the CBD. “ According to Williams, Stage 2 of CitySafe is an expansion of the footprint in the Parramatta CBD as well as an expansion of the system to Westmead, Harris Park and Granville town centres. “Once we’re done with that, we’ll then look at how to incorporate existing council infrastructure at remote locations – currently these go to local DVRs and are not networked to a monitoring centre.” Getting to these remote locations throws up new challenges. “The idea is to use micro trenching to get to Harris Park but there are also negotiations with internet pioneer AARNET, which may lead to a potential partnership that will result in mutual cost savings,” says Evans. “AARNET needs to get into the CBD and we have spare fibre infrastructure that will allow them to do this. We need to get to Westmead, and they have dark fibre we can use to get to Westmead. “That may happen next year and the wait has delayed us but it’s also been a valuable learning process for Council. What is happening now is that every time there’s work on roads and footpaths,

Looking at the system through an observer’s eye, it seems Parramatta Council had a clear idea of what it wanted to do and sufficient budget to install the best possible and most future-proof infrastructure. Everything about this system from the network room to the control centre to the poles and cameras in the field is a credit to those involved. But the crown jewel of CitySafe is what you don’t see – 24 barrels of buried blown fibre infrastructure, each barrel capable of holding a single 24-core fibre. Williams’ operational focus means he sees the CitySafe surveillance system as a tool allowing police and the courts to prosecute anti-social behaviour of people moving through the CBD. Ultimately, this is the right way to look at public surveillance systems. A quality solution, well supported by operators, police and the courts, becomes a powerful driver of human behaviour, encouraging social behaviour and discouraging anti-social behaviour. “Parramatta suffers from reputation – it’s a city, so you get people coming in, there are government services, including the courts, it’s a transport hub, but statistically it’s much safer in Parramatta than in the City of Sydney,” Williams says. “Over the next 5 years Parramatta will completely change as billions of dollars are invested in the CBD. There are many new buildings planned Meriton apartments, a new convention centre is about to break ground, there’s an expansion of a vibrant restaurant strip. Parramatta Square is the single biggest urban redevelopment in NSW after Barrangaroo and the University of Western Sydney is locked into PS1 – the first stage of Parramatta Square, with another big tenant soon to be announced. “Council is doing a lot in terms of crime prevention and application of safe city strategies as the city continues to change,” Williams says. “Parramatta is business friendly in terms of affordability and access thanks to ease of commuting with major parking facilities, Parramatta Station and the planned light rail. There are many appealing things about Parramatta and CitySafe is one of them.” zzz

se&n 49

n ews re p o rt

Scentre Group

by john adam s

Common mall dome camera

westfield cctv shootout Scentre Group’s CCTV Shootout, held at Westfield Mall in Bondi Junction, covered ID, mall and low profile cameras. Among other things, the shootout showed the vital importance of avoiding motion blur when you want face recognition. 50 se&n

CENTRE Group’s CCTV shootout was great fun and really highlighted the challenges of quickly assessing the best camera in a large lineup. The application covers 3 key locations at Westfield Bondi Junction that typify challenges in many Scentre Group Malls. From the individual perspective, it’s about a definition of terms in the first instance, what does ‘best’ mean in relation to meeting a specification? Is it best technical performance or best operational delivery? Is it best colour rendition, The demo room

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n ews re p o rt

best contrast, best depth of field, or is it best face recognition, thanks to appropriate shutter settings that ensure the lowest possible levels of motion blur, yet still contrive to allow the camera to see areas of low light in a scene? From the position of an observer – manufacturer or integrator – this idea of performance can be skewed from what best means to an end user. You really need to be across operational requirements in the way Scentre Group was. Westfield has 500 million customer visits to its stores annually nationally – it’s a big number. Scentre Group’s CCTV needs are well defined and there was a comprehensive specification handed to participants prior to the shootout. For Scentre Group’s CCTV Shootout, a large group of manufacturers and distributors was invited to show their cameras and vendors were given plenty of time to set their cameras up so as to give each an equal opportunity to compete. A cross-section of some of the best brands are represented here, including Axis, Sony, Bosch, Canon, Panasonic, Samsung Techwin, Hikvision and Arecont Vision. Once we’ve all met up onsite, Yigal Shirin, senior risk & security manager at Westfield Bondi, walks us through the mall to take a look at the various camera locations. We take a look at the entry cameras, then a vertical mounting bracket onto which multiple large dome cameras have been installed – the way it’s all been done is fascinating to see. “What we have here is our common mall camera and we chose this area because it’s high traffic; there’s different light levels as well as a mirror, the black underside of the escalators and an adjacent

Scentre Group

It’s hugely important we get the right quality and specification...We also want the best price, we want signals to be encrypted, we want our system to be future-proof, we want it to be auditable.

Common mall dome mount camera

52 se&n

advertising screen that exposes the cameras to different reflective surfaces; making them work a bit more,” explains Shirin. “Everything is apples to apples, same resolution, same frame rate.” Next, we look at compact cameras installed on a ceiling. The small ceiling mount cameras are being tested to see if they meet a number of qualities Scentre Group favours, including the ability to handle low ceiling heights, to give good colour rendition and face recognition and to have low motion blur. We all troop into the demo room to a welcome from John Yates, head of security for Westfield, who thanks camera vendors for their contribution to the shootout process and explains that CCTV is one of the most important aspects in terms of the protection of the company’s centres. “It’s hugely important we get the right quality and specification,” Yates explains. “We also want the best price, we want signals to be encrypted, we want our system to be future-proof, we want it to be auditable. What we are doing here today is giving everyone the best chance to present their cameras in the best light so we get the best chance to select the best cameras for our centres.” Next, Scentre Group technical manager, corporate security, Simon Pollak, explains the camera specifications and tells us these are updated every 6 months to ensure the Group’s changing needs are being met. According to Pollak, the test is designed to assess 3 different classes of cameras considered vitally important by Scentre Group’s security team - ID cameras for face recognition coming into centres, general mall cameras on the retail floor and micro domes for areas with lower ceilings. “As far as the way we will be judging the cameras, we put together a scoring criteria which takes into account price, image quality of primary and secondary stream and the potential of camera,” Pollak explains. “We’ve applied restrictions in terms of frame rate, including resolution and bandwidth. This relates to our storage capacity, as well as a desire to maintain a level playing field. In the first test, cameras are limited to a 3Mbps stream but some have the ability to deliver improved performance if we have increased storage or our needs change. We also look at physical form factors and aesthetics. “Our judging panel was specifically selected to include representatives from a variety of

n ews re p o rt

our key internal user groups including security, risk management, design and construction, and technology, with each user rating the camera images on the criteria that were most important to them as users of the system,” Pollak explains. “In this way, we were able to achieve a balanced representation of the operational requirements of our CCTV systems.” Scentre Group has prepared a copy of the scoring criteria so anyone who wants to can take notes on individual camera performance. Almost everyone in the room takes a form but they are hard to fill out. The key is to decide on criteria. What’s most valuable to the viewer? Contrast? Colour? Resistance to motion blur? Resistance to backlight? Or a combination of all of these? As the test progresses many people fall into small groups of 2 or 3 and intuitively assess the camera performance – comparing their opinions with their neighbours. It’s not utterly objective but being objective is hard to do. Some things are easy to assess – colour rendition, saturation, depth of field, detail-enhancing contrast, resistance to motion blur. But all these things and others combine in different ways in a real world application like this one. You need to undertake a process of elimination, to choose the 2-3 best cameras and focus very closely on those. Most groups around me are instinctively undertaking that initial process of picking out the top performers. We start with general mall cameras and none of us know which camera is which until the end of each stage of the demo. While we’ve been talking, SEN’s Tavcom test target Norman has been wheeled into position in front of the first camera mount – the general mall cameras. We’re comparing things like variations in colour rendition, contrast between white and black bars, as well as being able to recognise Norman’s face. Deeper into the scene is a large red Coles sign and we’re also looking at the colours and feedback from digital display signage. People are moving through the area so we’re also

54 se&n

Scentre Group

Entry ID camera split

Ceiling mount cameras

concerned with how well the cameras handle face recognition, motion blur and colour rendition. According to Pollak, Scentre Group nominated resolution of 760p, bandwith of 1.5Mbps, frame rate of 8fps, as well as codec, but not shutter speed movement will show who decided to do what with shutter speed. Generally speaking, the price of the cameras in each part of the test is comparable. We start off looking at 8 cameras in a split screen and while there are some variations to be discerned, there’s not too much to come and go on. There are a couple of variations in focal length with the cameras but generally they all seem to be doing quite well in this scene. When we run through cameras in full frame you can see the differences much more clearly. Some of the images look quite different. Some are strong on colour but low on detail, while others have loads of detail but too much noise for the sort of scenes we are viewing. There are setup issues, too. Some have WDR on in order to handle bright points of light but this is introducing some noise artefacts. Some have focal points out. Pollak tells us that the cameras were all set up with 48 hours and the vendors could come in and do some tweaks and adjustments for colour and backlight. Frankly, shopping centres are a tough gig, I think, as I watch the test unfolding. The scenes are deep, there’s loads of movement and colour variation, and with the bit rates clamped you are seeing things in a rather different way. Next, we run through playback on the same cameras. Looking at the cameras as a group it’s hard to decide and listening to everyone else in the room, many others are finding this challenging. It’s easier once we go through the cameras in succession. Despite the flicker of the 60Hz Axis P3215-VE as it comes up on replay I can’t help saying that it’s a terrific image and there’s a simultaneous chorus from others praising its qualities. The depth of field is great on the P3215-VE and the general look of the image is strong. Also strong in this group are Samsung, Panasonic, Hikvision and Bosch, the latter of which some one comments aloud saying it has a lovely balance of features – that’s important in this sort of application. The Samsung SNB-5083P too, comes out well. It’s got a particular strength in face recognition and shows very low motion blur. Once we’re done with these views and Norman is wheeled to the next camera view, we get stuck into the second category - entry ID. According to Shirin, this is the most important category for the Scentre Group team. “On a day-to-day basis we want to identify people coming into the store with crisp, clear images,” he explains. “The problem we have is with backlight – it’s bad now but in summer at 1pm it would be far worse, so this camera range is vital to us.” These are high end full body cameras running at

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n ews re p o rt

1080p, 10fps and 3Mbps. We kick off with the split screen and the first camera is slightly out of focus, which is a shame. Looking across them, there’s considerable difference between all the images, some show the blooming of overexposure outside but are getting good faces in the doorway, others do well in the doorway and have good depth of field, some are just ok in the door and contrive to peer all the way over the road in killer backlight. In this scene motion blur is important even though customers are walking towards the cameras. Voices in the room rise up in a buzz as we run through this group one camera at a time. Many like camera 4, which is the Axis P1365. Talking to the people around me, we agree camera 7 is also very strong with good colour and texture in backlight – this turns out to be the Hikvision Lightfighter. The Bosch camera is praised in this application and the Panasonic WV-SPN531 gets positive comments, too. Then camera number 8 gets a good rap – it’s the Samsung SNB-6004P. The last category is the micro dome camera, which Pollak points out is the category in which aesthetics plays the biggest role. These cameras are all 720p and 8fps, with bandwidth capped at 1.5Mbps. In this application the cameras are looking across an internal pedestrian intersection with low ceiling heights. There’s a doorway in the distance and a long walkway outside the door. Looking at the split screen, you can see some cameras are able to see outside the door and a long way down the walk to the carpark. Others do this less well but are performing better at closer ranges, which as someone points out, is the key to the specification. In some ways, this is the most challenging application. From the point of view of perspective, the cameras are installed close to customers and much traffic is crossing the field of view at right angles. This is a severe test of motion blur and some cameras that otherwise perform brilliantly in this application are not always succeeding when it comes to handling it. What this means is that they are often failing to give face identification. Colour rendition and colour balance in the presence of highlights is another point of difference for some cameras. There are also cameras with WDR activated in order to manage high points of light from the entrance and the reflective tile floor. This is impacting on aspects of their image quality. Generally speaking, all the cameras in this scene, which is deceptively deep, are making a reasonably good job of it. My immediate call is 5, 6 and 7, though at this point no one has seen the setup sheet and we have no idea which tile is which camera. As it turns out, 5 is the Hikvision 2532F-IWS, 6 is the Sony XM631 and 7 is the Bosch Flexidome 500E. As we go through the full frame images, other cameras show their strengths, others show quirks like stronger than usual barrel distortion. It’s a tough challenge. Some cameras are getting shutter speed too slow and it’s leading

56 se&n

Scentre Group

Visitors, vendors and Scentre Group staff

On a day-to-day basis we want to identify people coming into the store with crisp, clear images...The problem we have is with backlight – it’s bad now but in summer at 1pm it would be far worse, so this camera range is vital to us.

Simon Pollak

to blooming from overexposure and concurrent motion blur. As we go through the full screen images I admire camera 3, which is the Canon VB-S805D, camera 4 is doing very well for face recognition – it’s the Samsung SNV-6013P and also handles motion blur very well, camera 5 has a great image that’s very well balanced but there’s some motion blur. At the end of this segment, I rate Camera 4 the highest but people around me have different ideas saying its colour isn’t as true as some others. When we go through the recordings I again like camera 3 and there’s broad agreement camera 4 is a good balance. Camera 5 is considered to have good colour with a lack of motion blur. Meanwhile, camera 6 has a great depth of field but a little motion blur, camera 7 has very natural colour but some blur and we agree camera 8, the Panasonic is good, too. In the real world you really notice things like motion blur and when focusing on that part of the specification things that might appeal during a static camera test fade into the background. As we finish up, the room is in a hubbub of talk about which camera did best and how valuable this sort of objective test can be. I don’t think anyone came away from this quick test – Scentre Group subsequently undertook days of evaluation – with a sense of exactly which camera was best in each application. But we were all thinking about the nature of camera performance and relating it to operational demands. This was a fascinating event - a credit to Scentre Group staff, as well as to the vendors and technicians involved. zzz

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RECENT report from ABI Research suggests DIY is going to play a big part in the future of alarm monitoring and not in quite the way we might think. Some of what we saw at Security 2015 tends to support these findings but when it comes to more serious security and home automation solutions, ABI looks off the mark. It’s hard to be certain which way things might go – partly because there are sections of the electronic security industry whose business depends on

at least partly facilitating the very thing many monitoring stations most fear. Having spent a couple of weeks thinking about it, I’m still not convinced that any professional organisation or any domestic customer serious about security is going to want DIY. What’s the argument in favour of DIY pinching a bit slice of monitoring business? ABI Research suggests nearly 15 million additional U.S. homes will invest in new connected home security services over the next 5 years.

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“After decades where penetration into U.S. households stalled, home security adoption is set for significant growth,” says ABI Research Principal Analyst Jonathan Collins said. “However, it will not be the sole preserve of traditional professionally monitored home security providers. Consumers can now choose from an array of non-traditional suppliers, new technologies, and innovative services that balance value with cost. “Self-install and self-monitor home security solutions are real threats to the standard business models offered by traditional vendors,” agreed Dan Shey, practice director at ABI Research. “While matching these solutions is one option, traditional vendors need to look for ways to better integrate their core services with partner smart home services. These can range from central station monitoring as a plug-in service to bringing home video monitoring into the central station.” Thanks to managed smart home offerings from retailers such as Lowes and Staples as well as standalone devices such as video cameras from Dropcam, or smart locks from Kwikset, the research firm said consumers have the option to install and monitor their own security systems. Adding fuel to fire, ABI argues that demand for such smart home systems is expected to outpace traditional professional monitored security subscriptions as consumers ditch the installation fees, monthly payments and long service contracts of traditional offerings. And at the same time, professionally monitored security service providers in the U.S. such as Frontpoint Security and NextAlarm, are offering solutions where users selfinstall their devices, or can integrate existing monitored or local alarm panel installations into new IP-based services. This latter is nothing manufacturers and installers aren’t doing here in Australia. All this seems like a perfect storm – the death knell of traditional monitoring - but is it? My instinct is not. There are a number of reasons I feel this way. In the first instance, 24 x 7 monitoring is an extremely low cost, high quality protection service that never sleeps. Supported by thoughtful procedures in the event of alarm activation – not just a

60 se&n

All this seems like a perfect storm – the death knell of traditional monitoring - but is it? My instinct is not. long list of people unqualified in security response - monitoring is a powerful tool. For anyone serious about protecting valuable property, an alarm system monitored by a professional monitoring station whose staff and response teams have a knowledge of the protected business can’t be beaten. The nature of typical DIY products comes into play, too. They couldn’t be considered toys but they are not serious security solutions, either. This might very well change but for the time being alarm systems sold by large retailers are built to a price point by nobody knows who. Systems installed by quality alarm installers are a different cup of tea – we know this because Ness 5000 panels, Solution 4s and 8s, MCM originals, DSC, Concept 2000s and first generation Tecom panels, among many others, are still out there banging away. Their long working life tells us that quality controllers of traditional design offer decades of working life – it’s a long time to defray the costs of installation. A combination of a robust solid state controller with very high end hardwired alarm sensors that are over-specified for the application is the lowest cost security solution money can buy – not just for the end user but for the installer, too. Installed properly and fronted up by a robust LCD keypad (these last practically forever), you can pretty much forget about maintenance

for the rest of your professional career, panel battery changes notwithstanding. DIY stuff is not the same. It has not evolved through long exposure to the pressure of market demands in the way established alarm panel and intrusion sensor brands have. Professional installers want reliable solutions and they talk to each other. Manufacturers know this and they have been giving installers and end users what they need for decades. DIY on the other hand, is the product of marketing campaigns, not living, breathing installation businesses, supported by monitoring stations, manufacturers, distributors and behind these the unrewarded labours of associations and industry committees on standards. What I think is that cloud-based DIY will continue to do what it has done to this point – to pressure intrusion alarm manufacturers to lift their game, forcing them to out-invent opportunists who mistake the security business as an engine for recurring revenue that is unhinged from technological prowess. Fact is, the intrusion alarm market is driven by recurring revenue predicated on dependability, support, strong warranties and serious product development. Walking around Security 2015 I certainly got a sense that manufacturers of intrusion detection solutions are rising to the challenge on behalf of installers. There’s a groundswell of security and home automation solutions flooding the market that make DIY products look feeble. These solutions are powerful and expand laterally, not just today but into the future, through support for multiple comms protocols – Wi-Fi, Z-wave and proprietary devices. They are also more and more reasonably priced. And far from opening up professional security systems to DIY installation by consumers, these open platforms actually open consumers to the creativity of enterprising installation teams. Today, instead of installing automation solutions costing tens of thousands, installers can offer security and core automation capabilities for a tenth of the price, as well as offering app interfaces and overarching professional monitoring support. zzz

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p ro d u ct rev i ew

Axis M1 1 25

Axis M1125 Review AXIS M1125 network camera is a low cost, compact PoE camera designed for internal applications. It has a couple of notable strengths – WDR performance and Zipstream technology – the latter of which gives very noticeable reductions in bitrate, particularly in scenes low in movement. 62 se&n

IVEN its design specifications it’s no surprise the Axis M1125 works very well under artificial light and its solid WDR numbers give it plenty of potential for entry applications. WDR is 120dB and when I park Norman at the back door of the office with the sun right behind him, the Axis 1125 makes fine work of it - perfect identification at 4 metres at a 5mm focal length with 75,000 lux backlight. Frankly, I was not expecting the camera to be so capable. Very low light performance, while not as strong as backlight performance in my opinion, is more than reasonable. There’s softness in very low light, which is probably a combination of signal amplification and noise reduction algorithms in combat. As night falls I manage to hold colour under l lux, which is good work and broadens the camera’s operational

By john adam s

Minimum scene illumination is claimed to be 0.25 lux in colour and 0.05 lux in monochrome. The camera stubbornly held colour below 1 lux at the lens without resorting to manual shutter selections, so it’s in the right ballpark. Looking at the images, I think the M1125 could give colour under half a lux – when I bought the camera inside at night and turned off all the lights but the viewing monitor, I managed to get to monochrome and take the camera past its acceptable noise threshold. Light was well under 1 lux by that time. Other specifications of interest include IRcorrected varifocal CS mount lens with DC iris, WDR Forensic Capture, microSD slot, digital input

The M1125 is built to a price point and it weighs just 200 grams including optics. The poly housing has a nice enough feel to it, however, and there’s nothing loose about the build.

At 8m

At 12m

scope. Important, too, latency is always low. I conducted the first half of this test wide open on the 3-10.5mm f1.4 varifocal (which on the settings I chose moved between 32-91 degrees of viewing angle). Later on, I moved the focal point to about 5mm, around 50-degrees of viewing angle. I lost some aperture doing so but it was marginal.

At 18m

Camera specifications Before we get carried away with performance, let’s run over the specifications of the camera. The sensor is a progressive scan ½.8-inch CMOS with a maximum resolution of 1080p HD (1920 x 1080) and a frame rate of 25fps in H.264 and MJPEG. Zipstream is available in H.264 and I run with it on the whole test. As mentioned, an important number is WDR, which is 120dB.

At 24m

se&n 63

p ro d u ct rev i ew

Good WDR performance

Strong view through office

Some CAs but good work

Entry with 75,000 lux backlit

and output ports and analytics capacity. In terms of camera setup there are plenty of options, including manual shutter time, compression, colour, brightness, sharpness, contrast, white balance, exposure control and exposure zones, and fine tuning of behaviour in low light. There’s not an awful lot more to the camera than this – everything else is about the management software. The M1125 is built to a price point and it weighs just 200 grams including optics. The poly housing has a nice enough feel to it, however, and there’s nothing loose about the build. I feel a little processing warmth after the camera has been running for a couple of hours but it’s only warmth. The 3-10.5mm varifocal,

64 se&n

Axis M1 1 25

like most CCTV camera lenses, requires a light touch in order to avoid pushing past your focal point but once you get the feel of it, focus is nice to use. You need to be careful to loosen the pins that lock the varifocal function and the focus mechanism, as the plastic threads are quite lightly built. In the price conscious part of every camera manufacturer’s line-up, lenses are an area of compromise – every manufacturer is in the same boat. Taking this into account, the M1125 lens does well given I torture it all day long. At least the first element of the lens is coated against flare and it does pretty well, considering. There’s a small amount of flare and a pinkish-green ghost is visible when the sun or a streetlight are at a particular angle thanks to some internal reflections between lens elements. However, the image remains perfectly useful. Something I do notice with the Ricom megapixel lens that comes with the M1125 is lateral chromatic aberration in high contrast areas that’s more persistent and widespread than usual. I don’t see it in every situation but I never get away from it for long. Same as most cameras we test, it’s most noticeable wide open, is much reduced when I haul in the focal point to 5mm but I still see it quite late into the afternoon - even after street lights come on. The characteristic purple fringing doesn’t make the scenes less useable but it softens contrast and alters colour rendition, especially deep into scenes or when looking through trees or shrubbery. Some users might choose to swap out this lens for semi-external or demanding internal WDR applications. In fairness, the camera is not housed, there’s no sunshade and I’m not exactly being polite. In some of my scenes the sun is fully in the frame and at the widest setting, the lens protrudes slightly past the front of the lens tube. My test represents an abnormal application for the M1125. Still, fringing is quite noticeable even at lower light levels, around

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p ro d u ct rev i ew

Axis M1 1 25

good. Again, I think 5mm is a good focal length of street scenes with a 1/3-inch sensor. Contrast is a strength of this sensor. I’m getting license plates at 24m - they’re not clear but a turn of the mouse wheel is enough to give sufficient size to identify them. In terms of face recognition, Norman is identifiable at 12m and could be picked out by someone who knew him at 16m and even 24m, which is pretty good going from the little Axis camera. Taking the M1125 out the back and setting it up to view the lane, I’m getting good performance – contrast and colour rendition are giving me a good sense of detail and texture. When my neighbours internal light fittings and high lights, as well as in softer reflected backlight and in typical WDR entrance applications.

Micro SD slots, ports and LEDs.

Testing the M1125 Today I test the M1125 with Axis Camera Management software running on SEN’s dedicated Dell 9020 i7 workstation – I spend most my time in live viewer after tweaking camera settings. I leave white balance on auto and as usual advance sharpness, colour, brightness and contrast to 60 per cent and pull the Normal Light slider towards low motion blur. I start the test out back, wide open at a 3mm focal length. It’s a nice scene taken as a whole. There’s some barrel distortion as you’d expect but this district scene is well covered. When I swing the camera towards the sun I get some colour shift, flaring and meet my first ghost. The harshness of this scene leads to some smoothing of textures in adjacent surfaces but the sun is fully in the frame – not an easy scene. Pulling the camera back around a little improves colour considerably with the sun still in the frame. Next, I take the camera inside the office and point it out the back door and discover what the M1125 is built for. It does extremely well under the strong LED downlights, though with some CAs around the lights. I’ve left WDR on so as to get a look out the back and lo and behold, this little camera is lapping up backlight. Getting closer to the door the M1125 gives a great image out the back. I decide to run through the same process with Norman in the scene. In the first image you can see the chromatic aberration around Norman’s head and shoulders but in the second scene, a far tougher scene, the entranceway image is close to perfect – it’s great work from the little camera. Next, I take Norman out front and run through the same old process – Norman at 7m, Norman at 12m, Norman at 18m, Norman at 24m trying to pretend he’s not out the front of Ruby House. I’ve got the camera at a focal length of 5mm now. The image at 7m is great, as you’d expect. This first scene outside with backlight off the houses opposite is the zenith of purple fringing – especially when you use digital zoom - but generally speaking, the image is very 66 se&n

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p ro d u ct rev i ew

Norman at 7–8m

At 12m with light on face

At 18m with side light

Axis M1 1 25

down under 5 lux. I try the scene with WDR off but with the street light in the frame I get too much blooming and turn it back on. Even when we’ve dropped under the ability of my Sekonic to measure light – sub-1 lux - the Axis M1125 is grimly hanging on in colour and I still have a surprisingly tight scene. The tones are muted, as you’d expect but I’m getting clothing colour, any obvious differences in hair colour and vehicle colour – that’s a bonus from a compact camera like this one. To finish off we head out the front. The light level is no problem – it’s about 6 lux at Norman’s face and 2.5 lux at the lens. I find the M1125 does really well with contrast in lower light – colours are rendered less accurately but performance there is still useful. When I move Norman from 7m without light on the face, to 12m with light falling on his face, I really see the importance of camera positioning when it comes to face recognition in low light. I’m getting admissible face recognition of Norman at 12m, which is good going. Colours are better, too and contrast remains excellent at this distance. At 18m I lose face recognition – only at 24m do we lose useful face recognition but contrast and colour are still useful and you could nut out a number plate. Situational awareness in all these scenes is surprisingly good, even though deeper in you lose fine detail. Colour under low pressure sodium tends towards yellow but it’s very consistent. Throughout the review process I’m also very happy with the low latency. In conclusion, I liked the M1125 much more than I thought I would. Zipstream makes a huge difference in quiet scenes, at some points my bitrate is under 100Kbps - though the test day was wildly gusty, which skewed the numbers in the afternoon. Even when used well outside its specification the M1125 contrives to do its job extremely well. Confined to internal tasks, especially those involving managing backlight, this camera is utterly in its element. zzz

At 24m

start bringing out their wheelie bins I get admissible face recognition at 12 metres. There are times I think the M1125 is actually doing better at this than some much more expensive cameras. The image improves as light levels fall from their peaks. When the streetlights come on it’s about 40 lux in the lane and with the artificial light in the scene I get a revisit from the wee ghost in the lens. Aside from this ghost and those persistent CAs, the scene is really rather good and it stays rather good. As light levels get down around 10 lux the ghost grows and I get some slight processor swim – a combination of amplification and noise reduction smoothing. Interestingly, noise improves as light levels fall

68 se&n

Features of the Axis M1125 include: l Zipstream technology l 120dB WDR l 1080p and 25fps l Minimum illumination of 0.25lx colour l MicroSD slot l H.264 and MJPEG streams l Weight of 200g with optics.

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t h e i n t e rv i ew

Davi d Le nz w i th J ohn Adams

Back to basics David Lenz brings Hills broad experience in sales, distribution and marketing and he combines formidable focus with unhesitating honesty. Lenz says Hills got some things wrong in the past and he’s on a mission to set the business to rights. 70 se&n

ENERALLY speaking, straight talk from senior management can be hard to come by but there’s plenty of it from Hills’ David Lenz, who is in the process of re-booting the Hills’ culture through a process of key appointments and re-engagement with customers and vendors. Lenz isn’t afraid to point out Hills needs to reinvent itself as a more powerful, more passionate version of what it used to be. Q: There have been a number of changes to the management team at Hills, could you tell us about those? A: Key people are being moved into

different roles as we get back to basics and re-engage with our customers. You’ll notice some of these people have been with the company a long time, from the Pacific Communications and DAS days, and they have received these appointments because they are incredibly passionate about serving their customers. My role is to give them space to add passion to the business. These are proper appointments in real roles that make sense to our customers. Q: Do you see a lack of engagement as an issue in the past for Hills? A: There was so much change inside the

The key thing in any distribution business is to have clarity around your go-to-market so customers and vendors understand what you are doing. business that it was difficult to establish clarity with customers and vendors about where we were going. For me, it has been a matter of looking inside the organisation and recognising that we have a huge amount of talent that needs empowering. As part of the process I’ve gone around all the branches across Australia and New Zealand. The feedback I’ve had is that the team has plenty of talent but how are we organised? What are we trying to do? So I am focusing on core areas in which Hills operates, for instance Hills does a lot of industry development but it was being done in different states, so we’ve created a co-ordinated team headed up by Scott Myles, as national industry development manager. Paul Gregory, Tony Dabbs and Peter Pearce are also now back into industry development roles. When I looked at the state-based businesses I started thinking about how we are integrating with our national accounts – I’ve just announced the appointment of Dan Fletcher as sales manager for national accounts and we are going to start driving a coordinated, consistent national model for engagement with national players. From here on there will be consistency around engagement, around who the managers are in each state, with more collaborative activity around that as well. The other part for us that was important was looking at the delineation between the trade centres, territories and the accounts. Basically if you look at us today, we are focused around industry development, national accounts, key state accounts, territory accounts and inside sales. This gives us a complete coverage model for all our

customers – that’s a key thing I’ve been involved with. As part of this we’ve created a very strong inside sales team in NSW that is headed up by Alf Hughes that has bought together a lot of key people, and we’ve expanded it, there are just on 15 people in that area and they allow us to do inbound customer service activity for the market, NSW and moving into a national market – proving the connection with our customers. We also have key people leading our trade centres in each of the states – Owen Rogers in NSW as well as the NSW territory business and we have created individual roles around the country that drive that trade centre activity. Again, this is part of getting back to some of the things we did really well as a company, driving those a lot more actively. I guess you could say it’s about reorganising the talent and putting the right people in the right roles, as well as making some key appointments where we needed to – Bill Babagiannakis has taken on the role of driving key account engagements in NSW, while Nigel Bond who was looking after Vic and Tas has picked up sales functions for WA. We are looking to use our best people in the best way, as well to giving clarity around what we are doing. Q: People buy from people in every industry but even more so in the security industry – how vital do you think that person to person connection is? A: Hills is a distributor and we need to do the basics really well – how we notify customers about order deliveries, how we handle stock and inventory so there’s a lot of work going on in those areas. But in general terms we need to provide

some clarity around the market, to improve and facilitate that engagement between the great people we have and our customers. In terms of your point, part of the changes we are making is pushing our passionate people back out where they belong, engaging with customers. I think the key thing for me was identifying people who had a key role to play and were prepared to add value, and we are seeing there are many such people throughout the organisation. I think we’ve got a good platform for going forward and driving growth. How do you enhance growth by improving the customer service capability? That’s a work in progress - we are not sitting there saying we are A Grade in all areas. But we have a lot of projects going on in the background to help us to continue to evolve and develop the business. The news from me is that the team is engaged and our customers will see the benefits in the coming months. Q: When it comes to staff, are all the adjustments made? A: All the changes are in place and I’ll think you’ll see improvements in the business over the next 6 months, the way we engage with the marketplace and the team is excited – they are focused on going in the same direction and desire to be part of the change. Q: You come from the distribution side – Ingram Micro most recently - as well as having a deep background in sales and marketing. How do you feel about the distribution side of the Hills business? Is there some polishing to do there? A: I’m focusing on the core distribution functions – a lot of that is customer service and comes down to engagement with customers, resellers and venders. The key thing in any distribution business is to have clarity around your go-to-market so customers and vendors understand what you are doing. That drives a focus on the right engagement model we should pursue to achieve success. While the fundamentals of distribution

se&n 71

t h e i n t e rv i ew

Davi d Le nz w i th J ohn Adams

business don’t change no matter what industry you are in, with the electronic security industry one thing I have noticed is the value-add component. There is a deep value-add in this industry, through re-development, design, implementation, knowledge of industry verticals and real strength in product knowledge. That’s a difference and a key strength and you need to show that to the market – to give clients access to that strength. Many distributors claim to value-add but Hills really does do everything from support services to level 3 software development for exclusive vendors. We need to provide the core structure to allow that capability to get to the market. Q: Do you have a mission, a place you want to take the Hills business? A: I’d like Hills to be considered the number 1 value-added distributor in the market segments we operate in, to be a leader in the space. My mission is to ensure the business gets all the basics right so that in 12 months’ time people really enjoy the engagement with Hills and have the same type of experience they had when engaging with Hills in the past. Q: Is there anything specific you’d like to say to small installers and integrators? A: I think what we’d like to say to them is that we acknowledge that we made some errors around our ranging in our trade centres and we are putting the right people in charge of those areas to make sure we have the right product and the right stock to help you meet the demands of your projects. Expect your experience at the trade centres to improve. Also, expect to see tradie nights and re-engagement across the country with technology demonstrations. We have demo facilities being deployed in every state so there are some great capabilities in all of our offices. Also expect to see much more communication from our inside sales team.

72 se&n

I’d like Hills to be considered the number 1 valueadded distributor in the market segments we operate in, to be a leader in the space.

Q: Training - will that be part of the reengagement process? A: Training is a key area and with the new demo centres we are going to be doing a lot more of it. Lidcombe will be operational in August, WA at the same time, we are finishing up Notting Hill and Port Melbourne and I think people will be stunned by the capability of those centres – these are all new developments. You’ve going to be able to go in and see product and technology, or take your customers in for demonstrations of the latest and greatest, all supported by experts from Hills. Q: What does the immediate future hold for Hills, what can customers and the market expect? A: The market can expect us to become

a stronger version of what we used to be. I think we got some things wrong in the recent past and the things we are doing to rectify those things make a lot of sense to people. Those changes are about driving engagement with vendors and customers and getting back to doing all the things the man in the van used to experience. The passion our customers have around Hills is great. We ran a 48-hour fire sale at Lidcombe recently and it stopped the traffic – there were people everywhere, it was just unbelievable. In all of this, the lesson for Hills is that we need to listen, and the message to our customers is that we’re listening - we’ve heard your feedback, we are acting on it. We are prepared to make changes to improve our engagement and you will see a difference.zzz

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s p e ci al re p o rt

security 201 5 exp o

Honeywell draws a crowd

SECurity 2015 people Security 2015 in Melbourne gave the industry an excellent networking opportunity. Held at Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre for the second year, Security 2015 was another successful event, with plenty of new stuff and good crowds. CSD shows Surveillance Station 7.0

74 se&n

Raam Siva (l) with Etwell Pausigere

All smiles with Etrovision

Wayne Krahner on a winner

Security 2015 gave everyone a chance to get a look at the latest technology and hardware.

Kieron McDonough

Genetec got busy

Chris Dellenty

se&n 75

s p e ci al re p o rt

security 201 5 exp o

Darren Banks

Day 2 action

As usual, manufacturers and distributors put a lot of effort into some excellent displays

Elian Circosta

Vivotek gets lots of attention

Josh Simmons

Cliff Simons

76 se&n

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Distributor: Inner Range Contact: +61 3 9780 4300

Raytec Panoramic ULTRA l RAYTEC has released Panoramic ULTRA - a new extension of the

Panoramic range of high-power illuminators. The ULTRA series offers 180-degree illumination, offering longer distances (150m) and a better spread of light for wide angle PTZ or 360 degree dome cameras. Utilising holographic lens technology to spread and control the light creating a softer and more even distribution, images have greater detail even at considerable distances with no hot-spots or overexposure. With a colour temperature of up to 6500K on the Kelvin scale you get the closest replication of daylight, at the widest angles, for CCTV. This means accurate colour rendition of clothing, vehicles, even eye colour, enabling images to withstand intense scrutiny and deliver results. Distributor: Hills Contact: 1800 685 487

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Distributor: Bosch Security Systems Contact: 1300 1 BOSCH (26724)

Avigilon Control Center Edge Solution HD Recorder l NEW from Avigilon and distributed locally by CSD, the ACC ES

HD recorder delivers complete support for HD cameras up to 7K (30 MP) resolution, full performance of the Avigilon Control Center (ACC) software and powerful remote access capabilities in a compact design. Harnessing the power of Avigilon’s High-Definition Stream Management technology, the ACC ES HD Recorder is ideal for centralised monitoring of critical infrastructure. It offers intelligent onsite monitoring, deployed at the network edge, the ability to store high amounts of HD video data remotely and the ability to view live or recorded video from long distances upon demand. With a host of other features the ACC ES HD Recorder gives the flexibility to build a security solution that meets the specific needs of your business. Distributor: Central Security Distribution Contact: 1300 319 499

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duct showcase / n ew p ro d u ct s h owcas e / new pr o d u ct showcase / new p roduct showcase / new p roduct showcase /

New Mobotix Management Center MxMC

Bosch Service Keypad makes programming easy

l MOBOTIX MxMC video management software has been

l NEW CP799 service keypad has been designed to assist

completely re-developed, with a focus on a providing a simple and intuitive user experience. Mobotix Software is free of charge, with no update or licensing costs, and can support an unlimited number of cameras, screens, and users. Single and double click, support for drag & drop and gestures, and multi-screen or direct viewing of events and alarm messages, represent just some of the advantages of this new software. Functions include the newly developed research and player tools, which provide a high-speed searching facility and fast results. MxMC was designed with MOBOTIX cameras in mind and is the perfect tool for exploiting their decentralized technology, enabling controlled access to recordings via the camera directly at the time, or later via the NAS. A particularly noteworthy feature is the bandwidth manager, making high quality searching possible, even on networks where bandwidth is limited.

installers and techs working on Solution 6000 alarm panels. It allows installers anywhere on the system to easily log into programming mode, interrogate zone or output status, review the history log and perform other functions as if they were using the main keypad. Bosch CP799 does not need to be addressed, so no need to scan the LAN to recognise it. The keypad can be temporarily plugged onto any module on the system that has a service port header through its 1.5m lead. Built-in security means that the system will only respond to CP799 if the panel has been placed in service mode from one of the main keypads or the panel box tamper input is unsealed. The CP799 includes a built-in DF smart card reader, allowing RFID cards and tokens to be easily enrolled directly at the keypad if required. Alpha text characters have also been included on the keypad buttons which help speed up text entry at the keypad.

Distributor: Mobotix Contact: +61 2 8507 2000

Panasonic releases True 4K Camera Range

Distributor: Bosch Security Systems Contact: 1300 026 724 (BOSCH)

Turbocharged Hikvision HD1080P PTZ Camera

l PANASONIC Australia has launched a new ‘True 4K’ security

l WITH an increasing number of installations looking for

camera range designed to deliver more detail and greater coverage at a lower cost. The new WV-SF781L dome camera and WV-SPV781L 4K box cameras can effectively cover a field of view 4 times larger than 1080p cameras and 9 times larger than 720p cameras. They can also cover 2 and 3 times the distance of 1080p and 720p cameras respectively. This has the potential to reduce the overall cost of a surveillance system by as much as half, when the reduction in installation, cabling, network costs and maintenance are taken into account. “The key benefits of the new cameras are superior image quality and a wide field of view, covering a greater area in high detail,” says Robert Wensing, group manager, security, Panasonic Australia. “They offer benefits for a variety of organisations, and are ideal for areas that require ultra-high resolution, low-light capabilities and wide angled surveillance.”

migration paths from their traditional analogue solutions, Hikvision has introduced its Turbo HD range to the market. Within this comprehensive range, the newly released DS2AE5230T-A is a stand out. With an impressive feature set, this stylish PTZ camera has adopted turbocharged HDTVI technology and showcases enhanced HD video quality images at 1080P resolution. This camera boasts a 2MP CMOS image sensor with 30x optical zoom and an additional 16x digital zoom. With other specifications including privacy masking, a 4–20mm lens and 3D Digital Noise Reduction (3D DNR) this camera forms part of Hikvision’s Turbo HD revolution. Distributor: Central Security Distribution Contact: 1300 319 499

Distributor: Hills Contact: 1800 685 487

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re g u lars help desk

helpdesk

Q: When it comes to preventative maintenance, how often should this be undertaken on security cameras and what areas should be looked at during the check? A: Typically, twice a year is right for maintaining CCTV cameras but this depends on the environment. If you’re on a mine site or a road tunnel, or a beachside park, a couple of times a year may not be enough. There are also going to be times when situations develop – there’s a public surveillance camera in Australia with a paper wasp’s next in the field of view. Because it’s blocking part of the view that is not important, the wasps have been left in peace for the time being but eventually they’ll need to be cleared out. Depending on the location of cameras it can cost thousands of dollars to undertake maintenance on them – more than the value of the camera itself, taking into account hiring scissor lifts and personnel. Cost of maintenance explains the value of PTZs with hydrophobic dome bubbles like the Panasonic Rainwash, or that vibrate water and dirt off them as the new Axis dome does. It also explains why many public surveillance applications prefer PTZs period, given their field of view can be altered at any time remotely. You’re going to want to look over all the connections and fittings, including, brackets and poles to ensure they’ve not shifted due to thermal expansion or vibration. Look for corrosion and if you find it, take remedial measures. Even if you don’t, be liberal with grease or lanolin where required. Lanolin is a brilliant low cost metal protector. You should be taking apart your housing supports every few years as part of a comprehensive maintenance program

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Our panel of experts answers your questions.

anyway and when you do, apply the lanolin using a brush or cloth. While we’re on the topic, it’s a poor technician who doesn’t practice preventative maintenance. When you see an external fitting with rusty bolts corroding to their more noble neighbours (especially if some mug has sold you a housing with steel/stainless steel bolts and aluminium nuts, spacers or framing) don’t just wait till the camera falls off the wall. Check the seals and dome bubble for sun damage and make sure the cabling is tidy and the shield is not worn by rubbing in high winds. You’re going to want to clean the bubble and tweak focus and backfocus – both these will stray over a period of time. Maintenance is a good time to check the original brief and make sure the camera is doing the job it was installed to do. It’s also a good time to consider adjusting the field of view or lens focal length. You really need a high quality camera testing tool with a local monitor screen that can be seen in full sun when undertaking maintenance. Q: We’ve heard there are different types of Fresnel lens, one being better than the other in alarm sensor applications. Is this correct? A: There are 2 types of Fresnel lens – one type has a design based on lighthouse lenses and can be manufactured anywhere in the world, commonly in Asia. The second

type of fresnel lens is manufactured by a USbased company called Fresnel. PIR lenses manufactured by Fresnel Inc. are based on the same technology as the others with their own variations. The key difference is that Fresnel Inc. stamps its lenses, it doesn’t mould them. What the better optics of the stamping process mean is that PIR gain doesn’t need to be turned up as far when using these lenses. If overall sensor design is good and there’s a reasonable signal-to-noise ratio, sensor stability is improved, in part because amplification raises noise levels significantly and a PIR’s pyroelectric signal is miniscule. A typical PIR signal is down at microvolt levels so PIR gain needs to be 1000s of times and this means any induced noise will be amplified enormously. The point of all this is to illustrate the fact that a better lens will mean a better detector. Q: Is it true IR lenses have advantages beyond cameras supported by IR illumination? A: IR corrected lenses with special glass and coatings are vital for all outdoor applications and any indoor applications with IR lighting, as they allow the camera to focus more sharply. A standard non-corrected lens will be blurred or completely out of focus. Essentially this happens because the wavelength of IR light is different from that

A number of cameras do have analytics built into them that may be able to detect gunshots but in terms of reliable solutions, that’s a tougher ask.

of visible light and that means a displaced focal point. When a tech sets a fixed camera focus correctly for daytime with an ordinary lens, as soon as IR illumination becomes a dominant light source, focus is lost. An IR-corrected lens rectifies the issue by focusing both the visible and the infrared light in the same vertical plane and this means a sharper picture because all the light available to the camera is being focused simultaneously. It’s not just sunlight that contains visible and IR light. Artificial light sources with a significant IR component include halogen, high pressure sodium, fluorescent, incandescent and high pressure mercury. Q: Is there a reputable system available SEN knows of that can detect gun shots and report incidents as alarm events? A: A number of cameras do have analytics built into them that may be able to detect gunshots but in terms of reliable solutions, that’s a tougher ask. Something we do know is that the New York Police Department is running a pilot of the ShotSpotter detection system that is said to pinpoint the location of gunfire and sends incident reports to police. The system comprises highly sensitive microphones in the target area and through a process of triangulation informs police of the location the shot was fired. ShotSpotter sensors are in 7 precincts in the Bronx and 10 in Brooklyn. It’s not the first time NYC has run a pilot with gunshot detection – they tried in 2009 with another company’s product and had trouble with false alarms. The NYC pilot is something to watch if you’re seeking objective analysis of the product in a tough environment.

Q: Is it true that a simple wireless jammer can be used to block the signals from all security systems in the 900Mhz-2.4Ghz range? How does the security system respond to such jamming and what can be done to prevent this? A: Something like a JR080 may block cameras, wireless alarm systems and network devices in its ranges and radius and that might include 433Mhz. Typically, range would be 20m or less but this would technically allow an intruder carrying a jammer to move through a site and block all alarm signals sent from sensors to the control panel. The best way around this is to hard-wire alarm systems - on larger and commercial sites where interference can be a problem, most systems will be wired, though there are exceptions. As to whether a low-power jammer would block all wireless alarm systems – that’s a rather large question and you’d need to be across

all possible systems to get a handle on it. You can also use a jammer like this to block the signals from wireless spy cameras or hidden microphones. zzz * Last issue we talked about some challenges that face PE beams and ran a file image of a PE beam housing we did not realise was a Takex PB-TK/PB-TE Series beam. This was a mistake because none of the challenges some less capable PE technologies face apply to any Takex beams, including the powerful PXB-100ATC PE beam pictured. Takenaka was the first company to offer photoelectric beam products that operate reliably in direct sunlight, heavy moisture and humidity, without ventilation and where weeds are present. Takex photoelectric beam technology is so well regarded by the industry many major manufacturers OEM it and you can buy it locally from Central Security Distribution, Mainline, NESS, Seadan/Sprint, Security Merchants & Video Security Products. Apologies to all for the error!

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events WESTFIELD

Secutech Vietnam 2015

CCTV SHOOTOUT

Date: August 18-20, 2015 Venue: Saigon Exhibition & Convention Center (SECC), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Contact: 886 2 2659 9080 ext. 668 Going onto the 8th year, Secutech Vietnam continues to be the No.1 choice for manufacturers & distributors of security and safety products from local and around the world to connect and explore new business opportunities in Vietnam.

l Security 2015 Expo Full Report l Stage 1 of Parramatta CitySafe l Monitoring: Do it Yourselves l Product review: Axis M1125 l Interview: David Lenz, Hills l Hikvision Appoints Ingram Micro

PP 100001158

August 2015 Issue 368

Security in Government (SIG) Date: August 31, September 2, 2015 Venue: National Convention Centre, Canberra Contact: 61 2 6141 3717 The SIG Conference enables delegates from Australian government to engage with public and private sector security experts from a diverse range of fields. The extensive trade exhibition attached to the conference features over ninety security-related service providers who work closely with both the government and private sector to provide cuttingedge solutions to protective security issues.

CPSE 2015

Date: October 29 – November 1, 2015 Venue: Shenzhen International Convention & Exhibition Center, Shenzhen, China Tel: 86-755-88309123 Founded in Shenzhen, served more than 8600 security companies and 524,000 buyers. The largest exhibition in the world and the most influential exhibition in Asia, holds its 15th event.

ISC West Date: April 6-8, 2016 Venue: Sands Expo & Convention Center, Las Vegas, NV Contact: 1-203-840-5602 With more than 26,000 industry professionals and more than 1000 exhibits, ISC West is the largest security technology event in the Americas. ISC West’s attendees represent more than $US50 billion in buying power.

SecTech Roadshow 2016

= DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY.

Date: May 4-18, 2016 Contact: Monique Keatinge on 612 9280 4425 SecTech Roadshow takes up to 20 of Australia’s leading distributors and manufacturers on a national tour – a simple and highly targeted touring tradeshow covering 5 state capitals over 2 weeks during the month of May. In 2016, SecTech Roadshow will visit Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

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