Sen sept15

September 2015 Issue 369

Alarm Monitoring:

The Ticking Clock

l l l l

New Installers Must Embrace Networking l Interview With a Vulcan Dahua Secures LAN Airline l Developing Ness MEZZO controller MCEC CCTV Enhanced by Honeywell DVM l Installing Paxton Net2 Plus Review: Hikvision Darkeye SLA l A New Milestone in Education

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editorial s ec u ri ty e l e ct ro n i c s & netwo r ks s e pte mb e r 201 5 issue 369

Ten Million Reasons Crime Does Pay

S

OMETIMES clichés can be utterly inverted. When it comes to community crime prevention initiatives undertaken through the Attorney General’s Department’s National Crime Prevention Fund, which is funded under section 298 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, there are 10 million reasons crime does pay.

Up until June 30 2015, Australia’s National Crime Prevention Fund has provided nearly $A10 million for 53 local council safety infrastructure projects, with most these funds being invested in video surveillance solutions and lighting. The NCPF is a $40 million purse which was put aside to address gang violence and street crime.

Projects supported included diversionary activities and education for at-risk youth in areas that experience high crime rates compared with the rest of Australia.

Along with these initiatives, the NCPF’s security-related infrastructure grants also supported environmental enhancements using CPTED principles at trouble spots, including fixed and mobile CCTV systems, lighting and other initiatives.

AG’s intent was that the NCPF would lead to improved community safety and security, a reduction of street crime and violence and a reduction in community fear of crime.

Something that has been most noticeable is the quality and depth of partnerships between

By John Adams

In visiting at least 10 council systems over the past couple of years, the capability of CCTV systems to support law enforcement and actively reduce crime has been universally praised. local councils and various state police services. This co-operation was spring-loaded into the NCPF thanks to a requirements list that demanded applicants for funding show community cohesion, as well as a genuine need for assistance.

The AG’s Department insisted that projects addressed the priorities of the program, had clear benefits for the broad community, had well-defined and achievable objectives, and established performance measures to assess the impact of the project.

They also needed to have support of multiple stakeholders – including local police.

On a national basis, NSW got the bulk of funding, with 23 projects totalling nearly $4.5 million. Western Australian projects received just under $1.4 million for 8 projects, Queensland was allocated just over $1.3 million for 9 projects, Victoria received $1.135 million for 6 projects, Northern Territory received $982,093 for 3 projects, South Australia’s 3 projects were awarded $407,000, and Tasmania’s George Town Council was awarded $16,446 for installation of a fixed CCTV system in George Town.

Nationally, the largest projects included $486,000 for the Roper Gulf Community’s Safety Through Dark Spot Reduction project, $200,000 for Gold Coast City Council’s Gold Coast Safer Streets Project, $473,655 for Burwood’s City Safe CCTV Program, $400,000 for Parramatta CitySafe, $300,000 for Tamworth Regional Council’s Lights, Camera, Action project and $300,000 for CCTV and Lighting Enhancements at Central Park in the City of Joondalup in WA.

Having visited multiple council safety and security systems over the past 2 years, I’d say the money has been very well spent. Projects have typically combined the best performance for budget, with significant community and police involvement from the process of inception feeding into the dayto-day operation of these public surveillance and safety systems.

There’s no doubt in my mind that AG’s National Crime Prevention Fund, supported by funding from state governments and local councils, has provided a test bed for the effectiveness of CCTV as a tool for public safety, as well as demonstrating best practise in community involvement.

In visiting at least 10 council systems over the past couple of years, the capability of CCTV systems to support law enforcement and actively reduce crime has been universally praised. Councils from Frankston, to Mackay, Parramatta, Darwin, Byron Bay and dozens more are installing new solutions or expanding and upgrading older ones.

This observation is not an empirical study but the positive feedback from people on the ground in local communities underscores the success of the NCPF. Something else that should be taken into account is the willingness of communities to employ highly targeted CCTV solutions to increase safety and the perception of safety, and to assist over-stretched law enforcement personnel. We should all be very thankful that sometimes, crime does pay. zzz

se&n 03

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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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74 26

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36: Dark Matter We tested Hikvision Darkfighter in SEN a while back but post-SecTech Roadshow, I jumped at the chance to re-test the camera with Hikvision’s new Darkeye SLA lens.

26: Networking is key For installers facing a welter of proprietary IP products, it can seem the future of the industry is too much to handle. But help is at hand.

32: MCEC Enhanced by Honeywell DVM Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre is taking advantage of enhancements to Honeywell’s Digital Video Manager to improve operator efficiency and reduce risks.

34: Dahua Secures LAN Dahua has secured LAN airline in Peru, one of the most important airlines in Latin America.

LAN operates scheduled domestic and international services, controlling over 70 per cent of the domestic market.

sept 15

46: A Milestone in Education Milestone Systems’ open platform IP video management software (VMS) has greatly improved security for the second largest school district in California, which combines 200 facilities and nearly 1200 cameras.

50: Nezzo Ness MEZZO security and automation panel went off like a firecracker at Security 2015. We spent some time with Naz and Elian Circosta to find out more about the development of Security 2015 Expo’s best new product.

62: Vulcans Never Bluff More than any other software company serving the electronic security industry, Genetec has embraced cloud. Genetec’s founder and CEO Pierre Racz sees cloud as a logical progression for all businesses based on economies of scale and the outsourcing of non-core competency.

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72: Installing Net2 Plus Paxton Net2 plus intelligent controllers are said to be the easiest access control solutions to install. With help from local distributor Security Distributors Australia, we decided to put those claims to the test.

regulars

SEPTEMBER 2015 ISSUE 369

ALARM MONITORING:

THE TICKING CLOCK

PP 100001158

l l l l

New Installers Must Embrace Networking l Interview With a Vulcan Dahua Secures LAN Airline l Developing Ness MEZZO controller MCEC CCTV Enhanced by Honeywell DVM l Installing Paxton Net2 Plus Review: Hikvision Darkeye SLA l A New Milestone in Education

14: news Latest business, product and technical news from Australia and around the world.

Editor John Adams

58: monitoring

Advertising Manager Monique Keatinge

Alarm monitoring’s future continues to look nebulous – the only certain thing is that the future will not look anything like the past.

76: editor’s choice What’s new from our manufacturers.

80: helpdesk Our team of electronic security experts answers your tough technical questions.

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)

Publisher Bridge Publishing Aust. Pty Ltd ABN 11 083 704 858 PO Box 237 Darlinghurst NSW 1300 tel 61 2 9280 4425 fax 61 2 9280 4428 email info@bridge publishing.com.au Australia 12 months $A104.50 (incl GST) 24 months $A188.00 (incl GST) Overseas 12 months $A155.00 (incl GST) 24 months $A270.00 (incl GST) WEBSITE www.securityelectronics andnetworks.com.au No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form in whole or part without prior written permission of Bridge Publishing.

Ness Mezzo Available To Trade in Q4 p.16 Ipsotek Signs Exclusive ANZ Distribution With Hills p.18 Frankston Council Moves onto Next Stage of Safe City CCTV p.20 Hikvision Number One in IP Video p.24

news in brief septem b e r 2 0 1 5

CSD Breaks Away Strong ACT Branch

compi l ed b y j ohn adams

Charlie Stokes

Dahua Partners with Security Wholesale in New Zealand

■

Dahua Technology, a world-leading manufacturer and supplier of video surveillance products headquartered in Hangzhou, China, has appointed Security Wholesale as its exclusive distributor in New Zealand.

“Dahua is a world-renowned security solution provider and Security Wholesale has specialized in CCTV for many years has excellent resources and significant market share across New Zealand, so we

have no doubt about the promise of this cooperation,” said Rita Chen, sales manager at Dahua Technology.

Andrew Jones, managing director at Security Wholesale, agrees.

“I believe that the alliance between Dahua and Security Wholesale will strengthen and deepen both companies’ positions in gaining greater market share and offering better support for New Zealand-based customers,” he said.

CSD has broken its successful ACT branch away from NSW and appointed Charlie Stokes as the territory manager.

“Stokes has been with CSD for 5 years and since the opening of the Canberra office at Fyshwick in January this year, has proven that he has the skills and drive to continue making this a very successful business unit,” says CSD’s Mark Edwards.

The ACT branch stocks and supplies a comprehensive range of CSD products and customers are able to view demo products in the showroom.

The branch also has meeting rooms which can be utilised by customers for end user presentations with back-up support from the CSD team.

There’s also a dedicated training area which allows on-line training in Inner Range’s product offering.

VSP Talks Expansion In Victoria, WA n VIDEO Security Products is planning to expand into Victoria and to grow its footprint in WA, according to MD Zaki Wazir, who doesn’t rule out acquisition

Zaki Wazir

14 se&n

in order to turbo charge expansion.

The boutique distribution company, which currently has 4 major projects in its commissioning

room totalling about 500 cameras, is growing on a platform of service and technical nous and Wazir believes it’s the perfect time to bring VSP’s service model to other states.

“We have employed another 3 business development managers since last year,” says Wazir.

“Paul Felton has come across from DAS, Todd Lazare has joined us after working with QSS, DAS and Pacific Communications and Gavin McSherry has joined us from DAS Qld. We also have a dedicated pre and post sales engineering team, including onsite commissioning.

“We have grown turnover at 15-20 per cent year-onyear for the past 4 years,” said Wazir. “We are a small team but we punch above our weight in mid to enterprise-level solutions – those are the clients we attract and those are the sorts of applications that motivate our team.

“We are growing in NSW and Queensland with plans to expand our existing WA operation and to open an office in Victoria. We would seriously consider small, quality acquisitions – it’s something we’d be very keen on.

“With an acquisition you have dedicated staff and

systems in place and an existing client list, and you can grow from there.

We’d love to go down the acquisition path with the right small distribution companies.”

We are a small team but we punch above our weight in mid to enterprise-level solutions – those are the clients we attract and those are the sorts of applications that motivate our team.

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news september 2015

Ness Mezzo Available To Trade in Q4 Elian Circosta

n NESS MEZZO security and automation solution, Security 2015 Expo’s Best New Product winner, should be available to the trade in Q4.

According to Ness’ Elian Circosta, the hardware is ready, and a large team of app writers is finishing the app software.

“Trade price for a full system with 3G is $399 to the trade – it’s $299 without 3G,” says Circosta.

“We envisage a starter kit incorporating PIRs and smart switches but have not finalised that yet. We are also speaking to monitoring stations to ensure MEZZO’s direct 3G or IP communications

16 se&n

paths are catered for.”

According to Circosta, MEZZO will be built in Australia on Ness’ local production line – he says the company has more than enough capacity to take care of the Australian market.

“Frankly, we did not expect the positive response we got at Security 2015 – at that point we had not fully examined our route to market,” Circosta explains.

“We were not certain what the reaction of the average installer would be to MEZZO, given its lateral functionality and automation capability.

But everybody just kept asking when they could have it.”

According to Naz Circosta, the biggest surprise was not the reaction of installers but of integrators.

“The top end of the market, the integrators – people who have been buying our M1 and are installing C-BUS solutions into high end homes – are saying “this is true automation, this is what we want” and that shocked us,” he said. “We thought MEZZO would not appeal to them but it does – it’s cost effective, you could just do automation and nothing more and it would still be

an attractive proposition.”

MEZZO is a smart home controller that combines spread spectrum wireless, Z-wave and IP technologies to handle multiple security and automation, energy management, intercom, CCTV and medical alarms and reporting into one battery-backed wireless control unit.

Expansion is considerable - MEZZO accepts 128 Ness 2-way wireless security devices, 247 Z-Wave devices, 8 vuHoo cameras and a uHoo intercom – the intercom and CCTV components, along with all other functions, are managed separately in MEZZO App via a dedicated WiFi router and a backup 3G path. Spread spectrum gives secure 2-way radio protocol between the hub and wireless security devices.

We were not certain what the reaction of the average installer would be to Mezzo, given its lateral functionality and automation capability. But everybody just kept asking when they could have it

Paradox AU Alarm Panel Sales Grow 35 Per Cent in 2 Months n SINCE the introduction of Paradox AU – Australian defaults in June 2015, Paradox sales have grown more than 35 per cent, according to CSD’s national marketing manager, Mark Edwards.

“Driving the success of the programme is the awesome incentives being offered for completing our Paradox training course,” explains Edwards.

Every CSD branch around Australia is holding 2-3

training sessions per week and has trained over 200 people nationally in 2 months.

“CSD gives customers who complete training a free alpha numeric LCD programming codepad and serial lead, as well as offering a free alarm kit with every kit they purchase.

“So, if you complete the training and buy 5 alarm kits, you receive 5 equivalent alarm kits absolutely free.”

Our focus is making professional video surveillance easy for  everyone

Safe data storage and excellent usability When securing a business, you want to work with a professional surveillance system that doesn’t require special expertise. With the DIVAR IP 2000 EZ storage unit, Bosch offers the ability to create a professional video surveillance solution that is both easy to install and easy to use. The unit is especially designed for 24/7 continuous video recording and is easily viewed and controlled from anywhere, regardless of available bandwidth. So now, you can easily keep an eye on your store from anywhere, any time.

Learn more at www.boschsecurity.com/hdsecurity Security Master License No: 409 400 739

news

Ipsotek Signs Exclusive ANZ Distribution With Hills

september 2015

Robin Stenzel Now Heading Hikvision Team n ROBIN Stenzel has been appointed to the position of business development director – Oceania at Hikvision Australia, with responsibility for managing local operations, including the company’s business development managers and the local sales team.

According to Daniel Huang, Hikvision’s managing director of Oceania, Stenzel will also take on development of Hikvision’s dealer channel program, as part of Hikvision’s global strategy.

“We have done very well up to this point but we want to do better,” Huang said.

“Robin is very technical and experienced on both the security integration and electronic security distribution sides and his insight gives him unique value for Hikvision’s customers. Robin has also worked with Hikvision products and technology for the last 5 years and is very familiar with our solutions.

“We intend to continue to grow and in order to do this, we need to put a very good business strategy in place and Robin will be refining

this to ensure our tactics and actions become more systematic. Along with this key appointment, we are also looking to increase staff in other areas of the local Hikvision business.”

Stenzel comes across as a mature mind on young shoulders and conversations with him veer effortlessly in and out of multiple technologies and lateral applications. He’s had a varied and notably successful career in the private sector heading up security integration and distribution companies simultaneously. Stenzel founded Victorian integrator STE Advantage in 2008, doing major projects in competition with the likes of Schneider and Siemens.

“In one application we took Queen Victoria Market from analogue to IP and added an analytic to the system that learned the environment and output alarms, removing the need for a static control room,” said Stenzel. “We also did major access control and integration work, including a large upgrade of a major Victorian health network,

Robin Stenzel

which incorporated 700 access control doors, CCTV, patient tracking, duress systems and lighting control.”

Further key applications saw STE Advantage working with shopping centres and schools on system management solutions in which one front end is employed to manage multiple sub systems.

According to Stenzel, who sold his business in a staff buyout before moving to Hikvision, the decision to dive into the corporate

world was predicated on a hunger for something more.

“I always like a challenge, I like building things and Hikvision is that thing the excitement and the challenges presented are enormous,” Stenzel explained. “I’ve never been one to just have a job, so I’m very excited. When I weighed the opportunity up, taking on Hikvision seemed logical from a personal and a career perspective and I’m very much looking forward to it.”

$A780,000 IP CCTV Upgrade For Gladstone Watchhouse

n QUEENSLAND Police Service has been allocated $A780,000 to upgrade its analogue CCTV solution at the Gladstone Watchhouse to an IP system.

Gladstone MP Glenn Butcher told the Daily Mercury the expense was a

18 se&n

necessary investment.

“The capital works will include the replacement of analogue cameras with digital cameras, and an upgrade from an analogue DVR recording system to a digital (MPEG) recording system,” Butcher said.

“With a family member serving in the emergency services, I know the risks that can present to our frontline staff,” Butcher told the Daily Mercury.

“Our hard working police officers and staff are entitled to feel safe and

secure in their workplace.”

Butcher said the announcement builds on the Queensland Government’s commitment to boost frontline services, including Queensland Police.

“The Palaszczuk Government is committed to supporting a modern, effective and responsive policing service,” Butcher said.

“In addition to the upgrade announced for Gladstone Watchhouse, the 2015-16 State Budget includes $6 million in funding over the next 3 years to deliver body worn cameras for police.”

The IP CCTV system at Gladstone Watch House will be commissioned by June 30, 2016.

HILLS has signed a new agreement with Ipsotek, a world leading video content analytics company, to be its exclusive Australian and New Zealand distributor.

Shown at the recent Security Exhibition & Conference 2015 in Melbourne, the latest signing is an important move for both parties.

“We are delighted to partner up with Ipsotek as their exciting product suite will complement our range of VMS solutions,” said Mark Shannon, vendor business manager with Hills.

“Video content analysis (VCA) provides a powerful set of capabilities to allow users to maximise their investment not only in video surveillance, but also in business analytics for marketing and other commercial purposes.

“Ipsotek’s VCA adds a dimension to a surveillance system that turns heads and provides a level of intelligence we have only heard about. Well now it is here,” Shannon said.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with Hills in Australia and New Zealand,” said Bill Flind, chief executive of Ipsotek Ltd. “They are the market leaders in the region, and have the experience and commitment to deliver and support our advanced video analytic solutions in all of the key vertical market areas.

“The positive response from end-users at the recent security show was extremely encouraging, and we are already working closely together in several key government and commercial projects.”

news september 2015

Frankston Council Moves onto Next Stage of Safe City CCTV n FRANKSTON City Council is in the process of seeking tenders for the installation of CCTV cameras and associated data collection hardware and software. The tender closed on September 7, 2015.

It’s another stage of a process Frankston City Council has been undertaking for some years, installing security cameras to target hot spots for anti-social behaviour in the bay-side suburb.

There are currently 37 cameras mounted at 18 locations through the Frankston town centre and along the Frankston foreshore with footage streamed back to the Frankston Police Station.

Additional CCTV cameras are mounted on various Frankston City Council

20 se&n

buildings, including the Langwarrin Community Hall which allow for monitoring of activity by authorized Frankston Council employees.

The vision is relayed directly to Frankston Police for either live monitoring in response to officers on the street or review by investigators as part of a criminal enquiry.

The original tender for this earlier part of the system called for wireless communications paths.

Existing camera locations include Frankston Waterfront, Young Street, corners of Wells, Playne and Davey Streets at the intersection of Nepean Highway, the intersection of Davey and Playne Streets and Kananook Creek Boulevard and the Shannon Street Mall. Also

covered are Keys and Thompson Streets with the intersection of Wells Street.

Council’s Community Safety team worked closely with Frankston Police to identify sites for the new cameras, based on the

location of incidents the police have had to attend.

According to Frankston Council, its CCTV program has been “hugely successful in improving residents’ feelings of safety and security as well as assisting Frankston Police

in responding to crime”.

Frankston City Council is currently involved in a State Government funded Project and the new CCTV cameras will focus on monitoring behaviour in Gallery Lane and Stiebal Place.

news

Allegion Q2 Sales Up 13.2 Per Cent in APAC

september 2015

Mackay City Centre CCTV Tender Closes n Mackay Regional Council plans to improve the safety and security of the public in the inner city area of Mackay by installing additional CCTV to integrate with the existing taxi rank cameras and provide improved coverage.

Council has also replaced older closed circuit television surveillance models at taxi waiting areas in Wood and Victoria Sts and added cameras at the intersections of Wood and Victoria and Gregory and Victoria Sts. Mackay District Crime Prevention Unit’s senior constable Steve Smith said police had already used footage to apprehend suspects.

“Our comms centre can see the footage live,” snr const Smith said. “We had a call for wilful damage, comms were able to watch the footage, see what was happening and assist a patrolling vehicle that was in the area to apprehend the person,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mackay Regional Council’s acting director of community and client services, Lawrence Booth, said CCTV cameras in the city centre enhanced the safety of the community.

“If people know they’re

being recorded 24 hours a day, it will hopefully deter them from inappropriate or anti-social behaviour,” he said.

The original system at Mackay city centre was enhanced thanks to a $A150,000 grant funding.

The application was initiated by Queensland Police Service through City Safe Mackay and supported

by Mackay Regional Council’s City Focus Advisory Committee.

Economic Development portfolio councillor, Dave Perkins, said the application was a collaborative effort between

a number of agencies and organisations.

“Over 1200 applications put forward an expression of interest for this funding and Mackay was among only 20 capital projects approved,” he said.

The funding expanded the existing CCTV network and provided additional coverage of hot spots within the city centre.

“The CCTV camera system covers the nightclub precinct in Victoria Street, as well as Wood Street and Gregory Streets,” said senior crime prevention officer, Ron Waters Marsh.

Waters Marsh, who was

David Petratis

integral to the preparation of the application, said the additional cameras would become part of an already established network of crime prevention in the Mackay City Centre to promote and enhance safety.

“With the eyes of extra cameras on people, particularly at night, hopefully we will stamp out any potential troublemakers,” he said.

Council has acknowledged the Mackay Queensland Police Service and Group CCTV for their significant assistance throughout the application period.

Panel Recommends Law Enforcement Research on Internet of Things n RAND Corporation has conducted an expert panel for the U.S. National Institute of Justice to discuss how the criminal justice community can take advantage of and reduce risks from emerging Future World Wide Web technologies of Web 3.0 and Web 4.0.

The top unifying theme from the panel was to leverage web technologies to improve informationsharing and protection across the criminal justice enterprise, and to address challenges that the new technologies raise.

Priorities included general education on key web technologies, and model

22 se&n

policies and procedures for using them. Another theme was to improve networking infrastructure needed to support web technologies.

The panel also discussed leveraging wearable and embedded sensors including cameras as part of the Internet of Things, with an emphasis on using sensors to improve law enforcement health and safety.

Recommendations of the panel included focusing education efforts on semantic technologies that support finding, accessing, and translating key information; sensor systems for monitoring officer health, officer

safety, and maintaining community supervision; video conferencing; and civil rights, privacy rights, and cybersecurity protections.

For intelligent agents that support decision making, such as CCTV systems and other information gathering tools, the panel called for research into ways to ensure the quality of data used to make law enforcement decisions. Another key recommendation was that research be conducted to advise on common attributes for policies, procedures, and required protective technologies for sensors related to the Internet of Things.

Heitel wearable CCTV system.

SECURITY hardware and technology manufacturer Allegion has reported second-quarter net revenues of $US519.5 million and net earnings of $63.9 million, or 66 cents per share from continuing operations, with sales up 13.2 per cent in APAC and 16.4 per cent overall.

Adjusted earnings came in at 71 cents per share, up 16.4 per cent year-overyear. Quarterly revenues of $519.5 million beat the consensus mark of $514.0 million by 1.1 per cent. However, revenues (including currency impact) declined 2.3 per cent year-over-year.

Decline of 17.1 per cent in revenues at the Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) segment overshadowed growth of 0.3 per cent in the Americas segment and 13.2 per cent increase in the Asia Pacific segment.

“Allegion delivered another strong quarter of performance with organic sales growth of nearly 6 per cent and operating margin improvement in all regions,” said David Petratis, Allegion chairman, president and CEO.

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news september 2015

Hills Announces Strategic Partnership with Alarm.com n HILLS and Alarm.com have announced a strategic partnership to bring Alarm. com’s advanced smart home services to Hills’ significant partner base.

Alarm.com’s smart home services with Tyco Security Product’s DSC security

panels were on display at Security Expo 2015 held in Melbourne in July and at SecTech Roadshow in May. Hills Head of Product Practice, Daniel Lee said the Alarm.com offering was the next step in home security and automation.

“Hills is delighted to announce this partnership with Alarm.com and to bring the next frontier of security technology to the market,” Daniel Lee said.

The Alarm.com services platform is deeply integrated with Tyco

Security Product’s DSC alarm panels and gives end users a security and home automation system that adds significant convenience and peace of mind to their lives.

“We’re very excited about our partnership with Hills and the opportunity to deepen the reach for Alarm. com’s leading smart home services in the Australian market,” said Reed Grothe, Alarm.com’s senior vice president for Global Business Development.

“Security and home automation services are driving broad consumer adoption of the smart home and this partnership will help Hill’s dealer network capitalize on the opportunity,” Grothe said.

Alarm.com offers cloud based security and home automation services. From a single mobile app, users can control and manage interactive security, video monitoring and energy management solutions as well as a broad ecosystem of connected devices.

Alarm.com’s services are built around home security and also include home automation devices like lights, locks, and smart thermostats. The user can control and manage devices and appliances in their home from anywhere through a smart phone app, and the home can automatically take action to manage energy more efficiently and reduce waste. The system is also easily customised to suit the needs of any family.

Huge Growth Sees CSD Create Major New Department CSD has announced the formation of a new 15-person Marketing & Product Management Department to be headed by Mark Edwards.

The team will operate out of a new office in Bella Vista in Sydney, allowing the Northmead sales office to further expand with more sales and support personnel.

After nearly 6 years as state manager for NSW & ACT, Edwards will move into this newly created national role with the purpose of streamlining CSD’s marketing initiatives and ensuring the extensive range of products on offer continues to grow to support customer requirements.

“CSD is continuously hiring more staff nationally and currently has many new positions vacant,” said Edwards. “Chief among these is the role of NSW state manager to pick up where I have now left off and continue with the development and growth of CSD in NSW.”

Mark Edwards

Hikvision Number One in IP Video

Cynthia Ho

24 se&n

n HIKVISION is now market leader in terms of the percentage of market share of IP cameras it sells, according to a new IHS report.

Hikvision has 18.9 per cent of the global network security camera market, up 5.9 percentage points over the Hangzhou-based camera manufacturer’s previous numbers of 13 per cent, IHS said.

For the fourth year in a row, Hikvision took the number 1 spot for the global video surveillance market, with a 16.3 per cent of the international CCTV and video surveillance market, according to IHS. Year on year, Hikvision’s revenues are up 50 per cent over last year, more than doubling Hikvision’s overall marketshare of 2 years ago.

The IHS report also indicates the company’s efforts in the overseas market over the years by ranking it as No. 2 in the CCTV and video surveillance equipment category in the EMEA market, achieving a 9.2 per cent market share.

According to Cynthia Ho, Hikvision VP, the strong performance can be attributed to the

company’s continuous R&D innovation and investment.

“We are very pleased to see Hikvision’s rankings in CCTV and video surveillance equipment,” said Ho. “Importantly, we move forward with the rapid developing market trends of IP surveillance which brings us great achievements in IP product segments.”

Avigilon Revenues Grow 38 Per Cent n AVIGILON said its global revenue was $89.8 million, a 38 per cent increase over Q2 2014 revenue of $65.2 million, with 16 per cent growth in Asia Pacific.

The quarterly revenue gains were attributed to increased product sales driven by greater customer adoption in existing markets, further penetration of new target regions and sales of new products.

Year-on-year quarterly

revenue in the United States grew 54 per cent; EMEA, 31 per cent; Latin America, 23 per cent; Asia Pacific, 16 per cent; and revenue in the United Kingdom and Canada declined 4 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively. Gross margin was 58 per cent, up from 55 per cent a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA was $15.4 million, a 68 per cent increase over the same period last year of $9.2 million.

“In the second quarter, Avigilon set a new record for revenue as we executed on our proven growth strategy,” says Alexander Fernandes, Avigilon’s Founder, president, CEO and Chairman of the Board.

“We remain committed to investing in the business to drive ongoing growth and are well on track to achieve our stated goal of $500 million in annual runrate revenue by the end of 2016.”

The quarterly revenue gains were attributed to increased product sales driven by greater customer adoption in existing markets, further penetration of new target regions and sales of new products.

over the next 5-8 years, representing nearly 77 per cent of the total electronic lock market globally in 2015. For electromechanical locks, IHS expects that the residential market in North America will be a driving factor over the next 3-5 years, as more multi-system operators (MSOs) and traditional monitoring providers look to offer electronic locks not only as an ad hoc option

but as part of its existing packages.

T he most growth will be associated with mechatronic types over the next 5 years. Mechatronic locks are often used in remote and harsh locations where battery life can be threatened, so the battery is in the key. In some cases, these devices require no battery at all, only a special key to initiate an authorization.

Alexander Fernandes

Electronic Locks Opening Up n ELECTRONIC locks are one of the fastest growing segments of the access control industry and in 2015 the global market for the devices will exceed $US1 billion, according IHS. The research firm segments electronic locks into 3 categories: mechatronic, electromechanical and digital cylinder.

Electronic locks have evolved significantly since

the 1970s when they were used mostly in hospitality and relied upon holes that were drilled into the cards themselves. New, versatile lock types can be constant online wireless, semi-online wireless, data on card, Wi-Fi or be ZigBee, Z-Wave or Bluetooth or NFC compatible.

Of the 3 product categories, IHS projects that electromechanical locks will see the most uptake

Bomb Lining Protects Aircraft

A BOMB-proof lining developed by an international team of scientists, including academics from the University of Sheffield, has successfully contained blasts in a series of controlled explosions in the luggage hold of a Boeing 747 and an Airbus 321.

The Fly-Bag, which lines an aircraft’s luggage hold with multiple layers of novel fabrics and composites, was tested under increasing explosive charges on disused planes at Cotswolds Airport, near Cirencester.

Using this technology, the tests have demonstrated that a plane’s luggage hold may be able to contain the force of an explosion should a device concealed within a passenger’s luggage be detonated during a flight.

This would mitigate damage to the plane and help keep passengers safe. After the tests, explosives were placed in the aircraft without the lining to show the damage that could be caused.

Disasters such as the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 drove the need for this kind of invention, as well as the incident in which a printer cartridge bomb was found on-board a cargo plane at East Midlands Airport in 2010.

Fundamental to the design of the bag is a combination of fabrics which have high strength and impact and heat resistance. The fabrics include Aramid, which is used in ballistic body armour.

“Key to the concept is that the lining is flexible and this adds to its resilience when containing the explosive force and any fragments produced,” said Dr Andy Tyas, of the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, who is leading the research at the University of Sheffield.

“This helps to ensure that the Fly-Bag acts as a membrane rather than as a rigid-walled container which might shatter on impact.”

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s p e ci al re p o rt

networking

Networking is key For installers facing a welter of proprietary IP products, it can seem the future of the industry is too much to handle. But help is at hand.

26 se&n

E

VEN when you work with network-based products on a daily basis, they can really be a nuisance. The simplicity of the old switched electrical paths is overturned by layers and layers of code – beautiful when they are working well and guaranteed to cause hysteria when they are not.

And of course, with networks, no one is ever to blame.

But there are things installers who are serious about networking can do to ensure they are completely across the areas they need to understand. Best of all, a lot of this expertise is available from manufacturers and distributors in the electronic security industry who are putting in serious time and effort to help customers make the transition to digital complete.

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s p e ci al re p o rt

According to Chris Tangsilsat of Axis Communciations, if you are going to establish yourself as a CCTV installer/integrator there are a number of areas of expertise you should focus on and a number of courses to get under your belt.

“Apart from your standard security licensing specific to each state and cabling certifications, some basic understanding of camera optics along with networking knowledge is definitely essential.” says Tangsilsat.

“Depending on the system size an integrator may not always require a high level of networking knowledge but some basic level of understanding is always essential. As an example, understanding the concept of IP sub-netting and VLANS will mean the difference between a completely exposed or secure system.

“When it comes to courses the Axis Academy, which runs over 3 days, will cover a broad range of topics essential to all IP surveillance installations, not just concentrating on Axis products. These include basic camera installation, basics of optics, image usability, optimizing bit rate, site design considerations and IP networking.”

Lou Mavrelis of Hills says if he was working to establish a new installation or integration business he’d be focusing on providing a service that was noticeably different from what is currently available in the market today.

“Most obviously I would be ensuring that I had the necessary skill set to install and configure networks, but I would also choose the best products that included training and certification services. These

28 se&n

networking

Depending on the system size an integrator may not always require a high level of networking knowledge but some basic level of understanding is always essential.

products would have local representation through distribution and direct vendor employees.

“I’d also look at vendor-certified training programs. These program offerings would ensure I could optimize my experience with the products I sell. It means that I would become an expert in my field and consequently leverage off my vendor certifications to gain new business and grow.

“Specifically, my training would be based on the following available from the vendors: IP networking courses, wired and wireless certifications, network video management system certification, camera manufacturer certification courses and server and storage certification courses.

“I’d also be looking for a point of differentiation in my expertise – for instance, a point of differentiation I would be looking to establish is around real time system monitoring,” says Mavrelis. “This is the ability to view the system health of the CCTV systems that I have deployed so I can offer a service level to my customers that is currently unmeasured.

“I’d also have the option to offer financial packages for my customers that tied in with real time monitoring services to customers for an extended period, ensuring the systems are well maintained during a contracted period.

“At Hills we have a range of courses available through the Hills Training Institute, including – Introduction to CCTV, Introduction to IP, Basic CCTV Concepts right through to system specific courses, including DVTEL and Genetec configuration and operation. And let’s not forget the relevant state security license requirements.

For Neil Morgan of Ness, when establishing yourself as a CCTV installer/integrator, a solid grounding in IP is essential.

“Even when you are not installing IP CCTV, SDI, TVI, etc, all connect to IP, so the installer who isn’t familiar with IP principles is at severe disadvantage,” Morgan says.

“IP is also the point where integration usually takes place, with most of our access control, alarm systems and CCTV having IP interconnectivity.

“A good tech will understand IP and this is the future. Getting the best out of CCTV is not so much about the technology used, whether IP or SDI/TVI/ AHD, as much as having a good setup through correct camera placement and use of camera types to suit. So a

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s p e ci al re p o rt

good grounding in CCTV is still ultimately the most important stage of becoming proficient. Naturally, you’d expect installers to take advantage of the many certificate courses on offer to the security industry.”

According to Steve Malesevic of Bosch, apart from the obvious ones like CCTV general, cabling and security, Network+ certification is required as a minimum. Damien White at CSD agrees.

“I would certainly focus on the network infrastructure side,” he says. “To set up a good network capable of handling the heavy loads generated by CCTV systems is something that needs significant experience. The security aspect is also extremely important. A lot of projects are installed without even the most basic security precautions being taken on the network, such as Persistent MAC learning, or implementation of VLANS.”

A lot of projects are installed without even the most basic security precautions being taken on the network, such as Persistent MAC learning, or implementation of VLANS.

30 se&n

networking

For Andrew Cho at EOS, a quality installer in today’s market needs to undertake basic networking courses, cabling certificates, CCTV courses, courses provided by CCTV manufacturers, including Samsung, and courses provided by network switch manufacturers. Meanwhile, Steve Charles at Sony says knowing and understanding simple IP networks and camera theory is a distinct advantage in the current market and he recommends Sony camera certification programs.

At Seadan, Bruce Maxwell says that to win and be profitable with larger HD video surveillance projects, the most critical area of expertise is IP Networking, for both LAN and WAN/Internet. Also important are PnP and analogue HD technologies which are most suited for small to medium projects.

“Qualifications in and experience with managing Windows and Windows server software are also important and data security expertise is also likely to be valuable to a technician,” he says.

Meanwhile, QSS’ Rob Rosa says there are a number of accredited training centres that offer good security installer programs.

“For a start I would try and differentiate in verticals or specialist areas such as thermal fencing,” he explains. “We have many installers doing intrusion, access and CCTV, however, there are some key areas in the market that not many people are concentrating on.” zzz

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cas e st u dy MELBOURNE Convention and Exhibition Centre

MCEC Enhanced by Honeywell DVM Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre is taking advantage of enhancements to Honeywell’s Digital Video Manager to improve operator efficiency and reduce risks.

B

IG public venues like exhibition centres present challenging security applications and quality CCTV solutions supporting welltrained and dedicated security teams are vital to the secure, safe and efficient operation of Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre.

“Our surveillance system has always been robust, utilising hundreds of cameras throughout both our facilities to promote visitor safety and security,” says Tom Owen, operations manager for Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions, which manages the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in Australia.

“However, the IT infrastructure required large storage capacity and as many as 15 standalone PC servers. We have cut our costs significantly with DVM R600 by using the system’s single-server virtual machine environment, and intelligent redundancy of storage, processing and memory. The new architecture has also helped lower life-cycle and maintenance costs.”

Major updates to DVM R600 include enhanced system access and usability, which are designed to improve operator efficiency and reaction time.

MCEC security personnel now can access high-

definition, full-frame-rate video on a mobile device, for example, enabling continuous monitoring from almost any location. MCEC operators can also control DVM using voice commands to more easily manage multiple video feeds and request near-realtime system updates.

“Every second is important to an organisation when an incident occurs and security staff must take immediate action if there is a threat,” said John Rajchert, president of Honeywell Building Solutions.

“The latest update to DVM helps operators quickly identify and react to an issue to help mitigate the impact to safety and business continuity — no matter if they are in front of a central workstation or on the opposite side of a campus, connected with a smartphone.”

DVM R600 allows customers to deploy and intelligently group multiple back-up servers to boost system robustness, which helps protect surveillance systems from failures.

Other features include speeding data collection — security operators can export footage from multiple camera feeds in unison to streamline incident response and workflow, and quickly collect and archive forensic data in the event of an incident. There are also now reduced storage requirements. Dynamic recording enables the system to capture critical video under higher frame rates, while collecting less important footage at lower frame rates, slashing storage requirements and costs by up to 40 per cent. zzz

Our surveillance system has always been robust, utilising hundreds of cameras…

However, the IT infrastructure required large storage capacity and as many as 15 standalone PC servers.

32 se&n

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cas e st u dy LAN airline

Dahua Secures LAN Dahua has secured LAN airline in Peru, one of the most important airlines in Latin America. LAN operates scheduled domestic and international services, controlling over 70 per cent of the domestic market.

L

AN’S main base and maintenance center are located in Jorge Chávez International Airport, Lima, which is a significant transfer hub for South America. The LAN airline employs its Dahua surveillance system to protect its office and airplane maintenance centre, where it plays a vital role in air safety.

The nature of the application was a surveillance solution that covered LAN’s entire centre, to ensure 100 per cent regular management and operation. However, since it is located inside Jorge Chávez International Airport, there are additional challenges, as cabling and wireless antennas are not allowed because they may generate electronic jamming.

To resolve the issues, the Dahua team suggested using a hybrid solution — a combination of AP (access points) and wire transmission — to wirelessly transmit the camera data to interconnected sub-centers, and then cable-transmit to the control room.

The AP mode wireless video transmission system includes access points, feeders, PoE, antennas and power cables, allowing a 3-5km long-distance fast transmission with a wide angle giving expanded

34 se&n

coverage. The system supports hundreds of Dahua fixed network cameras and speed domes, ranging from the basic lineup to the Eco-Savvy series, with versatile shapes such as domes and box cameras according to the surroundings.

The Dahua Eco-Savvy camera series is able to provide high-quality images with much lower power consumption — saving up to 50 per cent of energy compared with similar products. The Dahua 6C-series speed dome cameras also provides quality images but uses less power.

When it comes to storage, more than fifteen 16-channel PoE NVRs are installed, each with 384Mbps incoming bandwidth to render smooth HD real-time preview and recording. PoE function simplifies installation and reduces signal interference. The NVR accommodates up to 16TB with 4 SATAs supported, ensuring large volume 7/24 storage.

“We have many bidders and the final reason that drives us to cooperate with Dahua is their outstanding product quality and service,” said Luis A. Gómez Cornejo, supervisor of electronic security at LAN Perú. “We can see their professionalism in video surveillance. The implementation was great, they deployed the system within a short time and the products give us very good performance.”

“We feel super honored to be involved in this solution,” said William Zhou, sales director for Latin Americas at Dahua Technology. “In recent years, we are going vertical, rather than providing simple and individual products. This project deepened our insight and practical experience in airport projects.” zzz

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p ro d u ct rev i ew

Darkey e sla

Dark Matter We tested Hikvision Darkfighter in SEN a while back but post-SecTech Roadshow, I jumped at the chance to re-test the camera with Hikvision’s new Darkeye SLA lens.

36 se&n

W

HEN you’re a lens junkie, a piece of glass like Hikvision’s Darkeye represents something mysterious and wonderful. At once it’s a lens capable of snaring the best possible performance from the camera wearing it and the answer to a prayer that lens quality will stop its slide to the abyssal plains of low cost.

When it comes to lenses, you get what you pay for. In the case of Darkeye, you pay for what you get – it’s $A810 list, so this is an application-specific lens.

Perhaps I should confess to a conflict of interest at this point. I own about 20 manual lenses – primes and zooms – and am enslaved to the metallic syrup of manual zoom and focus. This passion makes it difficult to be objective about Darkeye, which looks like the love child of Sigma’s warm 17-50 Ex HSM DX zoom and Nikon’s slightly soft but

By john adam s

gloriously colourful 25-50 AI-S reporter.

In the engine room for this test is Hikvision’s Darkfighter DS-2CD6020FHWD(-A), Distributed locally by Central Security Distribution and Ingram Micro, Darkfighter has a 2MP ½-inch progressive scan CMOS sensor and dishes up 60fps, 120dB of WDR, and 3D DNR digital noise reduction along with other cool stuff. This includes Hikvision’s SMART technologies, which include face detection, intrusion detection, line-crossing detection and object counting, on-board ANPR analytics, Smart Defog and EIS (electronic image stabilization).

Last test we rotated Hikvision’s 3.8-16mm F1.5 – an 8MP IR-corrected 1/1.8-inch (9.2mm) lens – with Hikvision’s 1140mm @F1.5 1/1.8-inch 8MP IR-corrected lens. Both were nice lenses, the 11-40 was the better performer optically in my opinion but comparing wide angles to longer focal lengths is nigh on impossible. While these 2 lenses were nice in their own right, the f/0.95 Darkeye is a beast of another stripe.

DarkEye SLA (for super large aperture) features IR correction and up to 6MP resolution. But the big deal is that gaping aperture – it’s a consistent f/0.95 across Darkeye’s massive 7-33mm focal range. What this means is that Darkeye gives its best low light performance at any zoom setting. Usually, when you zoom you lose aperture as focal length increases. The lens slows down and as aperture closes, shutter speed must be adjusted and blur increases, or ISO must be elevated and noise increases. Constant aperture is a feature of the best professional zoom lenses but it’s an unusual feature in CCTV. Of course, super fast lenses have their foibles – they have shallower depths of field and can be more vulnerable to strong backlight and CAs than their more pedestrian stable mates. DoF and WDR performance are 2 qualities I’m particularly interested to see with Darkfighter wearing Darkeye. Given the immutability of the laws of physics, it will be interesting to see if this combination has what it takes for real world applications.

In the hand, Darkeye is a lovely lump. Dimensions are 110mm long, with a 65mm diameter at the lens and a 54mm diameter at the mount. Weight is 476 grams, which is not surprising. The chassis of the barrel seems to be metal, the rear mount is all metal, everything else is heavy poly, including the zoom and focus grips. Examining the build under a loupe, it even looks like the screws in the barrel are weather sealed. The zoom function is internal and seems to be a spiral mechanism, the internals feel like high quality poly but that’s a guess based on touch.

Coatings are difficult to call – there must be coatings on a lens this fast but there’s no reflection off the front element.

The application of coatings is apparent by the wavelengths of light they reflect – usually green or red with Magnesium Fluoride coatings targeting the centre of the visible spectrum. It’s possible Darkeye is multi-coated against wavelengths in addition to 550nm. In such cases, the front element tends to gray or black but I’m not sure looking at Darkeye. The element looks almost photochromatic. A bench test is likely to tell us more because a lens this fast with no coatings will show rampant flare.

Our test bed is SEN’s dedicated Dell 9020 i7 workstation

Norman at 7m, WDR on

Norman at 12m

Norman at 18m

Norman at 22m

se&n 37

p ro d u ct rev i ew

Darkey e sla

...the big deal is that gaping aperture – it’s a consistent f/0.95 across the Darkeye’s massive 7-33mm focal length. What this means is that Darkeye gives its best low light performance at any zoom setting.

Without WDR – 75,000 lux outside

WDR on

Great performance in the doorway

Tight views of the lane in full sun

38 se&n

and in this case we are running Hikvision’s iVMS-4200 software. You drill into camera configuration through device management in the control panel and once you’re inside, are presented with as complete a group of functions as you could hope for. I undertake the test in a few stages – the first is all about low light so I leave WDR off. The following day I head outside into full sun with WDR on.

Setting up, I leave day/night on auto and elevate contrast and sharpness to 60 per cent and leave saturation and brightness at 50 per cent. I try elevating brightness but don’t like the intensity of the colour, even at 55 per cent.

Default is good. I note the camera’s gain slider is locked at 100 per cent. White balance is set to AWB2 and I leave it there. Iris is on auto, exposure time is at 1/25 (40000us), digital noise reduction is in normal mode and the slider is at 50 per cent. Bitrate is fixed at 4Mbps and backlight, defog and electronic image stabilisation are all off.

Tweaking focal length and focus, I notice there’s a little latency between real time actions and the screen – this must be a feature of the camera as SEN’s dedicated Dell setup is doing no other work. There’s nothing challenging about this once you’ve adjusted for it, though I notice the latency with live video as well that’s slightly more than I usually see.

I begin my test in the late afternoon with WDR off. I don’t want the processor doing any unrelated work and application of WDR can cause smoothing and swim in an image, making it look overwrought. I take a reference shot of the heavily textured district view out the back. As you’d expect, with WDR off and 75,000 lux of direct sunlight, colours are muted and there are signs of over-exposure but it’s a very true image, despite this.

But my interest is in the lane and as the sun starts to soften around 4pm, I tip Darkfighter’s snout downwards and to the right. Something to note upfront is the angle of view. I’m at the widest setting of 7mm, which proves to be very useful for street scenes like this. It’s seldom, in my opinion, that a user actually requires the monstrous wide angle views offered by many low cost camera lenses.

Installed in default at the widest setting these simply present users with considerable barrel distortion, lashings of CA and a detail robbing pixel spread.

At 7mm with WDR off and around 5000 lux at the lens, Darkfighter is very happy. I have images from my original test on-hand to compare and differences in field of view notwithstanding, there are definite improvements in

p ro d u ct rev i ew

colour rendition. Darkeye is a warm lens on Darkfighter.

There’s a complete absence of notable barrel distortion and there’s no chromatic aberration in this scene. Detail and texture are very good thanks to the sharpness of the lens.

Even taking into account the longer focal length of this lens, the image seems more 3-dimensional to my eye. I was expecting to be able to ascertain depth of field by eye – to see the sweet spot on-screen but I can’t. I am not at infinity – I dialled in a focal point of about 15m for this test - and there is a more distinct point at which the texture in the scene goes out of focus in the distance. This relates to the fast aperture and the focal length of the lens, in my opinion.

I’m looking out for motion blur and am immediately impressed by the lack but most of all I notice the level of detail. It’s the golden hour in Sydney and as we’ve observed before, as light levels drop, detail increases with IP CCTV cameras. That’s definitely the case here. Darkfighter with Darkeye is giving me the most detailed 1080p camera view of the lane I’ve ever had. Since testing DVTel’s 4K Quasar I’ve been hungry for resolution and this camera and lens combination is impressing me. It’s not 4K, but it’s not typical 1080p HD, either.

As I’m watching, a couple of people come down the lane about 12m from the lens and I snatch a shot. Looking at it later they are clearly identifiable – blur factor, zero. At about 430pm a tall, yellow ghost stands up in the lens – the setting sun at an acute angle to the lens is the culprit and when the sun disappears at 5.03, the ghost leaves with it. At 530, colours are muted but the light levels on the monitor are starting to lose all relationship with observable light. The monitor still looks bright.

A car comes down the lane and then a person walking and again I note the lack of motion blur and license plate and face recognition. From 530pm onwards, Darkfighter and Darkeye start to mambo – it’s first noticeable in light coming from a small internal lamp in a room at about 15m from the lens that I cannot discern with the naked eye.

At 5.43 I measure 10 lux at the lens but this low number bears no resemblance to what the camera is bringing to the monitor. Texture has softened but is not lost – this is a high contrast scene. Darkeye’s quality is coming to the fore.

There’s detail in this scene I’ve never seen before.

At 5.54pm we have 4 lux at the lens but apparent light levels are much higher on the monitor. To my eye it’s now dark outside, with some light in the sky but it’s loom, not the blue I see on the monitor. There’s no noticeable swim

Darkey e sla

Norman at 7m – it’s 4-7 lux on the street

Norman at 12m

Norman at 18m

Just after 6pm my Sekonic stops measuring light at the lens but Darkfighter and Darkeye care not a wit. There’s some yellow shift in the image under low pressure sodium but nothing more.

Norman at about 21m in shadow

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WDR off, day into night

Light appears in opposite window

10 lux at the lens

Darkey e sla

in this image – that’s the benefit of keeping WDR off, in my opinion. Just for the sake of it, I adjust the field of view to include the streetlight in the lane for a second and oops!

There’s the benefit of keeping WDR on! I get considerable darkening of the rest of the scene along with a loss of detail, though things stay consistent and useable.

Just after 6pm my Sekonic stops measuring light at the lens but Darkfighter and Darkeye care not a wit. There’s some yellow shift in the image under low pressure sodium but nothing more. There’s loads of detail and texture in the scene, very little noise – it’s as if Darkeye’s monstrous eye socket has unloaded Darkfighter from the task of amplifying the signal, ISO noise and digital smoothing are not to be found in the scene, though I do note blooming around the streetlight.

I could be rid of this by turning on WDR but in the interests of keeping the image as true as possible, I resist the temptation. For typical applications with lights, including headlights, in the scene you might keep WDR on – but Darkfighter performs extremely well set up in this way. My instinct through this dark part of the test is that I cannot reduce light levels enough to make a proper go of it.

This camera is better than the results I obtain here – and in this application it’s the best unsupported low light camera we’ve ever tested.

Next, I go out the front of the office but on the way take a single shot with Norman in the scene and 2 monitor screens lighting the office. To my eye it was dark at the end of the office where Norman is located but Darkfighter and Darkeye combine to give face recognition, complete colour rendition, license plate, and delineation of bars on the test chart. Only the A line is beginning to blur, which at 10m and sub 2 lux at the lens and Norman’s face, is excellent performance.

Out the front of the office light levels are between 7 and 4 lux, depending how far I am from the overhead street lights. This is the best image I’ve had out here at 1080p.

There’s bags of detail and the scene is very true, though I’m getting blooming around a verandah light over the road with WDR off. By happy chance, a car pulls up and a person hops out and runs off up the street, giving the chance to check blur – it’s extremely low. The person turns at about 22 m from the lens and while I don’t get facial ID, you could confirm the identity of a known person at this range.

At 7m, Norman is very well rendered and he still looks good at 12m, though I’m getting to the edge of the focal point. Face recognition is effortless at 12m at a 7mm focal length. Important, I’m not getting too much flare off his face

...Darkfighter and Darkeye with its scorchingly fast f0.95 constant aperture, are really walking the walk. I take a shot of Norman in the doorway backed with full sun and it’s an excellent image.

No lux reading at lens

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with WDR off – that was a concern of mine. But as soon as I move Norman into the zone of the Yaffa building’s floodlight, there’s a little blooming from light reflecting off his face that I’d prefer not to have.

At 22m I put Norman behind a pole shadow in 5 lux. I’m not getting face ID but am getting confirmation of known ID – hair, eye shape, eyebrow ridges, colour rendition is muted now but contrast of bars on the target is distinct from the C line and there’s no problem with license plates whatever.

Digital zoom is enhanced with Darkeye lens – you still lose resolution as soon as you roll the mouse wheel same as any 1080p camera but the MTF of this lens is so strong that detail can be considerably enhanced without becoming indistinct.

In a vain quest to challenge Darkfighter and Darkeye, I move Norman over the road – the range is probably 12m or so – but no trouble at all. Readers will rightly suggest that 4-7 lux is not so challenging for a good day/night camera.

That’s partly but not entirely true. Light at this level challenges cameras and while many fail to handle it well, all handle it differently. Darkfighter is managing extremely well. With WDR off, I’m getting some mild bloom around lights and headlights, no motion blur and extremely good colour rendition everywhere. This is a good camera and Darkeye takes it to another level.

Next day I run a test with WDR on. Before I go out the back I take a shot of Norman at the long end of the focal length – 33mm – to try isolating him from the background with a very shallow depth of field. The lens is at about 3m from the subject and yes, Darkeye is a bokeh machine!

44 se&n

Darkey e sla

I also note no blooming around the lights with WDR activated and no chromatic aberration either.

When I activate WDR I immediately see how good it is and why it was I preferred to do my night shots without it.

WDR puts work on the image and this digital translation changes colour rendition – it’s the same with every camera.

However, against very strong backlight like the 75,000 lux exploding around Norman’s head, Darkfighter and Darkeye with its scorchingly fast f0.95 constant aperture, are really walking the walk. I take a shot of Norman in the doorway backed with full sun and it’s an excellent image.

I quickly find that pointing this lens at a scene including the sun does not give best colour performance but when targeting the lane, colour is great – a little warm, but there’s excellent detail deep into the scene that contrives to give a spatial sense to my images. Colours are not as true as they are with WDR off but the camera is now able to handle extremes of backlight in a range of applications. Again I notice the lack of motion blur, which is an important strength of any ID camera.

We already knew Darkfighter was a great camera. The addition of Darkeye really does make a difference – it makes Darkfighter the best unassisted low light camera we’ve tested so far. Something Darkeye also does is highlight the fact that quality lenses work. They increase sharpness, improve colour rendition and in the case of this very fast lens, they take low light performance to another level. If you need low light performance above everything else, the combination of Hikvision Darkeye and Darkfighter is a winner. zzz

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A Milestone in Education Milestone Systems’ open platform IP video management software (VMS) has greatly improved security for the second largest school district in California, which combines 200 facilities and nearly 1200 cameras.

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AN Diego Unified School District’s previous video surveillance solution presented a number of problems. It required 2 management servers in which most settings had to be replicated, which was awkward and cumbersome. Programming cameras required navigating 2 operating systems. Training administrators and end users on the old technology

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also took a lot of time, as did making district-wide updates.

Being an organization with more than 200 facilities, San Diego Unified School District sought a video surveillance technology solution that could be centrally administered, and support HD quality images to more effectively manage behavior and prevent vandalism. It had to be expandable in the future and accommodate additions such as the access control technology the district hopes to deploy within 1 or 2 years.

Installation/design partners Proshop Group and Dotworkz, designed and implemented the network security solution, choosing Milestone XProtect VMS. Its open platform allows the schools to manage 1169 video cameras from a mix of manufacturers: Axis, Bosch, IQinVision, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony. The installation runs on IBM and Dell servers.

Dotworkz president Will Ferris believes Milestone’s open platform provides the greatest value for what is most important to San Diego Unified School District. This includes scalability, incorporating new functionality and enhancing the level of safety and security for parents, students and teachers.

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Mike Cho

Will Ferris

“We helped the district in its quest for better camera and processing technology,” says Ferris. “We served as a guide, showing them the advantages of Milestone’s open platform and advised them to complete the training required to become certified in the technology. We also built the housings for their external cameras.”

The cameras are installed at points where breakins commonly occur and in areas where students gather that are the most problematic.

Positive outcomes “This system makes each campus safer for students and staff,” said Mike Cho, safety and security coordinator, San Diego Unified School District. “We now have the level of visual communication we need to resolve most problems before they arise.”

As an organization that depends on voters’ support for bond funding, the investment in Milestone technology was made with an eye toward cost effectiveness. The Milestone video platform has paid off by dramatically reducing the amount of time required to administer the system and to train users and by reducing the vandalism that demands costly repairs.

Further savings are achieved by reducing the number of staff members needed to physically monitor so many areas. According to district administrators, the system has improved conduct across the board by providing high-definition (HD) images that make identifying and charging perpetrators a much less arduous process than it was before.

“Since they’ve noticed that they’re being monitored, the students’ behavior has improved,” says Cho. “They know that every action occurring in the common areas is being recorded.”

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At the school that once had the worst graffiti problem, tagging has been reduced by 80 per cent since the new systems went live, which has also lessened the amount of time district painters spend at the school covering the graffiti. The chances of a rival gang coming to mark the territory as its own have been lowered, as has the violence that often occurs when encountering each other at a graffiti site.

From a security perspective, the problem with such a large district is that it is not unusual for a fight to break out while the school’s dedicated police officer is responding to a different incident in another area. With cameras and the Milestone platform at work, the officer can use the video to determine how many back-up officers are needed at which spots. Students don’t always tell the full story after an incident.

“Nobody wants to be known as a snitch,” Cho says.

“Now nobody has to be because the video shows all, and the HD video really helps us identify people.”

In one case, a student punched another student in the face a number of times. Each witness interviewed by administrators after the incident had slightly different recollections, but the video provided the evidence needed to charge the perpetrator in court.

Cho reports that the system manager loves the Milestone system because it can be more easily and quickly managed. Under the previous system, programming 1 camera required navigating 2 separate operating systems. Milestone cuts that time in half.

“Plus, I can view it remotely with my iPad,” says Cho. ”With the previous system there was enough time to go get coffee between starting it and being able to log on. With Milestone, you just click and you’re on. It’s beautiful.” zzz

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Ness MEZZO

Nezzo Ness MEZZO security and automation panel went off like a firecracker at Security 2015. We spent some time with Naz and Elian Circosta to find out more about the development of Security 2015 Expo’s best new product.

50 se&n

By john adam s

N

ESS is one of the Australian electronic security industry’s pioneers and it’s very satisfying that the company which brought us the first modern microprocessor alarm panel, the Ness 5000, has now developed MEZZO, the first alarm and automation controller of the app-based IP generation.

That temporal satisfaction has layers. Naz Circosta was instrumental in developing the 5000 panel and his son Elian was instrumental in the development of MEZZO. Talking to the boys I get a strong sense that they represent the best technical qualities of their respective generations. In multiple ways, MEZZO is a compromise between 2 technologically uncompromising personalities and this dichotomy defines MEZZO and makes it wider and deeper than many of its competitors.

From the old school, MEZZO brings a local controller with local smarts and complete redundancy in power and comms, while from the younger generation, MEZZO brings lateral expansion in any direction thanks to device agnosticism and accessibility from smart devices.

Where’s the compromise between traditional and the new generation? It’s that while MEZZO is cloudcompatible, it’s not a construct of the cloud. This is a living, breathing control panel with layers of internal redundancy, an onboard Wi-Fi router allowing WiFi communication with local smart devices and local networks, spread spectrum comms for local security devices, and Z-wave for automatic devices, with everything supported by 3G. You expect a privately-owned company like Ness, one of the last manufacturers to still build electronic security product in Australia, to tend towards overengineering its solutions. That’s exactly what Ness has done here. MEZZO has had a long development timeline and the team has polished and shaped ideas like technological lapidaries, adding delicate touches that make a fine product, great.

Sitting in Naz’s office at Seven Hills listening to the boys talking about their system, it’s hard not to be drawn in. Sure, this is a local solution but the story of MEZZO is also the story of Ness. The engineering team has incorporated the lessons of decades of alarm manufacture into design and build. And there’s a hard edge to the story. Cradling this sweet technology is the anvil of a fast-changing market. For Ness, MEZZO is blood and bone.

Conception and development “MEZZO was conceived by Elian – he wanted to change direction a long time ago and he’ll say he spent a couple of years trying to convince the rest of us,” laughs Naz. “By the time we started the project 4 years ago we were undecided about our channels to market but we know a lot about the US and have friends there and consider it a good indicator of the future.

Some providers realised automation was the way of the future – an alarm with Z-wave and interactive control, including remote arming and disarming and controlling a number of Z-wave switches “We could see there were trends in the US – automation was becoming the next big thing 5 years ago – the 2GIG panel is the best example. Another highly successful company has been Alarm.com and we’ve known them for about 10 years. And as PSTN began disappearing and communications moved to GPRS, another trend was emerging.”

According to Naz, RMR in the U.S. had fallen under $US20 per month, sometimes under $US10. This was a big deal – there had to be a way to bolster turnover, to increase value in the business model.

“Some providers realised automation was the way of the future – an alarm with Z-wave and interactive control, including remote arming and disarming and control of a number of Z-wave switches,” says Naz. “This got RMR back up towards $US60 per month and for this reason I say automation was the saviour of the security industry.”

“Watching what was happening in the U.S. we felt we could not rely on the old ways,” he says.

“After the GFC hit it felt like you could not give away control panels. Some companies would sell a control panel, 2 detectors, a keypad, siren, battery for about $100. That’s a no-win situation and it added fuel to

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Ness MEZZO

This was a ground-up build, we employed all our own electronics and poured all our accumulated expertise into MEZZO. Elian’s idea of developing an app-driven product – something that had wider appeal to the local and overseas markets into which we sell our products.”

According to Naz, during the process the team took what would become MEZZO to the US and were told that a hub-style solution was what clients were asking for.

“That surprised us,” says Naz. “The U.S. companies were interested in the product and said there was nothing like it – nothing that was strong on the security side. We realised we had an advantage we are experts in security, we know controllers, we have all our peripheral devices and we have design, engineering and manufacturing facilities of our own.”

MEZZO is Elian’s baby and I get a sense of how invested he is in the product when during our demo something doesn’t go perfectly right – he just can’t let go of it.

“This was a ground-up build, we employed all our own electronics and poured all our accumulated expertise into MEZZO,” Elian explains, turning a bright red controller over in his hands. “We started with ideas about the controller – we had a vision of what it needed to do – to handle alarms, CCTV, and multiple communications paths. We wanted MEZZO to work locally and we wanted to incorporate a Wi-

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Fi router so users could use a smart phone or tablet app even if there’s no internet in the home or the connection is down.

“Of course, we took this one step further,” he says with a wry grin. “The 3G communicator is there so that when the controller detects the loss of a network connection it will take over and handle management instructions and communication.

And that 3G doesn’t just support management and communication of alarm events, it supports CCTV, intercom and medi-alarms as well.”

Cloud is a key element of most security and home automation systems but the Ness team has worked hard to ensure MEZZO is not cloud-dependant.

“We allow a connection to the cloud as a passthrough but the intelligence of MEZZO is not in the cloud, which liberates the system from network contention and failure,” Elian says. “There are no cloud-based actions, cloud is used only as a backup for storing optional CCTV images. This means that cloud provides function but we are not reliant on it for intelligence or communication.

“We made MEZZO a full security system partly because it can be an issue with alarm messages being passed through the cloud – some monitoring stations don’t like receiving WAN-based communications and insist alarm signals come direct from the alarmed premises to the central station,” he explains.

There can also be an issue with getting the capabilities you want.

“A lot of manufacturers have built a product and then gone into partnership with a third party provider so they need to use their app, their server and as a hardware manufacturer, they are limited to what they can provide their customers. We decided to go ground-up on everything – including our app.

“We have 18 app inhouse designers working on our app who’ve been working full time for 18 months – in fact, more resources have gone into the app than the hardware.”

According to Elian, something the Ness team realised during development of the product was that the Americans had become so reliant on cloud that perhaps the direction they’d taken wasn’t quite right for every application.

“Most the products in this space rely on the cloud for smarts and everything you do in terms of management and control with smart phones or a smart watch has to go through the cloud and this can cause latency,” says Elian. “With MEZZO all the smarts are onboard and you communicate with the controller directly via Wi-Fi – that means local operations are instantaneous.

“A lot of the cloud-based alarm systems are actually not very smart at all – they are doorways to the cloud – that’s all they do. From a technical perspective, cloud is a less expensive way to offer remote management and control – it means a company may not need to develop a controller, or it does not need a controller as capable as otherwise

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might be required. Cloud services have evolved to a point they give you this management and control but they have limitations.”

Naz agrees.

“Yes, that’s a big difference with MEZZO,” he says.

“While it leverages cloud functionality, MEZZO is not cloud-based. With other solutions if you want to activate a light, it has to go to the cloud and be actioned there and an instruction comes back. The delays are variable and in no case are they instant.

Sometimes if there are network issues, the delays are lengthy and that’s an issue if you are trying to control garage doors, door locks or lights in real time.”

Features of MEZZO At its core, MEZZO is a smart home controller that combines spread spectrum wireless, Z-wave and IP technologies to handle multiple security and automation, energy management, intercom, CCTV and medical alarms with redundant reporting into one battery-backed wireless control unit.

Expansion is considerable - MEZZO accepts 128 Ness 2-way wireless security devices, 247 Z-Wave devices from any Z-Wave manufacturer, as well as 8 Ness vuHoo cameras and one Ness uHoo video door intercom. The system is managed by MEZZO App via a dedicated WiFi router with a backup 3G path. Meanwhile, spread spectrum gives a secure 2-way radio protocol between the MEZZO hub and wireless security devices.

Unlike some other solutions, there’s no web browser in MEZZO. Instead, the app does everything and communicates directly with the controller via local Wi-Fi. “We spent all our money on the app,” says Elian.

“In my opinion, using an Internet browser is last

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Ness MEZZO

MEZZO App

generation. If you are out of the house or overseas you always have your phone with you and need an interface that works well with a mobile device.”

Looking at everything that’s been wedged into this solution I can’t help wondering, how did the design process start? Did you start with one of your own controllers?

“We used a lot of things – some pieces of technology and components we had developed for other products, some things we had to start from scratch,” says Naz. “We used our own proprietary security protocol for wireless and there were other things from Security Guard, which we still manufacture and sell. That product has 3G, remote control and an app, so we used some elements of that, as well as conceptual things we’d learned from that product.”

In terms of fitting all this tech in such a small case, were there difficulties with that?

“One of the key challenges is the fact there are so many radios in one box, all interfering with each other,” Elian says, opening the housing and pointing the internal antennas out to me. “Wi-Fi, Z-Wave, 2-way spread spectrum and 3G cellular – there are 4 radios in close proximity so there are harmonics.

Most use a similar wavelength up around 900Mhz,

MEZZO is tough to categorise and not simply because it incorporates Z-Wave so you can hang any automation device you like off it.

Wherever you look, Ness has done cool things with MEZZO.

so there were issues with antennas.”

Naz says the team took a no comprises approach.

“We created and tuned our own Wi-Fi antenna.

We gave MEZZO twin piezo sirens of 118 dB in tuned cavities – the siren is important still. There’s a good quality speaker and an amplifier in order to give high quality voice communication via the controller’s own instruction set, as well as for 2-way communication with door intercoms. There are no compromises anywhere.”

And there are loads of neat touches. MEZZO has an accelerometer as an internal tamper and there’s a courtesy light that activates when you walk by at night.

Manufacturing cameras When you think Ness you don’t think of camera manufacturing but that was before MEZZO. It all began with a search for Wi-Fi video door intercoms.

“We thought there would be loads of Wi-Fi intercoms on the market but there are not and that meant we had to design and build our own, which we call uHoo,” says Naz. “This was an aberration - we were building a controller and planned to use any Z-Wave peripherals, as well our own high quality security sensors - why reinvent the wheel?

“The trouble was that when we talked about a WiFi video door intercom everyone loved the idea but when we went looking for a product to fit the system, we simply could not find one. In the end we had to build uHoo to meet market expectations.” uHoo is a standalone product but it also gives MEZZO video intercom capabilities and it’s totally wireless. If someone rings the intercom bell, the app’s intercom function comes up on their smart phone or tablet. uHoo is clever and has a built in PIR - when someone approaches it will take two 720p colour snapshots, regardless of whether or not there’s a button press. Same as the rest of this solution, the layers of redundancy encompass uHoo which gives you intercom events over 3G if the network is down.

And of course, a video intercom led to something more.

“Building uhoo, we decided to build our own camera as well,” laughs Naz. “All the IP cameras we looked at were either junk or very expensive and none were battery backed. Given we could not find what we wanted, it occurred to us we had done 90 per cent of the work when building the uHoo video intercom, so went ahead and built our own camera.”

Ness vuHoo is a motorised PT Wi-Fi camera with a 130-degree field of view. It’s 1080p, battery-backed, has 5m IR - ideal for rooms and foyers – and there’s 2-way voice and a thermostat. Typically cool, you can incorporate vuHoo into MEZZO to handle rulebased automation via the app. For instance, if the temperature at a device reaches 26 degrees C, turn on air conditioning. There are other neat functions, too.

“We also have vuHoo’s base glowing in different

colours, so if a child’s room is too hot you can see it glowing softly red from a distance and if it’s too cold the base glows blue - it’s ideal for parents looking into kids’ rooms,” says Elian.

Lateral capabilities MEZZO is tough to categorise and not simply because it incorporates Z-Wave so you can hang any automation device you like off it. Wherever you look, Ness has done cool things with MEZZO. I’m in the middle of digesting the video intercom and CCTV camera – both of which have lovely build quality – when the boys whack me in the face with something new. It’s almost too much to take in.

“You look at a home from your own point of view as a consumer and see all the things you really want and then translate that to others,” Naz explains.

“What do real people buy a camera for? Where will they place it and what integrated functions will be of value to them? Why do they want an intercom, how will they apply it, will they connect it with this piece of automation, this piece of control? If you can incorporate all these possibilities into one controller, that’s ideal.”

While I’m getting my head around this, Elian reveals with a half-smile that another capability of the system is energy management. By this time his Samsung is out again and we are waist-deep in the app.

“You monitor the energy use in your house using the information real-time energy graphs in MEZZO’s app,” he says. “MEZZO can pinpoint the times appliances are consuming the most energy, giving customers the power to manage their energy usage by taking advantage of off-peak energy prices and automatically turning off appliances that are not in use.”

To do a proper job of this requires that appliances be plugged into AC power via a Z-Wave switch – these cost from $A50-100 and are either plugged

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into the power point ahead of a power cord or can be hardwired into switch circuits. It sounds expensive and complex but compared to proprietary automation solutions it’s laughably affordable.

Something else that’s nice is that doing a proper job of Z-Wave is not DIY – you need an electrician - so if there’s a qualified sparkie in your alarm installation team you can give customers serious automation for a song.

“There’s also a full medi-alarm built in,” says Naz. “It works quite separately to the security alarm. We have a major share of the Australian and NZ markets in medi-alarm devices so we’ve got the technology and capability to give MEZZO a professional level medi-alarm that can include wireless pendants and which announces an alarm locally and informs multiple contacts there’s been a medical emergency.”

MEZZO’s medical monitoring capabilities include inactivity surveillance, pill reminders and onebutton emergency call. MEZZO also tightly integrates with Smartlink Nurse Call and Aged care personal safety products for the medical, security and aged care industries. All this is gold for installers looking for genuine sales hooks based on real community needs. It goes without saying that getting all this into a $A399 3G Wi-Fi controller is very fine work.

Driving MEZZO The MEZZO app is a gem that’s as useful for installers and trouble-shooting techs as it is for end users. Elian runs through the process of setup of an appliance switch or a light switch and it’s simple but very powerful.

“The app is the key thing with this solution and it’s so easy to set up and manage,” Elian explains. “It’s a 2-step process for a Z-wave device. As you set up your phone, MEZZO starts to communicate verbally, telling you it’s ready to learn the device and you then assign a role to the switch.”

But it’s the neural nature of the control that’s so much fun. You just hop on the app and start joining dots - for instance, if something happens for this period of time, under these conditions, do this. You Naz (left) with Elian

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Ness MEZZO

can name, review and edit these event scenes during setup and you then hit activate and you’re done.

Elian activates a light and it’s so intuitive and easy.

“That’s just the surface,” Elian says. “I can also control the system based on my location. There’s multiple staged geo-fencing that allows you to select concentric rings of proximity to your home and to have the system undertake an action at a given time of day, on a given day, based on your proximity to home and other factors.

“At 10km, the system might start the air con if the temperature is at a certain level. At 2km if it’s night, the outside light might come on, when I come up to the garage door, I want the roller door to go up, the alarm to disarm, entry locks to open and a selection of lights to come on.

“You can have a Z-Wave switch on every switch in the house, as well as on every hard wired light.

Dimmers are avalable too. Obviously some devices like fridges must remain on but there’s an eco-mode and if you activate eco-mode MEZZO will turn off everything that is not programmed into the system as being necessary.”

You’d expect there to have been challenges and there were.

“It was way more difficult than we anticipated,” Naz admits. “It cost us millions, far more than we expected in terms of the amount of resources we needed to put into it. These things tend to grow and there were things we had no experience with – apps – and once you get into smart logic and GPS fencing it’s more complex than you think. So is alarm transport and remote management and control. For a number of reasons it’s taken longer than we thought it would.”

What’s been the hardest part of the development of MEZZO? “Developing the free app has been the hardest part – it was new to us and that’s why we have so many resources on it,” Elian explains. “But despite the challenges we are very proud of this development.

We know we have taken security and automation to the next level.” zzz

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tumble, suggesting a hardware price of $0 at some point in the not too distant future.

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Which companies have the scale to make money from a low cost or bundled home security and automation service?

Google and Apple will make up 62.5 per cent of the home security market in 20 years and their entire share of the market will be self-monitored and self-installed.

As we mentioned in an editorial last month, it’s hard to imagine a future in which organisations and individuals who require serious security monitoring of genuine security systems would opt for self monitoring, but there you are.

This part of the market currently accounts for only 2.3 per cent of the total but according to Citigroup, it’s younger consumers who will drive the change.

Given the amount of time my nieces and nephews in the sub-30 age bracket spend on their smart devices, Citigroup’s prediction takes on more serious meaning. I’ve alluded to this before in SEN but the other day on Elizabeth St there were 10 young people waiting at a traffic light opposite me and all were on their smart devices.

Big change will come within 5 years, according to Citigroup, which predicts self-installed and monitored systems will control 34 per cent of the market by 2020, while traditional professionally installed and monitored systems will slip to 61.6 per cent. Another 15 years after that, Citigroup suggests, the market positions will have reversed.

Predictions that spin out over 20 years are fraught, mind you. Consider that 20 years ago smart phones had just been born. Trouble was that IBM’s LCD Simon had no mobile internet on which to run and only one hour of battery life. Taking into account the growing hype over the internet of things, which is supported by an actual high bandwidth global mobile internet, the next 20 years are going to be nothing if not lateral. That’s because the substrate is already there.

The Citigroup study did underscore some things most of us already know.

First, setting up a security and automation solution is not really plug and play. Sure, you can activate a Nest smoke sensor or a Dropcam, but putting together a meaningful automation solution inevitably demands the support of an electrician. There are also considerations

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of sensor placement and installation technique to take into account.

Professional is better – and even more so with monitoring services.

Second, the cost to automate an entire home is still high. Z-wave switches are not too expensive but in-line switches are, when taking into account installation.

Furthermore, many Z-wave devices cost hundreds. It would cost many thousands to build a real automation system in a family home and most users don’t want to outlay that sort of money in one hit.

And there are plenty of other sharks in the sea. For instance, a recent Parks Associates report claims that in the U.S. 40 per cent of new security monitoring subscribers are signing up with nontraditional providers including telcos and cable companies. While TelstraSNP has not yet flexed serious muscle yet, it’s hard not to see the possibilities here in Australia.

“A lot of people, when cable and telecom entered the security space, said ‘they’ve done that before, they come and they go’, but I think this data says they are here to stay,” Tom Kerber, Parks Associates director of research, home controls and energy told Security Systems News recently.

“They’re going to market with a full suite of home controls and are taking a substantial portion of the strong growth in the market thanks in part to their ability to include security in triple and quadplay service bundles,” Kerber said. “New features, such as the ability to self-install and to check and control security solution through smartphones, are enticing

consumers to buy these new services.”

How competitive could TelstraSNP be? Underscoring the economies of scale enjoyed by telcos, AT&T has modified its Digital Life home automation/security plans to offer 2 bundles that it says will deliver discounts. AT&T will continue to offer its previously available smart security package, which consists of monitored home security and safety features, including remote access, wireless keypad, 3 recessed sensors, 3 contact sensors, a motion sensor and an indoor siren at $US39.99 per month.

There’s a one-time equipment fee of $49.99. Ouch.

Then there’s the smart security and automation package. This package includes all smart security features plus an outdoor camera, pushbutton door lock and touchscreen controller for $54.99 per month, plus a one-time equipment fee of $149.99.

Finally, there’s a $64.99 per month premium security and automation package which adds additional security, energy and water-detection features, including a smart thermostat, 2 indoor smart plugs, 3 temperature and water sensors, a smoke sensor, a glass break sensor and a carbon monoxide (CO) sensor.

These are fearsome deals, considering the level of automation being offered.

When you ask yourself what the alarm monitoring market will look like in 20 years there’s really only one answer. It will look very different, indeed. zzz

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t h e i n t e rv i ew

J o h n A dams w i th P ierre Racz

Pierre Racz

Vulcans Never Bluff More than any other software company serving the electronic security industry, Genetec has embraced cloud. Genetec’s founder and CEO Pierre Racz sees cloud as a logical progression for all businesses based on economies of scale and the outsourcing of noncore competency.

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I

N the same way Goscinny and Uderzo’s character Obelix fell into a cauldron of magic potion as a baby and was blessed with superhuman strength, Pierre Racz’s intrinsic nature and long tenure as master of his own business have imbued him with superhuman honesty. Racz swings truth beams across the dark spaces of the electronic security industry like a light sabre. Conversations with the man burst in a series of vivid exposures, revealing intricacies of technology, flaws of competitors and ways in which the future will be just like the past.

Racz has been writing code for 36 years and engineering video surveillance software for nearly 18 years, so it comes as no surprise that

he sees electronic security through this prism. But far from being a cognitive bias, his opinions are predicated on real world experiences with Genetec’s highend global client list. Combined with a gravitational attraction to straight talk, the empirical nature of Racz’s experience with progressive corporations gives his opinions an intense value.

I spent time with Racz at a round table with a bunch of security magazine editors from North America. It goes without saying that when it came to cloud none of us editors had much of a clue but we were all accurately reflecting our industry’s fears, based on lack of familiarity with cloud-based networking technology. Our local worries provided the perfect substrate from which Racz

100 years ago every company had a team of people to run the electricity manufacturing plant powering its industrial facility. None of that exists any longer – we’ve outsourced power generation. It’s the same with cloud. conjured up constellations of global cloud.

JA: What is cloud?

PR: Cloud is a label for services provided via the internet. For instance, storing data and software at a location on the internet, not on an end user’s premises in a local server. Instead, data, software and processing power resides on a server in a remote data centre. Most of us use the cloud without knowing it – cloud is behind banking systems, online retail; as well as storage services like iCloud, Amazon and Google Drive. It’s not a mysterious new technology. Cloud has been around a long time.

JA: Some people in Australia are not convinced cloud is coming. Partly it’s our poor bandwidth and high costs but there may also be a lack of understanding of the ways cloud will benefit organisations large and small.

I think there’s also a small-town idea of cloud as a repository for alarm event snapshots, or a vehicle for RMR. In the Australian security industry, cloud is not seen as a generational change in computing, not seen as the inevitable progression.

PR: The cloud is coming - absolutely.

There’s a simple analogy - just imagine yourself 100 years ago. Every company had a whole group of people to run the electricity manufacturing plant that was used to power its industrial facilities.

None of that exists any longer – we have outsourced that role to the utilities.

There’s so much technology behind the simple wall socket or light switch that gives high availability and electrically clean power supplies. Utilities are good at generating reliable power.

In the same way our electricity

distribution grids have been a huge success, outsourcing of non-core competency is happening in computing.

As an end user you should be able to plug into a network and find storage and computing capacity immediately available. This should be predictable, well-managed, secure and reliable. We take those qualities for granted with electricity and we should also take them for granted with cloud – wherever a customer is in the world, they should be able to access core network functionality.

As well as being about leveraging expertise, it’s about economies of scale.

There’s the purchase and maintenance of hardware, the effort companies go to in order to secure on-premises network rooms, the cost of onsite IT teams.

And for most companies there are compromises at each layer. But the most expensive thing of all is cooling.

For smaller organisations they simply have to pay the power bills for cooling but Microsoft has combined its computing facilities with water purification plants and in doing so has halved its power bills, making cloud services less expensive for end users.

These sorts of economies of scale are the driving force behind the cloud – they are drawing big companies to more affordable cloud and in time, smaller companies will move across, too.

When we talk about core competency, let’s go deeper. Microsoft has 16 major data centres globally that are the size of football fields. These sites are extremely secure and their supporting systems are as good as it is possible for them to be.

All their systems, including power and storage, are redundant. Their storage arrays are not stuffed into hot, humid basements, not located adjacent to poorly secured general office space

only to be thought of when something breaks. We have a lot of high end clients with degrees in security management, criminology and sociology, but not necessarily in technology. Microsoft is an expert in data centres. Our customers are experts in something else.

JA: Something I see in Australia is the assumption that cloud is for small players - 24-hour retailers and organisations whose needs are enough to remain within a particular bandwidth headroom – typically ADSL2+, which here is alleged to be 12Mbps down and about 1.8Mbps up, though this depends on contention, distance from the exchange and how many kids are avoiding doing their homework at a given moment. Who do you think cloud is for?

PR: There are many variables when it comes to using cloud and we have multiple products to suits customer needs. For large end users it’s about economies of scale but there are also smaller players who find cloud works for them. Some will keep the last 30 days on premises but duplicate the last 24 hours in the cloud for protection against disasters, or damage or theft of the device – that’s what hybrid cloud gives smaller end users. It also lets customers try features before they buy. If they like these features they can put them on-premise, or leave them in the cloud.

Certainly, cloud first is our strategy.

JA: You are approaching this with a different mindset to that other people are projecting – they’re catastrophizing minute risks into prophecies of doom but you see cloud as the logical next step in computing.

PR: It is the logical next step in computing. You have to imagine this in terms of scale. When it comes to large customers, we use Dell containers that might have 1000 servers inside them and are located in football field-sized data centres. These centres are highly secure, the data is encrypted so that it is highly secure and at every layer, the economies of scale are completely different.

But yes, it’s a whole different way of

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thinking. Through key partnerships with global providers, Genetec retains enormous storage and processing capacity in the cloud and we make it available to our clients at the least possible capital expense to them. We are saving the end user money. Once they are passed a certain size in terms of network demand, cloud makes perfect sense and once customers need this capacity for other parts of their business, adding CCTV is easy.

JA: How deep is Genetec into cloud technology, are you fully invested in cloud as the ecosystem of networking’s future?

PR: We have a hybrid cloud, cloud first strategy. Genetec has embraced cloud and is moving many of its services into the cloud, believing that if data is properly protected and encrypted, cloud is far more secure than local storage models. Our partnership with Microsoft basically gives us a footprint in many data centres in many countries in the world. In the US we have 4 regions plus the government cloud, we have Brazil, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan, with Mainland China and India coming online soon.

This gives us a lot of capability to support clients wherever they are in the world, as well as giving us a lot of flexibility when it comes to data sovereignty. We leverage this partnership on behalf of our clients through multiple Genetec products.

Stratocast is a totally cloud-based CCTV solution with cameras linked directly to the cloud and can also be federated back into Genetec Security Center. We have cloud archives, which is our tiered storage within the cloud enabling any Genetec VMS system to have cloud storage.

There’s also our new automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) managed service, AutoVu, which can be hosted and managed in the cloud allowing a smaller city or law enforcement agency to go ahead and deploy cameras in vehicles and not worry about having a to accommodate locals servers or fight with an IT

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We have created a solution that allows companies to start testing the cloud – we call it hybrid cloud because our system can have as much or as little cloud as customers want out of the box department about bandwidth, processing power and storage capacity.

We have created a solution that allows companies to start testing the cloud – we call it hybrid cloud because our system can have as much or as little cloud as customers want out of the box. You can have zero cloud or all cloud, and unlike others in the industry, we offer anywhere in the middle, which is very useful.

A user might keep their first 30 days on-premises and the next 365 days in the cloud at reduced resolution. Some major clients are beginning to want to keep 730 days (2 years) of storage for regulatory purposes. Managing such a large storage array is a big problem – the best place for this is the cloud and those customers are implementing such solutions.

JA: Are some video surveillance

tasks more suited to cloud than others?

PR: Anything possible with a local computer system is possible in the cloud but some things are more attractive for particular end users. If you consider ALPR, it’s relatively computationally heavy. Our Sharp camera is actually a PC with 2GB of RAM. It needs a lot of processing power. Ordinary CCTV cameras don’t have the processing power to do as a good a job as Sharp at ALPR so with AutoVu, services in the cloud handle processing so end users can employ standard IP cameras to handle their LPR needs in real time.

For many users, it’s a very inexpensive option that allows them to access needed services immediately with no capital outlay. For instance, some clients in North America pay $US200 for a 200MB symmetrical connection, which is great.

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J o h n A dams w i th P ierre Racz

For us there’s a sales advantage in that we can offer this service at a lower cost to the end user than a server-based solution. Additionally, if something goes wrong we are in a much better position to help our customers. them to have 10 ALPR cameras in the cloud and they don’t have to install the computing power to handle the task.

For us there’s a sales advantage in that we can offer this service at a lower cost to the end user than a server-based solution. Additionally, if something goes wrong we are in a much better position to help our customers. At all layers, cost savings go directly to the end user. No up-front cost, no maintenance, no power demand, no need for network level physical security levels for one network room. And all this means greater reliability. Cloud is not for everybody but there are many applications that cloud is perfect for.

JA: An anthropologist or sociologist could explain why but observation indicates humans have an instinct to clutch those things that are important very close to them. It’s the same with data. We’ve also had some widely publicised breaches of consumer cloud services – private celebrity photographs spring to mind. What about security of data in the cloud?

Can end users feel their sensitive data is entirely secure in a cloud environment?

PR: Unsecure data or miss-handling of evidence takes place much more often outside the cloud than inside it but the handful of instances it takes place in the cloud are huge media events. Done properly, cloud is way more secure. Our answer is that data is encrypted at the application level before it goes into the cloud.

The way we do it is that each of the cameras has an individual label and you have to provide a key to access them so these sorts of security breaches are simply not possible. For instance, we

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can configure the system so that the cryptographic keys that allow access to cameras are changed every 5 minutes.

You can’t decrypt 256-bit cryptography in 5 years, let alone 5 minutes.

If someone can decrypt an end user’s video stream they will have broken 256-bit peer-reviewed cryptographic techniques and the global financial system will be wide open to them. It really is something people need to get comfortable with but it’s not a major issue.

We are quite confident that unless you are careless with cryptographic keys, no one can access your data in cloud.

Really, the only way to get into encrypted data streams is to insert key loggers into hardware to capture passwords during hardware manufacture.

JA: Is there any concern with storing video footage outside a country when it comes to data sovereignty?

PR: There are unfounded concerns about this. Major providers in this space, like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, are fighting this battle on behalf of their customers. The countries in which we have data centres have no such problems.

JA: Is there a downside to cloud?

For instance, in Australia there can be issues with bandwidth, latency, contention through oversubscription and uptime, especially outside of metropolitan areas.

PR: Let’s go back to our analogy of electricity generation. I have seen MTBF (mean time between failure) figures from power companies that suggest the probability that you’ll have failures of more than 24 hours, once every thousand years, and data centres have generators that can cover longer periods than that. This means buying a 24-hour

UPS for your company’s use is not a good investment. Each year, statistically, there might be an outage of ten minutes, so buying a UPS that can handle short outages of one hour is a good investment.

The same analogy can be used for cloud. You will have network outages for instance Microsoft’s SLA is 99.95 per cent uptime – this translates into 4 hours of downtime per year. What this means is that you need local recording capacity able to handle say, 24 hours per year.

This will cover your cloud-based system completely – it’s essentially a local software UPS. In any case, whatever reliability you want, we can engineer it. You have to assess how much you reliability you are prepared to pay for. For instance, banking networks are designed to 99.999 – 5 minutes of downtime per year and these are very expensive networks.

Even airports don’t engineer to that level – they build to 99.90 - about 8 hours of downtime per year.

Is there a downside to cloud? It’s a trade-off. For some users who already have the network capability, there might be no associated costs. Many large organisations keep all their sensitive documents in the cloud – this is a process that is already taking place. What is it to them to include video surveillance cameras? It’s nothing to them, it’s not a problem. But there are other customers, for instance those in the Canadian North where the internet service is not so good, and cloud is not for them.

JA: What about those end users who say they absolutely cannot accept the loss of network connection, ever?

PR: You have to design your system taking into account the requirements you have. Perhaps as a hybrid system, with the main part in the cloud and a supporting part installed locally to handle network downtime. Something we’ve not touched on is the reliability of local networks handled by local IT staff, or by contractors. They are often not reliable at all.

Let me tell you a story – there was a North American organisation that had an on-premises CCTV system that was recording all the video relating to

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compression and low light capability make 4K ready for the market, networks will be ready for 4K.

particular serious crimes in a single storage bay. A major failure occurred to that storage bay and it was offline for 2 months. As the organisation was rebuilding from the failure they had no access to that video evidence and this impacted on criminal cases – the criminals walked free based on lack of evidence. This organisation has now moved to the cloud and wants no more on-premises storage.

JA: From Genetec’s point of view, what other trends is the team working towards, what’s in the front of your minds?

PR: High performance computing is an area of focus for us – this relates to 4K – we are one of the first VMS to be able to handle 4K – we now have hardware-accelerated decoding where we can do four 4K cameras per graphics card on a run-of-the-mill Dell Corsair. It’s important, especially for users like casinos that move a lot of high quality video around. We have created reference architectures and get high performance at a reasonable cost – we can do 800Mb bandwidths out of the box, which is strong and we are working on stronger performance still.

JA: Do you see 4K as being the next big thing – as being a new standard for CCTV cameras?

PR: No, not yet. Integrators are comfortable with HD, they know how much storage they need, how much bandwidth they need. 4K is leading edge and ideal where you want wider fields of view, deeper fields of view – like stadiums, highways, airports and large public spaces. But inside a room like this one, it’s just not necessary.

JA: Do you think 4K and the cloud are technologies that are at odds with one another - one technology dependent on maximising restricted bandwidth, the other pushing hard on the boundaries of resolution?

PR: No, they are not at odds with one another. To paraphrase Wayne Gretsky: “Don’t look at where the puck is, look at where it’s going”. The only thing going faster than Moore’s Law is network

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Certainly latecomers have been flattering us with their imitations but it’s very hard for them to duplicate our capabilities, especially to the depth we have developed them. bandwidth availability. Canada is a bad example but in Sweden you can get 200Mb symmetrical for $E15 as an individual and $E35 as a company – that’s very affordable. In the US in places it’s about $US50-60 and in Japan, the equivalent of $US40. Then there’s hybrid – you can trickle off to the cloud at lower bandwidth, or you can store alarm events or IVA events. What all this means is that when the market is ready for 4K and improvements in

JA: Genetec started out behind the scenes engineering solutions for other companies and is now one of the leading players in VMS globally. It looks like you are the last man standing – a privately-owned software company combining all the best qualities of the old school – medium-sized, lightfooted, passionate, able to inspire loyalty. What do you think about the consolidation of the software industry?

PR: What we are seeing is the weaker players dropping out of the market – in my opinion they are giving up. We’ve been doing this for 17 years - there’s an equation about software development which states “effort x time to the fourth power, equals a constant” - so we have mathematics on our side.

It’s tough to break into software development now. Certainly latecomers have been flattering us with their imitations but it’s very hard for them to duplicate our capabilities, especially to the depth we have developed them.

Competitors can’t handle forward or backward compatibility, they can’t handle complex security models.

JA: What about camera makers and corporates getting into software development very late – what are their chances outside proprietary solutions?

PR: Making software by non-software companies is difficult – if you look at some of the big companies gobbling up smaller players, they will face a challenge, in my opinion. Non-software companies that apply corporate operations models to software development tend to fail. The software industry is in a process of natural selection and you will see fewer players but among the leaders you will see Genetec. Genetec has always been a company that has been able to adapt quickly and turn on a dime and it’s one of my focuses to ensure we continue to do it. zzz

n ew p ro d u ct omgate

by john adam s

Golden gate Omgate is an Israeli product brought into Australia by iTech that’s designed to deliver users powerful gate automation in a very compact and affordable package that’s managed using a smart device app.

A

VAILABLE from Mainline and Presco, Omgate was one of Security 2015’s most interesting products and it reflects the lateral capabilities of the digital future. It’s an app-based gate controller that combines compact size with very useful functionality, as well as neat management.

One of the key aspects of any automation system is opening gates as a user approaches and Omgate gives you this capability in a wireless controller the size of a matchbox which is installed at the gate and connected to a gate controller. Managing the solution is the Omgate app, which turns a smart device into a door remote based on proximity to the gate it is authorised to open. Omgate’s free iOS/Android app also allows management of authorised users of a gate in a very clever way.

According to Yossi Harel of iTech, system installation is fast, simple and pain-free. An authorized technician installs the OmGate device adjacent to a gate controller without any need for complex infrastructure. The Omgate unit is wired into it the door controller.

“Once this is done, all you have to do is download the app,” says Harel. “Once it’s on your smart phone, as you approach the secured property, the app wakes up and pops up on your device. Gates can open automatically from as far away as 300m based on GPS positioning and user ID. One tap on the alert

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Gates can open automatically from as far away as 300m based on GPS positioning and user ID. One tap on the alert and the gate opens.

and the gate opens. The app works if you’re on a call and even using the phone’s navigation apps won’t interfere with its operation.”

Harel says adding and managing authorized users, allowing them to easily and conveniently open the gate via the app, is simple, too.

“To set users up you add their name and telephone number and the user gets an SMS inviting them to download the app to their own phone and they are sent a secure code,” he explains. “You can be designated as the gatekeeper, giving your management authority, or an ordinary user – and you can have multiple users for any gate.”

Cool, too, there are time-based rules so that tradespeople can be allowed access to a site for the duration of a contract.

“As gatekeeper I might decide you can use the system for one day and then the system will delete you automatically. You can also add guests, giving them very convenient access for the duration of a stay using a device they always carry with them.

It’s ideal for a number of gated access control applications.”

With Omgate it’s possible to manage up to 20 different gates from a single phone and the system is compatible with garage doors, security gates, and barrier gates based on an electrical connection from controller to Omgate and a wireless connection from a smart device to Omgate.

Omgate is a simple and capable solution that’s deceptively powerful. For sites like managed apartments, hotels, offices and industrial sites, Omgate offers sophisticated access control without the hassle of managing keys or the expense associated with major access control applications. zzz

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p ro d u ct rev i ew

Paxton Net2 p lus

Simplicity Too, Plus Paxton Net2 plus intelligent controllers are said to be the easiest access control solutions in the world to install. With help from local distributor Security Distributors Australia, we decided to put those claims to the test in a 2-Part installation series.

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OME time ago there was a loud knock at SEN’s front door and a large box was delivered. It was heavy and a suitably portentous opening ceremony revealed more boxes inside which I found the heart and limbs of a Paxton Net2 plus access control system. Swirling around the controller was a range of Paxton devices – a keypad, a prox reader, an intercom, door locks and other things I was too frightened to open.

We test cameras at SEN, we’ve even installed an alarm system using an actual drill. But we’ve never tried to tackle access control. All those doors and the feared complexity of enrolling users – it was just too much. The fear of what was inside the box grew with each passing month, until it became a wall of procrastination.

But at Security 2015 Expo a conversation with local distributor Wayne Krahner of Security Distributors

By john adam s

a lower cost entry threshold yet it still allows you to expand into other products and other markets – like intercoms.”

To fortify me for the challenges ahead, Krahner gives me a quick demo of a door setup.

“I’ll show you something simple in the software,” he tells me. “When the devices are on a network and we scan that network, the devices will just pop up and you can see the MAC address, you select those devices you want to use and click ‘Apply’. When you go to the Doors in the Net2 software, they all appear with a green tick showing they are online.

“And this is how we program a door,” he says. “In order to get all these devices functioning as an access control system – we give them a name: Backdoor, front door, side door, then designate how long we want the relays to operate for. We then go to reader one, say it’s a Paxton reader, and we can choose between clock and data, reader and the like. In this case, it’s a Paxton keypad.

“We then go down the operating mode and select how we want the system to operate – we could select token only, pin only or token plus pin but let’s select all of the above. It’s already defaulted to allday, every day. And there – it’s done. That’s the door programmed.”

That sounds pretty easy, I laugh.

“That’s the message we want to get out – there is nothing easier out there,” explains Krahner. “If I want to do reader 2 on Net2 plus, well it’s a repeat of the process. And if I want to do alarms for door open too long or forced door, there’s a little check box so I can select how I want that to work. When it comes to codes, which are generic for a door not a person, we can enter codes for that door right here.

Australia served to damp down my fears and encourage me to move outside my comfort zone.

According to Krahner, Paxton’s maxim is simple, simple, simple. Well, it’s going to need to be, I told him, with a hollow laugh.

According to Krahner, he’s been very pleased with the way the Paxton product has been received locally.

“The Australian market is well catered for in the high end but it’s not as well catered for in the low end and the middle part of the market,” he explains.

“The lack of a need for licensing with Paxton and the simplicity of the software – that’s what impresses people so much, how easy the software is.

“Paxton is an integrated and open system so it will connect with multiple readers,” Krahner says. “This makes Net2 plus very easy to integrate into existing systems or to expand. It’s also a smaller system with

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“Every Paxton reader comes with 5m of cable.

That cable is colour coded to match the controller’s colour code – red to red, brown to brown, you can’t make a mistake. We really have got one of the more powerful access control systems in the market and we believe there is nothing easier.”

There’s more on the programming side that I want to get into next issue but for now, I head back to the office to get stuck into that box.

Powering up Net2 plus My plan for Part One of our story is to get the Net2 plus controller onto my network, get the management software loaded and get a keypad wired into the

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Paxton Net2 p lus

system and enrolled. Once I’m across one device, adding additional readers and an intercom are going to be easier, I tell myself, feeling rather like the 7th Earl of Cardigan.

Dragging the box out of the cupboard where I’ve hidden it and taking out all the devices I’m again hit by the fact this Paxton solution is no half-measure when it comes to access control. All the gear is nicely done – the controllers, the intercom, the keypad, readers. Digging deeper into the box I find more controllers and a couple of lovely Paxlocks.

Prying around in the Paxlock packaging I spy a set of batteries in the bottom. Whatever could those be for?

It goes without saying that the first device I’m going to connect to the system is Paxton’s vandalresistant keypad external reader that I talked about a couple of issues ago. Even without the mounting plate this IP66-rated lump has serious hand feel and I think to myself that there has to be some way I can install it here at the SEN office. Why don’t we have access control, I wonder to myself. Sure, Lockwood 001s are great but they have no electricity running through them. Something must be done.

With these musings safely out of the way, I open the Net2 plus controller by loosening a single grub screw. Next, I put power to the integrated battery pack and with a beep and a flash, Net2 plus comes to life. Network connection is next, and I slot an RJ-45 from the controller to a spare unpowered port on my Netgear GS108P PoE switch.

When the devices are on a network and we scan that network, the devices will just pop up and you can see the MAC address, you select those devices you want to use and click ‘Apply’.

At this point I’ve got no software connection so I’m pleased to have a couple of LEDs to inform me there’s power and a Fast Ethernet server link. Peering at the layout of the controller I start to get more of a sense of what Krahner was talking about. Everything is labelled and all the termination blocks for readers, inputs and outputs are colour coded. It goes almost without saying, that I’m very pleased about this.

My next move is to hop onto Doctor Google and call up Net2 and download the Net2lite software, which is free and has no licensing charges. This takes a wee while but once it’s complete, I unpack the download, which is managed by a typical wizard, requiring nothing more than the occasional wave along from me and a restart when everything is set up. With all this complete I get a Server Connected LED light on the controller. So far so good.

Now, with the keypad unpacked on my desk, I nip off the RJ-45 test plug fitted to the hardwired 5m flying lead. While I’m doing this I notice the alloy chassis, the 316 stainless fascia and the solid potting packed into the back to ensure the keypad remains impervious to the ingress of water. No doubt about it, for around 180 bucks this keypad is one tough monkey.

After stripping the outer cable sheath and the 8 internal wires, I back the screws out of the blocks a bit, then poke in the wires one at a time, tightening up the blocks as I go. As soon as the 0V negative termination goes in - Beep - the keypad comes alive, with a soft green glow from the lights integrated into its keys.

Before I started out, I spent a bit of time delving into Net2’s Application Notes, which are headed Installation, Configuration and Integration.

These instruction sheets are right there in the management window only 2 clicks away from wherever you are in the software. Thanks to them, I know what to do next – I press a button on the keypad to register the device to the controller.

Finally, I hop into Net2’s Configuration Utility, step into TCP/IP node and hit the ‘Detect’ button. My heart rate is elevated at this point. My experience with finding CCTV cameras on my own subnet has been a bit of a farce lately but DHCP has taken care of things and up comes the door controller with its IP address and MAC address for me to see. I name the reader, close the utility and bounce over into the Net2 Access Control software and click ‘Doors’.

My reader appears with a red cross beside it, which after a few seconds turns into a green tick and the reader is enrolled and good to go.

So far the experience has been improbably simple – in fact it’s been exhilarating and I have a real sense of momentum. Next issue, I’ll attach another reader to the controller, as well as some other devices and then go exploring the software.

Just trolling through the dropdowns I can see there’s a lot of functionality going on here and it all seems extremely simple to access. Given the simplicity of the hardware to install, it’s the nature of the software that’s going to be the key. Is Net2 plus the world’s easiest access control system? So far it is. zzz

Features of Paxton Net2 plus include: l RS485 Dataline and TCP/IP l 2 voltage-free relays l 2 reader ports & 1 intruder alarm port & relay l 12V DC readers only l 10/100 Ethernet port and RS485 data line connector l Switchable termination resistors with LED l Net2 plus and Net2 Classic work on same system.

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new pr o d u ct s h owcase / new p roduct showcase / new p roduct showcase /

editor’s choice

What’s new in the industry

Dahua Eco-Savvy 2.0 Series PTZs l DAHUA Technology has released its Eco-Savvy 2.0 series PTZ cameras. The Eco-

Savvy series offers SD59 and SD50 models. Those 2 models carry the spirit of the EcoSavvy 2.0 series which is energy-saving concept, feature 30x optical zoom capability and smart features to make surveillance easier.

Compact design with a diameter of just 5-inches, makes the camera much faster than a metal ball. It provides a maximum pan speed of 400-degrees per second and a maximum tilt speed of 300 degrees per second.

Eco-Savvy 2.0 series PTZ cameras have a smart detection function which can detect progressively – moving objects in the field of view and alert operators.

Concealed SD59 IR gives a 100m range and the camera is built to IP66, which ensures it can withstand harsh weather. Even without IR capability, Dahua’s SD50 is still extremely effective in capturing detail. Features of the SD50 include IP67-rated weatherproofing and IK10-rated vandal-proofing.

Distributor: Seadan Security & Electronics Contact: +61 3 9263 0111

Vivotek releases tiny FD816C-HF2 dome l VIVOTEK has launched the world’s

Paradox NV35M Series Detector l PARADOX NV35M Series detector from CSD is designed to provide a superior indoor

or outdoor solution for applications such as windows and sliding doors. The series is optimised to discriminate between false alarms triggered by small birds, cats and dogs, giving it a unique niche in the market.

The detector features 2 operation modes. The first is pet immune mode, which is ideally suited for outdoor windows and sliding doors. For indoor applications, this can be switched off to provide sharp mode protection with dual verification detection.

There are wireless and hardwired models available and each comes standard with a range of additional features including active anti-masking technology and creep detection to secure the area directly below the detector. According to CSD, Paradox’s NV35M series will provide unparalleled detection for your next install.

Distributor: Central Security Distribution Contact: 1300 319 499

smallest recessed mount fixed dome network camera, the FD816C-HF2, with a diameter of just 60mm. Despite its tiny size, the camera features 109-degree horizontal field of view and 30fps at 2MP resolution. Along with 70-degree tilt-lens adjustment, the FD816C-HF2 achieves coverage of indoor areas superior to that of an ordinary network camera.

WDR Pro allows the camera to maintain optimal image quality under highcontrast lighting and also enhancing viewing capability, 3D Noise Reduction technology enables the camera to capture clear video in low-light.

To intelligently allocate bandwidth, the FD816C-HF2 also features Smart Stream Technology, which works to optimize resolution for a desired object or area so as to maximize bandwidth usage. Finally, enabling the most flexible installation, users can choose either a recessed mount or optional pendant mount installation (coming soon) in order to optimize the mounting configuration.

Distributor: Hills Contact: 1800 685 487

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Superior Detection.

All the Time.

The most accurate motion detection camera available.

Thermal mini-Bulle T Camer a

• Reduce false alarms with more reliable motion detection • Most affordable intrusion detection and video alarm verification system • Easy integration – PoE/12VDC, IP/ MPX(HDCVI)/analog, ONVIF Find out more at www.flir.com/isc-west-dailies

Images shown are for illustrative purposes only, and may not have been taken by the camera depicted. ©2015 FLIR Systems, Inc.

Asia Pacific Headquarters HONG KONG FLIR Systems Co. Ltd. Room 1613 -16, Tower 2, Grand Central Plaza, No. 138 Shatin Rural Committee Road, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong Tel : +852 2792 8955 Fax : +852 2792 8952 Email : flir@flir.com.hk

s p e ci al re p o rt

new pr o d u ct s h owcase / new p roduct showcase / new p roduct showcase /

editor’s choice

What’s new in the industry

New Mobotix Analytics now available l MxAnalytics is now available free for all Mobotix single lens cameras, including great

value indoor camera models i25, c25 and p25. It is possible to count people moving through corridors in different directions, as well as being able to generate heat maps to indicate the area with the greatest level of activity.

The camera is able to send this statistical data on an automated daily or weekly basis, and it is an excellent tool for measuring the behavior of people, for example in a retail setting. For a single price, you get a hemispheric 5MP camera system, including analysis software, and recording software, which enables Terabytes of recordings to be stored on a NAS device, along with all other MOBOTIX camera features, such activity sensor and automatic event messaging, and recording.

Distributor: Mobotix Contact: +61 2 8507 2000

Panasonic updates WV-SFV531 l PANASONIC’S WV-SFV531 outdoor

Dallmeier Releases 5200 Series Nightline l NOW available from C.R. Kennedy are Dallmeier’s new 5200 Series Nightline

cameras. Key features of the new cameras, which will soon include a 120fps version, include a new 1/1.9-inch sensor with excellent low-light characteristics, wide dynamic range functions with local tone mapping, automatic day/night switching of presets and integrated motor-driven varifocal lens for domes and full body cameras. There are 2 lens options available – a 4.5-10mm or 12-40mm for longer ranges. These lenses incorporate precise iris control for excellent clarity and depth of field.

The 5200 Series have Micro SD EdgeStorage and SmartBackfill for high speed streaming. The camera delivers an HD video stream at a frame rate of 30 fps (1080p/30). In connection with the optional HSS board, the camera can be optioned for a frame rate of up to 120 fps at full resolution (1080p/120). This frame rate makes the camera ideal for all applications that require the capture of very fast movements in high resolutions.

Distributor: C.R. Kennedy Contact: +61 3 9823 1555

camera is IP66, NEMA 4X and IK10 weather and impact resistant, while the WV-SFR531 indoor cameras are IK10-rated impact resistant. A builtin dehumidification unit keeps the WV-SFV531 camera up and running consistently, preventing water and moisture from penetrating the enclosure. The wider tilt angle of the lens of up to 85 degrees and distortion-free dome design enables lower cost of installation and configuration. A new mounting attachment enables easy set up; once the plate is secured on the ceiling the camera can be fixed tightly with a quick 15-degree rotation.

The 5 Series cameras are also available with optional intelligent Video Motion Detection (i-VMD) technology, including intruder detection, loitering detection, direction detection, scene change detection, object detection and cross line detection. The evolved self-learning algorithm and powerful UniPhier system LSI results in high detection rates with fewer false alerts.

Distributor: Panasonic Contact:+61 2 9491 7436

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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 /

Mobotix Dynamic 6MP Indoor Camera l MOBOTIX has introduced the compact p25 indoor ceiling camera to its indoor range.

Fitted with 6MP Moonlight sensor technology, the p25 is perfectly suited to demanding indoor applications with poor lighting conditions. Equipped with manual pan/tilt functionality, the p25 is quick and simple to install. This impressive feature provides the installer with the flexibility to easily direct the camera focus to a specific point in a room.

Additionally, a wide range of day or night sensor options from distance telephoto (15-degree field of view) through to Hemispheric (180-degree field of view) are available.

With video analysis tools such as MxActivitySensor and MxAnalytics and a host of other features including event recording and alarm notifications, the p25 is one of the most attractive video surveillance solutions in the market at the moment.

Distributor: Central Security Distribution Contact: 1300 319 499

Sony releases SNC Toolbox App lSONY has released the SNC Toolbox

app which lets installers view live camera images on their smartphone or tablet screen and fine-tune each camera’s viewing angle directly.

Further, by using an optional Sony USB wireless LAN module; focus, zoom, aspect ratio, image stabiliser and distortion correction can all be adjusted for the Sony SNC-VM772R 4K camera.

SNC toolbox mobile is available currently on Google Play and will be available soon for iOS.

Geutebruck merges with SW Microwave

Distributor: Sony Australia Contact: +61 2 9887 6666

l GEUTEBRUCK has updated the interface that is responsible for seamlessly connecting the products of Geutebruck and Southwest Microwave. This enables solutions in which video monitoring and perimeter detection communicate together perfectly. For example, if an intruder crosses an underground cable, an entire sequence of actions is started automatically.

First, a pan-tilt camera moves to the reported position and the image resolution and frame rate for the live and recorded streams are increased. At the same time as the alarm message, a still image of the overview camera at the time of the alarm and the live image of the pan-tilt camera can be put on screen. Additional information can be displayed in the camera image. The security personnel receive comprehensive information for a quick assessment of the situation, making it possible for them to react immediately.

The combination of the field-proven technologies from Geutebruck and Southwest Microwave is made possible using GeMIP or G-SWM interfaces. They make possible optimum detection results and ease of use with stability and security of the overall solution. The involvement of other elements, such as building management or fire detection systems is possible without any difficulty.

Distributor: Geutebruck Australia Contact: +61 2 8969 6302

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re g u lars help desk

helpdesk

Q: I’m just starting to get involved in fibre optic CCTV installations and am wondering if you could advise me what sort of test tools I need?

A: If money’s no object, the ideal tool is the optical time domain reflectometer, or OTDR. This device sends a pulse of light down the fibre and then measures reflections resulting from Rayleigh backscatter - these reflections occur as a result of changes in the refractive index that occur along the cable run.

One of the beauties of the OTDR is that it can work out – at least in part – where in the cable plant trouble has arisen. Once an OTDR is connected to the fibre link it will work out the distance reflections are from itself based on the time taken for the reflection to arrive, with details displayed on a screen.

If you used fibre for a smaller 200m run or if you’re using a small fibre link to get around interference an OTDR will not help you. Instead you need a light source and power meter. This device sends a light signal into the fibre and then works out the amount of the light getting to the receiving end of the run, displaying the value as dB. If the link budget you’ve worked out is more than the light getting through the actual link, then it’s time to reach for the amplifiers, or to reconsider your overall design. If the signal you receive at the far end of the link matches your planned budget, including connector losses, the system is working as it should.

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Our panel of experts answers your questions.

Q: I’ve removed a lens in a dusty environment and I’m pretty sure there must be muck on the sensor. Is there a way to clean this? Is it likely any dirt or dust on the sensor will impact on performance? Will I damage the sensor if I clean it myself?

A: Typically, there’s a glass filter in front of the CMOS sensor with the sensor underneath this covered by a very thin Bayer filter applied directly to the sensor itself. Exactly what the task of the glass filter is on top of the sensor varies by design, but typically it improves sensitivity lost by the attenuation of the Bayer filter and filters UV and IR. The point is that you won’t actually be cleaning the sensor itself, but the glass filter on top of it. Nevertheless, you don’t want to play silly buggers with a camera sensor. The issue if you start rubbing the sensor filter with a lens cloth or lens brush, is that you might not so much scratch the filter as smear it with oil or add another layer of fibre and dust to the glass.

I would hop onto B&H Photo, or into your local camera store and buy an LED loupe, which will allow you to look at the sensor under magnification and light. You will clearly be able to see any dust or fibres and can then use a blower and/or a lenspen to clear away any debris. Experience suggests the blower will get the fibres but you’ll need a lenspen to get rid of electrostatically

charged dust particles. Any grease or oil residue will demand a wet clean.

All this said, unless there’s something very large on the sensor lens, it’s not going to have an impact on the scene thanks to the inherent speed of CCTV lenses. You might see a constellation of dust specs at f32 when pointing your lens at blue sky, but it won’t be an issue at f1.4 when viewing a crowded streetscape.

Q: What does Help Desk think about the best way to wire up hard-wired alarm panels in existing buildings? Pre-wiring is obviously the best way to handle an install but how much harder is it to do a good job with a retrofit?

A: With pre-wiring, the big issue will be whether you can get onto the site during construction and get your wiring into place.

There are some major advantages to this and some pitfalls. For a start, it’s going to

be a far quicker and easier installation if you’re able to cable up before the walls go in. The only negative is the fact you’ll have to go back a second time and hang your controller, program the system and install sensors. You’ll also have to get those cables through the plasterboard – during construction you’ll be pulling them across frames and nobbings.

With existing homes, most installers build their cable plant in the ceiling and drop wires down to their wall-mounted sensors as they go. Other alternatives include running the cable under carpet, under floorboards or around skirting boards.

Q: Is varifocal superior to fixed CCTV lenses? I’m replacing a camera that has a fixed lens and it seems to work fine in the location it’s installed. Any need to change or can I keep the old lens?

A: Varifocal is not really anything to skite about. Varifocal means that when you adjust the focal length of a zoom lens, say from 2.8-12mm, you have to refocus the lens as you go. This requirement is pretty much standard issue for CCTV zoom lenses whether manual or remotely adjustable but it’s not a ‘feature’ in the sense of being technologically advantageous. All other things being equal, a fixed CCTV lens, sometimes called a monofocal lens, will offer superior performance at its focal length than a varifocal lens will at that same focal length.

The simple formula of the monofocal lens elements, with fewer glass/air transitions and none of the tolerance demanded by a moving lens barrel, will guarantee a better image. You’ll get better low light performance, less chromatic aberration, increased sharpness, reduced vignetting, better colour rendition and less chance of ghosting. This will apply to lenses at the wide end, or the long. Remember, good glass never dies, and many old lenses are of superior build quality to today’s plastic fantastics. The only thing that might have changed is the quality of the lens coatings but this said, there are no fluoropolymer coated CCTV lenses that I know of.

Q: In the last issue, you mention lateral chromatic aberrations in lenses – what are these and how can they be avoided?

The most vulnerable element of electronic and networked security systems is power supply.

A: Very fast lens designs are notoriously susceptible to chromatic aberration, which is evidenced by purple or magenta fringing in high contrast areas. CAs are caused by different wavelengths of light being focussed in different planes and are a product of lens design. They may occur in internal or external applications. When it comes to video surveillance, CAs are not the end of the world and you’d exchange a measure of CA for improved low light performance. Severe chromatic aberration will soften images in the presence of significant backlight or reflected light. You can improve CAs by stopping down (using a longer focal length will reduce aperture),

changing the angle of view to remove the high contrast areas, or by buying higher quality lenses with improved optical equations. It’s not just about price with CAs. Some lens designs nail it and others don’t. There’s also some measure of sample variation to contend with.

Q: When thinking about physical security of systems, what’s the most vulnerable element of electronic security systems as far as Help Desk is concerned? Would you say it’s head-end equipment, equipment in the field, or the network that’s operating behind the scenes?

A: The most vulnerable element of electronic and networked security systems is power supply. Some other areas of vulnerability to think about are the unsecured racks in shared IT spaces, accessible cable trays, and security devices and support cabling installed within reach and/or without the support of secure housings and tamper alarms. The other key vulnerability of electronic and networked security systems is installing controllers, servers and switches without adequate support from physical security solutions.

Further, network components need full network protection if they are exposed to WANs. zzz

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events SEPTEMBER 2015 ISSUE 369

ALARM MONITORING:

THE TICKING CLOCK

PP 100001158

l l l l

New Installers Must Embrace Networking l Interview With a Vulcan Dahua Secures LAN Airline l Developing Ness MEZZO controller MCEC CCTV Enhanced by Honeywell DVM l Installing Paxton Net2 Plus Review: Hikvision Darkeye SLA l A New Milestone in Education

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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

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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.

IFSEC 2016 Date: June 21-23, 2016 Venue: Excel Centre, London Docklands Contact: www.ifsec.co.uk IFSEC International which took place in London in June 2015, is one of Europe’s largest security expos. The event was a huge success and we're looking forward to 2016, when we’ll be back at Docklands once again.

2016 Security Conference and Exhibition

= DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY.

Date: July 20-22, 2016 Venue: Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre Contact: +61 3 9261 4500 Put it in your diary now: 20-22 July 2016. Australasia’s premier security industry event, to be held at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre.

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