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Cisco Aquires SyPixx
illeism writes "Forbes reports that Cisco is getting into the video surveillance business. From the article,"Cisco made the acquisition to capitalize on the trend that has been underway which is moving video surveillance from analog to IP.""
Surveillance is the future. When I think of mankind's progress, I see the grand vista of cameras stretching to infinity, wiretaps that outnumber phone lines, search warrants so ubiquitous and deeply classified that no petty official need ever fear public questioning. A beautiful vision it is.
Gezz, like CTTV over the internet is such a revolution? I used to work at a local restruant that the boss could kick back at home and watch everything going on. This was based on a Windows box with 2 8-port CCTV cards with real-time backup, etc... but this was in 2001. ;)
Now we have DVR backup, etc. Interestingly enough, SyPixx is a Linux based product. http://www.sypixx.com/ It's cool though that Cisco is giving it a go, they actually might do a good thing here. I would like to suggest a few features: like lower cost on.. dvr capacity options, pan-tilt, zoom, feature software set, (Linux based options) and low lux options.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
So first they bought Scientific Atlanta, and now SyPixx. Cool. I thought the idea was to shake/stirr/mix'n'match Cisco's IP know-how with Scientific Atlanta's video know-how, and come up with a killer Ciscoized-Tivo. Now I'm afraid that while my Cisco Tivo records 'Desperateate Housewives' it might also include a camera and surveillance software so the NSA can watch me rooting my nose or scratching my nuts. I feel safer already ;)
Cisco is massive... they buy out their competition, including areas of the market they want to expand in to. That's just how they function. If you can't put out the ideas, heck, buy them. Nothing really new here.
When companies start talking about keeping a diverse portfolio (ie: lots of totally unrelated product lines), what does that mean? Well, the "obvious" conclusion is that they're not confident enough in anything they're doing and are not confident in decisions that might make or break things for the company down the road. They're not consolidating, they're not buying in any technology or IP they don't have but could use (I can't see how they can use any of it, and what they can they probably have), so that leaves hedging their bets and covering their backs.
If Cisco think IP-enabled CCTV can possibly make enough of a difference to cover the cost of the investment AND believe that none of their own products could produce as much or better return for that same amount of money, I'd look a lot harder at alternatives.
(It doesn't mean I think Cisco will fold - they're far from doing that. It means I think Cisco have run out of ideas, which is generally a much worse place to be. You can always borrow money, but fresh, quality ideas are tougher to find.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ignoring the various "all surveillance == big brother" comments for a moment, here's an article on CNET News.com which goes into more detail about the reasoning behind Cisco's acquisition. From the article:
...
"If you can digitize all video, you can record it, timestamp it and instantaneously get access to video across the IP network much more efficiently than having to send an actual tape," said Marthin De Beer, a vice president in Cisco's Emerging Market Technologies Group. "It also lets people coordinating a disaster halfway across the country to get live video feeds from cameras connected to an IP network, so they can see what's happening."
In addition, it makes sense for businesses that have already embarked on consolidating their networks to decide to carry all of their corporate data and voice traffic over an IP network. Cisco also provides storage area networking gear, which is essential for customers who must store all the video.
Personally, I'd like to see more development of sousveillance. IMHO, the solution to the problem of "Who watches the watchers?" isn't to ban watching, but to make everybody a watcher. It'd be great to have a publically-uploadable website designed to facilitate the coordination of images and video for events and places of concern.
Last I looked into IP cameras weren't quite there yet, especially in terms of price/performance ratio. I started out looking for a camera with a pretty typical use case in mind - outdoor surveillance for an office building. Someone was stealing dumpsters worth a few thousand each from a new heating and air conditioning business, and it was happening at night. There is a lot of mob and union influence in the HVAC industry, and they didn't like the new guy in town's hiring practices. The cops seemed to care less so he wanted to catch them red handed.
The requirements came down to being weatherproof, and also having low light capability for night surveillance. As I began pricing things out, I found IP cameras could be had at low starting prices, around $200, but that those models were useless for real surveillance apps. Here are the pitfalls I found.
A) Most IP cameras below $400-$500 lack an auto-iris, but rather simulate one in software. If you can't mechanically restrict how much light is getting to the CCD sensor, you have to sacrifice sensitivity to the point where night time images won't be useful.
B) Many IP cameras use cheap CCD chips. In the CCTV industry people look for SONY Super-HAD and Ex-View CCD chips because of their night time sensitivity. Try finding something IP based with one of these CCDs and see what it costs you. An analog b&w SONY Super-HAD night camera can be had for $115, and a color daytime model only $185. IP Camera? About $1000. Want color and a good night picture? You need a model that uses solenoid to remove the IR cut filter when it gets dark, otherwise the night picture will be no good. Good luck finding an IP version with this at a reasonable price. The cost for a color analog camera with a mechanical day/night filter is $235.
C) Weatherproof models command a much bigger premium than their analog counterparts.
D) Network bandwidth may be an issue for large setups, as full frames are sent via mjpeg. Court precedent says that to be admissable, digital video footage must be stored as complete frames, so count out any of the mpeg codecs.
Now also figure this, whether you use an analog or IP camera you will still need a computer to store all your footage. $50 is what a 4 channel BTTV based CCTV capture board will cost you, and they are much less on ebay. In terms of software, ZoneMinder is open source and will stream compressed video across the internet while recording high quality frames locally. It supports any format ffmpeg supports, even flash video, and does things like auto-cycling and motion detection recording w/ user definable sensitivity areas.
For a 4 camera setup an IP camera solution will cost nearly 3x to 4x as much as analog. So I have judged them as being useful only for large corporate customers with deep pockets. Anyone here using ip cameras, especially for outdoor surveillance? What do you use and what did it cost?