Live From China CPSE 2015

Published Nov 02, 2015 05:00 AM

China's growing influence, if not dominance, of the global video surveillance market is unquestionable.

To better understand this, IPVM has gone to China. Our first stop is CPSE, which claims ~1000 exhibitors and 100,000+ attendees (~4x that of ISC West, ASIS, IFSEC, etc.)

Here is a quick video clip from the show floor:

Key Observations

  • HD analog is big in China. Outside of a few large companies focused on enterprise projects, pretty much everyone is marketing HD analog prominently. Overall, at the show, HD analog and IP had roughly the same level of promotion.
  • Hikvision, Dahua, and Uniview are high-endIn China, Hikvision, Dahua, and Uniview are regarded as high end, much like Axis et al. in the West. This is in stark contrast to North America, where these Chinese companies are most often referred to as “budget” manufacturers.
  • Project business is very important. Since the government funds or controls so much of the infrastructure in China, many cameras that would be part of a smaller private business in the West are part of a much larger system in China. These favor larger manufacturers and IP.
  • Main differentiator is price: There are hundreds of manufacturers / assemblers in China. The most common differentiator is that they do the same as Hikvision and Dahua but at lower cost. There is little R&D / IP / product innovation for smaller competitors. However, they do add price pressure and provide options for rock bottom camera prices (e.g.,, $5 to $10 for HD analog).

Key *********

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  • *******, ******* ******** ****** ** ********** are ********* ****. **** **** *** name ********* **** ** ********* ******* speakers.

Key *********

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Podcast *********

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  • **:** - ******* *** ******* ****** China
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Hall *

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Hikvision *** *****

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Smaller ******

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****

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*****-*******

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****

****'* ***** **** *** ********* *** more ** ****. ***** *** **** visited *** *****'* ******* **** **** market *** *********. ** ** ***** to **** ********* *** ***** ** their ** **** ****. **** *** more ******** ** *** ** ****.

Comments (18)
UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
Nov 02, 2015

Love the parade and the selling of brochures. Good business mindset. XD

(1)
U
Undisclosed #2
Nov 02, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Western booths did not have anywhere near the traffic as Chinese ones.

And the traffic that was there was not interested in buying, only measuring...

(1)
(1)
U
Undisclosed #2
Nov 02, 2015
IPVMU Certified

CPSE = The Great Video Wall of China.

(2)
Avatar
Jim Kirk
Nov 02, 2015

The Hikvision booth video was very informative in showing the PTZ Darkfighter and mount configurations. The Darkfighter PTZ size is huge.

Request to Ethan: Ask Hikvision if they can open up the iVMS-5200 software for trial in North America just like in Europe. http://www.hikvision.com/europe/download_more.asp?id=1461

Maybe to IPVM members who would register and give feedback. Love to try it out with their new PTZ 3MP and 4K Dome cameras which I'd buy.

(1)
(1)
JH
John Honovich
Nov 03, 2015
IPVM

James,

I forwarded your interest and contact info to Hikvision. I am not sure if they will make it broadly available but they might be willing to send a trial to you.

John

Avatar
DILEEP LAL
Nov 03, 2015
IPVMU Certified

I have attended the show.. Yes Ethan's brodcasting are realistic as I have observed the same...

I belive CPSE is manily focused for Local maket integrators and manufactures... where as Global Sourcing Fair in Hong Kong have more foreign attendies..

The majority of manufactures are based in Shenzhen..They used to invite and drag the foreign visitors to their factory after the show...

CPSE may be the largest security show in terms of exhibitors and attendies ..

I also face the language issues.. most of the well know exhibitors does not have competent english speakers..

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #3
Nov 03, 2015

I wish I'd got a photo of the company looking to partner for OEM/ODM, offering their Vondol (SP) domes concept, plastered all over their booth. :)

We had a translator with us. Looking at many of the smaller manufacturers booths it would have been impossible without help. Only enough English to try to drag you onto the booth.

Lots of thermal solutions on display and large format many PTZ's / PT heads.
Bigest were some ball type units approx 1.5m diameter. For border security, with IR and lens ranges up to 20km distance. Yes for the IR too.

Hik's recgonition platform was very interesting, it was doing image recognition on vehicles and people and cyclists. Reporting the LPR, the vehicle colour, make & model (believe from the image not the LPR!), driver and passenger presence and their sex, sunvisor up/down and if they were wearing a seatbelt.

Info was only in Chinese. But it's worth checking up on that at their HQ. Here is a SKU for you: DS-GPKIA0100

Quite impressive stuff and at the HQ they will likely have a live setup linked to the cameras they have mounted on the street.

The twin camera "dome" which was reported a couple of weeks back was present. It's a very nice design in person but by god it was running hot.
The use case explained to us was for loan application interviews. It was displaying a PiP image with the customer in full screen and the loan officer in a corner.

Perhaps their plan is to do analytics on the person in the image and score them to see if they are lying or not given the various tells we are supposed to have when lying.

There was also some analytics for "employee motivation". Are they at their desk, are they engaged with the VDU, are they on their phone, making a call or gaming, are they talking to a colleague etc. Frightening.

(3)
JH
John Honovich
Nov 03, 2015
IPVM

Great feedback!

"There was also some analytics for "employee motivation". Are they at their desk, are they engaged with the VDU, are they on their phone, making a call or gaming, are they talking to a colleague etc. Frightening."

Lol!

"The twin camera "dome" which was reported a couple of weeks back was present. It's a very nice design in person but by god it was running hot.
The use case explained to us was for loan application interviews."

Interesting. I do not get it, though. Loan application interviews are a distinct minority of cameras / spots in banks. It's teller where most cameras go and I still don't see how this fits logistically.

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #3
Nov 03, 2015

Different applications for China vs US ?

From what I see in the movies, the teller & customer in the US face each other over an open desk. In China they are seperated by a wall of impact resistant glass partioning. Many countries in Europe do this too. Loan interviews are handled typically in a room with a closed door in private. Again in the movies I see this happens open plan in the US.

The average chinese guy is accepting that everything they do is being recorded. Perhaps the banks take the view that because they can record the interaction they might as well. They will have a cam in that room anyway, so why not design one specifically to focus on the faces of those involved?
Times that by the many millions (billions!) of people that are going to be making a loan application for a house or a car in China.
You also don't know when the video might come in useful later. We would call it the anti big brother arguement.

But for the US & Europe I could see this camera (privacy concerns?) at the teller location. Good facial capture of the person with drawing the money. If it's later found fraudulent you've for a perfect picture of them. If they complain about something you also know who the teller was at the time. I think it solves a problem of having to fit two typical cameras into a scenario where perhaps you don't want it to look like a camera or have limited space. I think it does that quite well. Convert and overt go hand in hand.

Dahua and Hikvision are targetting the verticals directly now. It's not about just making cameras (or access & intrduer which they are both doing) for typical situations, they are going after niche solutions for the vertical markets. Hik had a steroscopic camera for use for better IDing. Loitering analytics engine (presented as waiting at a bus stop, metro, lift etc). And this banking cam (if that's what it is), and other stuff I missed as their stand was 10 deep.


The report mentioned the drones. These are going to be linked into the city wide systems. Want to track someone more closely? Send out the drones. Fire? Accident? Other Incident? Send a drone.
I know it all sounds a little far fetched and bit movie, but it's happening in China. You can't drive around a 1st tier city without the ANPR tracking your movements. Most of the Chinese folks I speak to think this is ok, because it's stops the "terrorists" - they mean criminals, it's low level stuff, but often the media report them as terrorists. Crimes solved are often reported as having been aided by the big city wide CCTV networks. So its a good thing right?

Did Ethan see the opening ceremony? There was a drone front and centre filming it all.
Couldn't move for drones in the markets this year, never mind @ CPSE. Either they were pushing them for applications, or they were using them to bring people into the stand.

Does Milestone have drone integration yet? :)

Deal of the day for me was a vendor passing out flyers offering a sample show price of a AHD 4chan DVR coming with two ball cams for $19. Just add a HD.
Race to the bottom.

BG
Bob Germain
Nov 03, 2015

John- I think MonoVu is more for general transaction monitoring. I have seen this application for auto loans and mortgage transactions. I would say it is still a niche application.

(Disclosure- Hik Employee)

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #4
Nov 04, 2015

I am surprised that you said most of attendees are randomly off the street... No. They are not. Most of attendees are registered from the internet, and then get the badge outside of the Hall. That's reason why you see the long waiting line there.

I am also surprised that you skipped many shining products shown on CPSE easily. For example, the 4K+H.265 IPC, for example, the 3D camera based on computer vision, for example, the cloud platform, for example, the Chinese SVAC standard.

Instead, you are focusing the language, the badge sellers, and the trash collectors. They are far away from the professional topic.

(2)
U
Undisclosed #2
Nov 04, 2015
IPVMU Certified

Is SVAC that state mandated h.264 replacement? Everybody must be thrilled to see it in action...

What's Vimicro's next target? TCP/IP maybe?

JH
John Honovich
Nov 04, 2015
IPVM

4, thanks for the feedback. Ethan spoke with Hikvision today and they say that SVAC is not being widely implemented. It was 'standardized' but that it is largely being ignored even inside of China and on safe city projects.

If you have more info, please share.

U
Undisclosed
Nov 04, 2015

We know the big guns support ONVIF but what about the others? In the low cost sector is there a growing base of support or not so much?

JH
John Honovich
Nov 04, 2015
IPVM

Richard, pretty much every small Chinese assembler / manufacturer claims ONVIF support but very few are actually officially conformant. We suspect that many of them share / redistribute camera firmware but there does not appear to be much quality control / testing, etc. for the lower cost IP cameras (i.e., IP cameras you see for sale for $50, $40, $30, etc.).

U
Undisclosed
Nov 04, 2015

John, thanks for quick response and clarification. You are probably right; with the exception of analytics and perhaps optics, the guts of an IP camera are commodity stuff. I should have realized that before asking. As for their not being ONVIF members, I don’t blame them as I too dropped out this year when hit with a doubling of the cost of admission. If ONVIF continue that for a few more years they’ll be boasting a pretty slim membership I suspect.

JH
John Honovich
Nov 04, 2015
IPVM

Technically, if you sell an IP camera under your own brand (even things like ADI W-Box or Tri-Ed Northern), you must be an ONVIF member and you must run conformance test on each camera you ship / release / sell.

I am not sure how ONVIF membership will trend, but one is clearly in violation of their terms for not doing so.

The bigger practical problem is that, in our testing, the no-name, low cost, non-conformant sellers tend to have a lot more problems with their ONVIF implementation (or lack therefore).

Avatar
Rumen Palmov
Nov 07, 2015

For me, as a European the CPSE show was pretty interesting and quite useful. In the EE market the Chinese manufacturers have already conquered the biggest share of the pie, so nothing new. I had the chance to meet in person many small companies that I've already worked with for some time, which was nice. Aside from the main details that IPVM's team has shared I would add some interesting points that I was able to find like Ex-proof cameras and housings (didn't know Chinese companies were up to that) and video walls - there were several companies exhibiting pretty nice huge video walls for both security and commercial/digital signage applications.

The next 3-megapixel TVI generation and H.265 were also a keynote for me, with several companies showcasing such cameras as well as hybrid TVI/AHD models. Also the CPSE was literally a gold mine for smaller CCTV accessories e.g. PSU units, transceivers, media converters, baluns, etc which are also good source of turnover for a CCTV distributor. All of my suppliers for these smaller gadgets come from Shenzhen and now I have even more.

All other IPVM notes about the show are quite true, but one has to admit that even the parades/strange characters and the constant flow of "manga style" short girls spamming you with PoE switches and home diy IP cameras is somewhat funny. Also I was quite impressed with Shenzhen which much like Shanghai and Hangzhou (as Ethan will probably confirm later) looks like a futuristic skyscraper city coming out from a George Orwell's novel. Just next to the huge exhibition center there is the 4th tallest building in the world being finished just now - I passed next to it each day, but I was able to know that fact from Internet a couple of days later in Hong Kong because of the internet restrictions in mainland China :)