TimeSight Ceases Operations, For Sale

Published Aug 15, 2012 00:00 AM
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A few years ago, TimeSight burst on to the scenes with an NVR claiming to deliver massive storage savings up to 90%. Now, TimeSight is ceasing operations and putting itself up for sale. In this note, we examine what happened and what might become of TimeSight's technology.

Background

TimeSight says their goal is to "transition the technology to a new provider" and that they prefer to sell the technology and the product portfolio together.

Key drivers for this decision included 'long sales cycle', and a 'conservative market' for adoption of new technology, according to TimeSight.

Customer and Partner Support

For full details, see a TimeSight FAQ on support for customers and partners. This includes support from a new company formed by former TimeSight employees.

Our Analysis

While we held deep reservations about TimeSight's future for years, their technology has potential for existing VMS / recorder manufacturers. TimeSight has a method for systematically and periodically re-transcoding video to reduce video size for older video, which they call Video Lifecycle Management [link no longer available]. As a feature, it has value and no direct competitive rivals (note: many VMS vendors prune frames but few, if any, re-transcode video).

Concerns do exist including:

  • Transcoding will reduce quality as it reduces storage size. The question is how much and how useable is the video. (Note: their transcoding can keep the resolution the same but lower the compression level - see example of compression level changes).
  • Increased computing load is required for transcoding. While TimeSight says that they have optimized the process and that the increase is incremental, the amount of load will be key.

Ultimately, TimeSight started late and while it had one notable competitive advantage, it was not enough to overcome the inertia and barriers to break into the admittedly conservative surveillance market.