BRS Labs continues to be more brazen in their over the top marketing claims. With yet another group providing them an award based on zero testing or in-depth technical analysis, BRS Labs claims, "There is no required pre-programming or manual set...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
Awards assist manufacturers in selling products rather than identifying the best solutions for user's needs. This is a growing concern as the number of awards are increasing substantially. This month [September 2009], both ASIS and Security Produ...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
While there are many startups in video surveillance, many of them have under-achieved, especially the most prominent, VC backed companies in the market. Indeed, this has caused VentureBeat to symbolize the security startup market as a sinking ship...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
In this test, we examine one of the most discussed manufacturers in video analytics - VideoIQ. Their claims of automatic calibration and self-learning technology has drawn substantial interest. Their most recent product offering, the iCVR, is one ...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
Megapixel was the most dominant trend in IP cameras over the first half of 2009. So dominant was megapixel, that not only did most manufacturers release new megapixel cameras but a new non-IP megapixel standard was proposed. Not surprisingly, indu...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
Over the first half of 2009, improvements in deployment simplicity was the strongest theme for video management systems. While few to no groundbreaking features were introduced, more than a dozen manufacturers took steps to reduce the complexity o...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
The last six months were rough for video analytics. Little good news and lots of public recognition of video analytic troubles. In our own recent analysis and survey on video surveillance technology trends, video analytics finished a distant third...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
So much for green shoots - at least for Axis. In their just released Q2 financial report, Axis leads with "No Change in Sales Trend" which is not a good thing considering their abrupt drop from last year's almost 40% growth rate. This will certai...
By John Honovich - almost 10 years ago
Cisco is making a major push into the small business market. As part of this, Cisco is increasing both their product offerings and marketing of video surveillance products. Cisco's success (or lack thereof) in the enterprise video surveillance ma...
By John Honovich - about 10 years ago
More pixels provide the opportunity for greater field of views and less cameras. However, stock lenses provided with cameras only offer moderately wide fields (60-70 degrees). A few companies are now developing wider angle lenses to help solve th...
By John Honovich - about 10 years ago
What's interesting is that when I talk to industry people, BRS Labs now is consistently listed among the top video analytics companies. This has to be their strong marketing efforts over the last year (since it is certainly not independent test re...
By John Honovich - about 10 years ago
Recently, results from a facial recognition test for the Korean National Police were reported widely by 3VR of obtaining: "85-92 percent accuracy in recognizing and matching faces in a few crowded, highly-trafficked public train stations in Seoul....
By John Honovich - about 10 years ago
Figuring out how video surveillance products are different is a challenging task. While some products are literally the same, most of them are actually different. The tough questions are (1) how are they different? and (2) how important are those ...
By John Honovich - about 10 years ago
Cameras, software and recorders are all becoming more powerful and complex. Higher resolution, multiple streams, multiple analytics and more powerful CODECs greatly enhance the potential of video surveillance. At the same time, using multiple feat...
By John Honovich - about 10 years ago
Despite the great hype for Cisco's entrance into video surveillance, Cisco has not demonstrated significant success in the market. They have won only a limited number of projects and many, if not most, of those are tied to larger Cisco deployments...
By John Honovich - over 10 years ago
This is no ordinary recession. Dramatic and permanent changes have already begun. In conversations with over 30 end users, integrators and manufacturers over the last 2 weeks, the changes are happening faster and deeper than even I predicted a few...
By John Honovich - over 10 years ago
While 2009 was the year of megapixel surveillance cameras, it was also the year where confusion between HD and megapixel cameras began. Historically, everyone who sold cameras with 1 million pixels or more called them megapixel cameras. However, i...
By John Honovich - over 10 years ago
The recession is forcing broad reductions. Worse, the era of excess consumer spending is over. In response, most business around the world, whether they buy or sell video surveillance, will have to tighten their belts. Even if your company was gro...
By John Honovich - over 10 years ago
Internet economics and the recession pose a significant risk to the future of trade shows. A broad trend facing all technology industries, we may see dramatic reductions and changes to leading security trade shows in the next 3 years. With Norbain...
By John Honovich - over 10 years ago
10-20% of all spending on video surveillance goes to sales and marketing costs yet customers find great difficulty determining the best solution for their needs. The solution to this, just like in stocks and real estate, is to eliminate traditiona...
By John Honovich - over 10 years ago
What's really interesting about "convergence" is using video for marketing and operation purposes rather than security - IT integration. Today, I read a post from the CEO of Envysion that nicely made the point and voiced my own concerns with the ...
By John Honovich - about 11 years ago
Almost all IP video info is vendor marketing. Good decision making requires critically reading and analyzing this material. At first, I did not believe that most information was vendor marketing material. Obviously, web sites and press releases...
By John Honovich - about 11 years ago
Most new technology fails but when it is successful, the business benefits can be enormous. The challenge then is how to efficiently determine what new technology is legit so that you simultaneously avoid disaster and reap the rewards of the rare...
By John Honovich - about 11 years ago
