Why choose between centralised and decentralised, when you can have both?
Closed Circuit TV, or CCTV as we know it has fundamentally changed over the years. In the days of the, shall we say, more traditional technologies using coaxial cable, all CCTV systems were centralised. That is to say, every cable went back to a single point and connected to a single (or rack of) device(s).
This worked well for many, many years. It still works in today’s IP enabled camera systems, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It does mean that there is a single point where all the processing is done. Which means large, and often increasing, investment.
The concept
It is surprisingly simple. Instead of having a basic box with a lens, stuff the lens on to a small PC and give it the ability to store the images it sees. Then give it the ability to zoom in, while still recording the original view. On top of that, add in some clever event detection processes and some variety in how to notify the security team, or any other individual or group.
Then power it all by an Ethernet cable and all of a sudden, the concept makes much more sense. A decentralised system is highly adaptive and can be expanded almost indefinitely – as long as there is a cable and a switch of course.
The impact on the network is minimal and the flexibility to view the system, or an individual camera, from anywhere (connectivity dependent, of course!) only adds benefit.
Oh, and did we mention that the software powering the decentralized camera is constantly evolving with new features?
Centralising
If the decentralised concept is so beneficial, why would you need to add centralised cameras?
The decentralised MOBOTIX cameras do not contain any moving parts which makes them incredibly reliable, but somewhat inflexible in positioning. Fixed focal lengths and no physical pan/tilt/zoom function add to the problem. In most cases, this isn’t a show-stopping problem as the virtual PTZ function and the wide array of lens options generally negate the inherent limitation.
MOBOTIX MOVE series offers cameras that are functionally comparable with other commercially available devices. Both the decentralised MOBOTIX IoT and MOVE cameras offer ONVIF-S compatibility, both of which can be viewed via the MxManagementCentre (MxMC) software or any existing ONVIF compliant VMS.
Photo by Moritz Kindler on Unsplash