An item of particular importance, which is often underestimated in the security industry, are the recorders, which, in large part, are the great support of the work of video surveillance.
by Santiago Jaramillo Hincapié
This paper starts from a clear question: In the Latin American electronic security industry, what is the importance of the recording systems market?
Faced with this question, the engineer Jaime Linares Olaya, administrative and financial manager of the company AGM Business Ltda., has an equally transparent position, which indicates that developing countries, as is the case of most Latin American countries, are constantly faced with processes of commercial and political transformations that lead to social distortion, which usually show a very sensitive trend in security issues.
To do this, these same societies have had to face the latent need to incorporate in all their public and private levels, processes, procedures and technologies that mitigate and withstand the onslaught of insecurity typical of these societies, which, in many cases, turns out to be difficult to manage and controllable for the state, companies and people in general.
The market of electronic security technology, permanently develops solutions that over time have allowed to meet the needs of security, however, the specialization of crime and protection needs have demanded over time more dynamic and flexible solutions, which allow to obtain more reliable, sustainable and manageable information over time.
Thus, in the last decade, developments based on DVR (Digital Video Recorder) technologies have been promoted, which have allowed to mitigate mostly the information needs for security management.
Thus, as in Colombia, for example, Linares Olaya indicates that "in the last five years we have been noticing how more and more companies and people access this technology based on digital cameras, and IP, supported with DVRs that allow the recording and storage 24 hours of images, with wide possibilities to perform automatic searches of the images recorded in days, hours, specific places, location of cameras, etc., becoming today, a modern, reliable, flexible and dynamically manageable alternative to facilitate security management, "he emphasizes.
In this same sense, Fernando Barrientos, regional sales manager of the company Surveon, says that the importance is increasingly noticeable, as users adapt digital or IP solutions to their security systems, which always need a flexible storage system and large capacity
"The use of these recording systems or NVRs grows as the number of IP cameras, or analog video server systems, increases," says Barrientos.
Fernando Esteban, manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean of the company Axis Communications, clarifies that "the recording systems go hand in hand with the camera, one without the other would not make sense at the present time in the region. That is why the systems installed in the world are more reactive than proactive, so it is practically impossible to assume that a CCTV will be monitored all the time and all the cameras, the most common thing is that when there is an event you have to go to the recording, hence the importance of this component in a video surveillance system ".
On the other hand, the administrative and financial manager of the company AGM Business Ltda., emphasizes that in his company for seven years they have been successfully introducing in the Colombian market an excellent line of recording products with their own brand, AGM, which is increasingly recognized in the banking sector and especially the commercial and industrial sector.
"Our brand is accepted for its high standards of quality and price accessible to all the needs and economic capacity of each client. This line occupies today a high percentage of our total sales, being every day more champion in the current development and future expectations of our business, "recognizes Linares.
Meanwhile, the representative of the company Surveon ponders that for his company the strongest segment and the one that represents the highest percentage of sales in the market of recording systems in Latin America are IP cameras. However, he emphasizes that "it is expected that NVR storage systems and SAS Expansion RAID Controllers will have a faster growth in the following months, because they are multi-brand systems, open to working with any type of IP cameras", highlights
As for what kind of technologies or innovations they hope to introduce for this year in the Latin American market in terms of recording systems, Jaime Linares says that since the beginning of this year they have been working with their manufacturers in the adjustment of recording systems that increasingly adapt to the needs of the demanding Colombian market and for this, are incorporating into their product portfolio a new range of DVRs with state-of-the-art architecture and technology applicable to any type of solution.
"We are also progressively making the evolution in cameras of higher resolution, excellent image quality and very competitive prices compared to other brands offered by the market," says our guest.
For his part, Fernando Barrientos indicates that they have new launches in terms of new video analytics functions such as people counting and virtual fence within the VMS Monitoring software. Also, in terms of hardware, it indicates that they have new storage expansion systems capable of growing up to 160TB., guaranteeing even continuous recording needs of more than 30 days of megapixel cameras.
Moving on to the possible recommendations that our guests could make to the users of their recording systems in order to obtain the best result when using their products, the representative of AGM Business Ltda., emphasizes that although in the market there are a number of options of brands and prices, "our recommendation is that when designing recording systems, take into account the technical characteristics and electronic components with which they are manufactured, the design, autonomy and configuration possibilities, added to the benefits for image management and storage, conditions that make the difference between a product of one brand and another".
He also emphasizes that in his case, "AGM CCTV products comply with all quality and design standards, being adjustable to all types of needs, with which the user acquires a technically incomparable product for an excellent price, guarantee, availability of inventories and also, backed by our 30 years of permanence, experience and recognition within the Colombian national market".
The manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean of the company Axis Communications indicates that "the recommendation I would make would be that the recording solution had a software that has certifications, as well as a truthful relationship with the manufacturer of the cameras and the recording system itself, that is, that the company has direct contact with the manufacturer so that at the time of a possible problem it has a real support, and an efficient solution."
Meanwhile, our guest from Surveon emphasizes that we could talk before some barriers "in the subject of knowledge of administration and topology of IP networks, as well as the price in comparative terms with analog solutions, are factors that still represent an element of delay in the adoption of megapixel IP technologies such as the one that our company proposes. However, it is a matter of time before both barriers become less and less significant over time," he says.
However, he indicates that a recommendation that should never be left aside is training, so "attending the various trainings that our company carries out in order to have the latest news about our products and know how to use them in various business opportunities presented in new projects, is a very good alternative".
To conclude, we asked these representatives of the region's security industry where the main investments this year in this industry would be inclined and what the hopes for the future would be.
According to the engineer Jaime Linares, the trend not only this year but for five years and with future projection, is to develop every day more robust, flexible, autonomous recording systems with the highest possible capacity for image storage, which add greater value to the management of security administration.
For his part, Barrientos assures that the greatest investments in this segment were in the field of marketing and promotion, given that "starting requires giving as much information as possible to the user to adopt a new technology".
