The main enemy of the NVR market in Latin America is the price, however, this is a technology that aspires to overcome that paradigm by offering the best for IP surveillance systems. By: Duván Chaverra A.
In the article of the January/February 2009 edition, in the Market and Technology section we talk about NVRs, their function, design and technology. We make it clear that they are equipment that work on the recording of digital images that are emitted by an IP surveillance network. They can also convert images from analog cameras, which must have a previous study because their operation is by computer platform and I could suffer from the common drawbacks of these equipment.
On this occasion we will talk about the evolution that these teams have had. Is it still a developing technology? Has it established itself in the Latin American market? What kind of news can we know about these systems? We will also highlight the market penetration that this type of equipment has had.
These and other questions will be resolved by four experts from the global industry and who have a market in Latin America, such as Julio Lizarazo, representative of Sony; Zhenbo Chen, software engineer at Hikvisión; Jesús Fierro, manager of new business development at Bosch, and Alexander Gutiérrez, sales representative of the Andean area, and Rich Anderson, technology manager of Samsung GVI.
The market in Latin America
This will be our first topic to analyze. Initially, Julio Lizarazo said that the Latin American NVR market has not yet taken off as expected, because the technology of DVRs retains supremacy in recording equipment. However, he expects the migration to IP to take faster steps so that NVRs capture more audiences.
"DVRs are still the dominant tool for recording in the security industry, and are expected to continue to grow longer, as the solution provides sufficient reliability and ease for basic users and can be suitably advanced for solutions at scale using video analytics. However, with the continuous tendency to move to IP equipment, there is a movement towards NVRs, since these facilitate much more the transfer towards network surveillance, in particular due to the functionality of the homologation of the protocols, which would allow the use of equipment from any manufacturer. "
Lizarazo also comments that price and Internet infrastructure are factors that influence the massification of NVRs within the region: "Latin American countries (helped by the economic crisis) still make decisions largely based on price, and the difference in prices from a DVR to an NVR is sometimes not easy to justify with the management that makes the purchase decisions. On the other hand, the Internet infrastructure is not ready for the transmission of data when it is necessary to transmit it over public networks, although with DVR solutions this functionality is not even possible."
He added that license requests mean that systems are operating on a smaller scale: "We also noticed that most of the demand for NVR's are in the licensing range of 9 to 16 channels, which tells us that it is used in small solutions."
Zhenbo Chen of Hikvision supports the above claim by explaining that this type of technology is only being used in low-ranking projects: "Currently, NVRs are applied in some special projects in small percentages, for example as for some banks. Generally, Latin American countries have poor networks and people are not as involved in the IP solution. However, the tendency is that more and more people know the convenience of the network and want to apply this. The main NVR is still PC-based and the software accounts for much of the entire system."
For his part, Alexander Gutierrez, of Samsung GVI, gave us some numbers that the company handles within the video recorder market, which shows that the movement has grown, although it is not yet the flagship product: "In 2009, for building automation projects of more than US $ 100 thousand, 75% of the video recording solutions requested are based on NVR (IP). For urban surveillance, it would seem that 95% of the projects use NVRs. For projects of multiple locations (such as banks with different branches) we would say that only 20% is requested for "pure" IP solutions, 50% are requested for hybrid DVR solutions (including megapixel support) and 30% required DVRs. Obviously, the trend is for IP and Hybrid based solutions.
Jesús Fierro, from Bosch, said that sales are mainly concentrated in NVRs with 16 or more channels: "The group with the highest growth is the 16-channel group, with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 31.9% in the continental area, defined mainly by the United States. There is no reliable information on growth in Latin America, but in the middle and high range it can be even greater, considering new installations, hybrid expansions and complete renovations. Applications smaller than 16 channels are still the natural terrain of DVRs. Latin America is no stranger to these global trends, and the technologies that come from North America, Europe and Asia make their way into the market, but it is the users who adopt the architectures that best suit them in their application. "
Our invited sources agree that banks are one of the sectors that most use this type of solutions. That's the case with Hikvision and Samsung GVI: "Government (including urban surveillance), automation of important buildings and infrastructure, banking and financial services," said GVI's Gutierrez, while Hikvision's Chen said in this regard that "almost all banks that have their own VPN and some chain department stores when they need centralized storage for hundreds of TB videos from each chain warehouse they own."
At Sony, on the other hand, the agencies that make up citizen security are part of its most important customers: "The largest market is that of the police, army and government agencies. Sony's NVRs are hybrids, they can be connected to analog cameras, megapixel, high definition (it has HDMI outputs) and are also open platform. This makes a large part of our market users who already have a solution installed and are only looking to expand it without losing the equipment they already have installed. Within this group enter the chain warehouses (retail) cameras in each recorder, warehouses, POS, etc., which are also a market that is acquiring NVR's to have centralized recording, "explained the representative of the brand.
For Boshc, the sectors that use NVRs are of great caliber: "In medium (prisons, airports) and large professional applications ("Enterprise", centralized public monitoring, casinos) the trend is towards software-based NVRs, while hardware-based NVRs are finding a place in applications where the environment is rigorous or space is limited, such as offshore platforms and underground rail systems.
To finish with the first analysis, we conclude that NVRs are not dominating the market, this is supported by our guests as follows:
1.Samsung GVI: "No, they are not mastering it, as some users prefer to use the hardware selection of their own computer. This is a still very valuable and growing market segment," said Rich Anderson, chief technology officer.
2.Hikvision: "Not exactly. In fact, decentralized and centralized storage are appropriate for different applications. For example, the decentralized storage mode can be applied in projects with different monitoring points located in various locations, as it can solve the problem of excessive network bandwidth occupancy and ensure hassle-free video processing; although centralized storage mode is appropriate in other applications, such as large-scale projects that apply complicated architecture and more cross-system operating requirements. Overall, the NVR centralized storage mode is an irresistible trend for storage management," said Zhenbo Chen.
3.Sony: "Not really, by number of units even NVRs only represent 2-3%, and in representation of sales they mean less than 20%. It is expected that by 2013 these shares will change to 10-12% and 35-40% in sales," said Lizarazo.
4.Bosch: DVRs definitely continue to be the most widely used recorders. However, replacing analog recorders will gradually have a smaller impact while their installed base is reduced. There is also the factor that the consumption of analog cameras is increasingly slower in the coming years while the more established geographic markets reach a saturation point that coincides with a reduction in the cost of IP cameras, favoring the consumption of these. There is increasing competition between DVRs and IP video recording solutions, including NVRs.
In conclusion, in the NVR market it is not known for sure the future that awaits this technology, although expectations are positive. What is clear is that it is a product that is not yet positioned as much as its manufacturers expect.
User Acceptance
A user looking to install NVRs in their company is betting on an expensive but efficient technology. Its functions are easy to handle and the installation is comfortable.
Our guests talk about consumer acceptance of this technology: "The level of acceptance for NVRs is very high. End users who purchase such an appliance eliminate some of the installation and maintenance work associated with a traditional software product operation on a general-purpose computer," said GVI's technology manager.
"Currently, more end users are inclined to apply the centralized storage mode to save video data and the NVR may be the best choice for this, as it possesses a powerful storage capacity of up to 100 TB by adopting disk selection technology," said Zhenbo Chen of Hikvision.
For his part, Jesús Fierro, said that the manufacturer must inform in a better way the user who seeks to acquire a storage system: "Those who are implementing IP video accept the technology as the most modern (although it is not). A lot of education is still required from manufacturers on the subject so that users can differentiate the products and make the best decision, including non-technological aspects such as total cost of ownership. Storage capacity has increased while the relative cost of storage has decreased."
Recent developments
During 2009 new developments have been presented on NVRs, for example, the compatibility of these equipment with different types of cameras: "A couple of years ago they could be connected a very limited number of cameras, and they were only dedicated to receiving the information and recording it. Then, features have been added, such as intelligent analysis of images and objects, and the ability to process images from a greater number of cameras at a higher frame rate per second, DVD burner, and user interfaces and friendlier user management. The new generation of NVR's are hybrids. Since it is compatible with analog cameras, IP, standard definition, high definition and megapixel".
Content analysis is another of the main developments that these systems have presented: "The incorporation of video content analysis should be highlighted, especially in PC-based NVRs or hardware-based NVRs but with powerful video management software . Also the addition of adapters that free processors from the load of communications with arrays, but increase the cost and do not compare to the efficiency of direct-to-disk burning solutions."
Finally, Rich Anderson of Samsung GVI said that "we have seen advances in performance and functionality that make NVRs the equivalent of general-purpose and software products on the market."
BOX
Direct recording to disc
Jesús Fierro, manager of new business development at Bosch, spoke about NVRs that do not need a physical body for their operation, their way of storing is direct to the disk.
"Direct-to-disc recording is currently one step beyond NVRs. The concept is apparently the same (recording video streams directly from the network), but from the technical point of view the difference is that a "box" (the NVR) is not used to perform recording tasks. "
This allows IP cameras to be video servers (iSCSI initiators) that communicate directly with arrays (usually RAID) grouped in a SAN (Storage Area Network) using the iSCSI protocol.
"NVRs are not used, the recording is direct on arrays whose hardware (including of course disks) is much more robust and redundant, the overall data transfer rate of the system is higher and the operating systems used are specific to the hardware and storage function," Fierro concluded.
