Wireless Networks, Affordable Bandwidth Driving Video Surveillance

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With enterprise set of customers going in for wireless networks and abundant bandwidth, surveillance is gaining popularity and it is becoming easier for the enterprise to go for better surveillance activities for their operations.

Surveillance and other video applications are bandwidth-intensive. There are a number of good strategies for minimizing video bandwidth requirements and costs. But providing adequate bandwidth is always going to be an important challenge for the enterprise.

Today, more and more public safety and other organizations are choosing wireless broadband technology and networks—including Wireless LAN, Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multipoint and other relevant broadband solutions—that are raising the bar on providing exceptionally cost-effective bandwidth for video surveillance applications around the world.

Video Surveillance and Camera Resolutions

As an analogy, the more area covered by a camera—whether analog or digital—the higher the pixel resolution needed. Digital cameras with Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) technological capabilities, although more costly, offer one way to deal with this requirement. And as a result, zooming in on an object narrows the field of vision without affecting resolution.

That means optically zooming in on an object effectively increases available PPF. (Digital zooming has no effect on resolution.) Of course, PTZ capabilities involve a trade-off, too: while panning or zooming in on one area of the screen, you may be missing out on something else.

Today’s standard digital/IP cameras are generally available with three resolution alternatives: A) VGA cameras provide 640x480 resolution, similar to an analog broadcast received on a U.S. television set. B)  QVGA (Quarter-VGA) cameras provide less resolution at 320x240, similar to the perceived quality of an analog VHS recording viewed on a U.S. television set. C) 1.3 Megapixel cameras provide 1280x1024, similar to an HDTV picture.

There are cameras with 2-, 3- and 5-Megapixel resolutions for providing significantly higher resolutions. Bandwidth requirements grow with resolution; in other words, the higher the resolution the higher the bandwidth and storage capacity needed. And as a result, as more and better storage capabilities are getting automated with the surveillance, it requires better bandwidth and network capabilities to monitor and use best of the breed surveillance for an enterprise.

As we brace towards the future, better surveillance would require better bandwidth capabilities and an increased reliance on communications infrastructure would be required to provide the much needed surveillance backup for an enterprise.