Why the Hesitation?

Despite increased demand, some integrators and/or end users still hesitate to make the migration. Why? “Typically, it’s always been price of the product,” Cook states. “But even more importantly, it’s the price of rewiring to Cat-5 from coax, or putting in baluns at each end in order to use the existing wiring, if possible.”

Elsayed and Roberts agree that the hesitation is usually all about the budget. Depending on the size of the available budget, Roberts says, Setronics will customize camera technology migration solutions over an extended period of time.

“For example, we have multiple school districts that have been upgrading from their existing analog systems to IP systems over the past three years,” Robert says. “Each year, we upgrade as many cameras as their budgets allow, which is usually around $100,000. The end result is a completely upgraded system after year five. During the migration stage, we ensure the end user can view all cameras through a single hybrid video management system that can stream both analog and IP signals.”

As far as end users are concerned, the chief reason for hesitation, Miller contends, is the assumption of wasted investments, such as analog devices, infrastructure, cabling, etc., along with the substantial spending that’s required to migrate. He believes a lack of technical experience in TCP/IP and networking often hinders integrators who don’t have an IT background, and that these are common misconceptions that can easily be overcome with the right vendor partner.

Choi concurs that many integrators and installers do not have networking backgrounds and may be a bit apprehensive of setting up a networked surveillance system because it can be intimidating. Another deterrent he sees is that many locations already have coax wiring in place and end users don’t want to spend additional money to have Ethernet wiring run.

Tri-Ed’s Leary agrees that dealers’ unfamiliarity with IP networking, coupled with the high costs of changing cabling, has prevented many from embracing IP video surveillance. But that, he believes, is changing.

“These hurdles have been greatly mitigated through education, recent rapid declines in cost, the advent of plug-and-play IP products and the development of transmission devices like Ethernet over coax,” he points out. “Analog HD products may make some integrators and end users hesitate due to the fact that they can pretty much drop in place and yield up to 1080p resolution with very low equipment cost.”

End Users Mapping Out Migrations

End users making the switch to a complete IP-based solution continue to run the gamut of doing gradual upgrades to those that commit to a complete overhaul. Roberts reports that, typically, the company’s small to midsized clients have the capital to upgrade everything, while larger clients more often opt to take advantage of a leasing program or a staged migration route.

Miller
adds that, depending on the degree to which end users are contractually locked into their analog systems, some have opted to blend in the superior performance of IP video surveillance components into their existing platforms. However, he does see a growing trend to get rid of the old and replace with only IP equipment.

Another key consideration, as Choi and others have pointed out, is that the decision often is contingent on the wiring of the building. For brand new buildings, complete IP-based solutions are more common, he says, but for older buildings Speco products are being deployed in a lot of hybrid installs (analog + IP).

“A new technology has been released recently, called HD-TVI, which allows for HD 1080p video over standard coax,” he explains. “This category is growing fast because it offers the picture quality that’s on par with IP without requiring new wiring.”

The majority of Hikvision’s customers, Elsayed notes, want to isolate CCTV or high resolution video traffic from their existing networks, either through physical or virtual network segmentation. “Where customers have invested in robust networks, they may choose to maximize their network infrastructure investment by segmenting and using it for CCTV. Rather than running a parallel or private network, they will use a portion of their existing network for CCTV.”

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