ONVIF today

Please, note, that the article is automtically translated from Russian into English, so the translation may not be accurate.

D. Shelestov, commercial director of ITV / AXXON

The support of the standards with IP-devices is now a very important element in the establishment and expansion of modern surveillance systems. The production of IP- devices ( cameras, servers) has increased significantly, and almost all the manufacturers that previously have been producing analog cameras , now are making IP - cameras.

Business strategy of companies producing VMS (Video Managment System, ie, CCTV) that are designed to integrate all quite difficult. Since each manufacturer is constantly modified version of the preinstalled software in the terminals and introduces new, then keep everything becomes harder and harder. Not to mention that the number of manufacturers and brands is increasing steadily.

Basic standards for equipment integration

At the moment there are two standards which are to deal with this variety: ONVIF and PSIA. If you are not familiar with them, I recommend you look at these sites consortia (www.onvif.org and www.psialliance.org), as well as publications in the media, made by my colleagues (for ex., see Overview of standard ONVIF). Directly in this article will examine the current state of affairs in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Besides now there is quite a bit of local information, and most importantly – isn’t enough information about what with what is applied. You can quite safely say that ONVIF more common in Europe, Japan and the former Soviet Union. Naturally, this has happened through the work of the founding companies: Axis Communications, Bosch Security and Sony, who enjoyed undisputed authority, and have impressive hardware sales.

Another standard - PSIA - was invented before, and is most common in the U.S. Conventional wisdom is that the standard of PSIA is easier to implement, but is inferior in flexibility and functionality.

Recently a consortium of ONVIF announced a significant expansion of the subject area of the standard. In particular, declared the standardization of interaction within the access control systems (ACS) and support for new devices: video network storage (NVS), networked video displays (NVD) and network analytics (NVA) (see table).

Services necessary for each type of device¹

¹ Obligatory projects dare marked by the letter M. If the optional function is implemented in the device, the corresponding service, which must be maintained, it's represented by the letter C.

Domestic market: the present situation

What is the situation at the post-soviet market at the moment?
Despite the fact that the market requires a development, we survive a period that may be characterized as follows: "We work with many brands and models of cameras and IP-servers". This is confirmed by the exhibition and advertising banners manufacturers VMS systems (which we have two dozen at least). This is bad, but unfortunately, such is a picture we will see another 1-2 years.

They are already talking about the wide spreading  usage of IP-based technologies for security in Europe (more and more projects are created on the IP-equipment), but we're late for 2-3 years  and this can’t be escaped, at least from the fact that the concept of additional infrastructure for the IP, not all the same.

The market situation for IP is changing at an astounding rate, and the fact that only yesterday seemed to be something inaccessible, it is now surrounds you from all sides. Each camera manufacturer, as well as software that works with them to understand that "place under the sun" in the market IP-based video surveillance do right now. Crisis, which has made some changes and gave an additional chance to manufacturers from China, Korea and Taiwan. And in their low market segment  the primary goal is to provide a solution acceptable quality in the budget price range. Thoughts of a uniform standard where there is little popular.

The most common in the Russian market of VMS, which began to support ONVIF, may be called ITV / AHXON (Russia). Much less known, but also present Mileslone Systems (Denmark). Given the trend of globalization of business and pursuing strategic goals, all manufacturers are aware that compatibility with ONVIF will turn their proposals in popular products. And such a trend requires a focus on issues of storage of video, not on problems related to the integration of a model. The main focus of VMS their producers would be on usability video surveillance system, the development of vertical markets, as well as the use of various analytics tools and search the archive of useful information.

Already on the market available to search videos in the archive, based on analysis of data on the movement of objects in the frame. There is also an automated system to search for similar individuals who also worked with archival data. One aspect of this trend - the joint work of intelligent search tools and analytics in the form of professionally designed detectors that are directly "on board" any device (see the article).

ONVIF standard evolves and changes, and participate in its formation takes a large group of companies - developers of software and hardware.

"Our specialists are actively involved directly in the development of the standard ONVIF and enter the number of working groups. This applies to the standard for IP-based cameras, IP-servers, as well as for access control systems. It allows us to influence the development of protocols ONVIF and its possibilities - says Julian Batrankova Manager, IP-based integration of ITV / AXXON.

ONVIF: prospects for development

Embodiment of the idea that soon all the manufacturers will pass on the standard ONVIF, it was possible to feel the full extent at the recent festival ONVIF Public Plugfest (conference hardware manufacturers and software for video surveillance and security, members of the forum ONVIF) in Essen in the international Exhibition Essen Security'2010 (Germany).

True, it is worth noting that out of 210 members of the forum ONVIF in a demonstration attended by only 17 companies. Even taking into account the presence of some members of technical failures, we can say that the standard support is not guaranteed by each manufacturer.

"The main problem for the end user - Nikolai Ptitsyn General Director of “Synesis“, comments -  is that most companies have implemented only basic services ONVIF, such as detection devices and video transmission. More complex functionality, like sending of event messages and management of a local store has not yet worked out a standard sufficiently. Essential Harnessing ONVIF will happen within next year, when the intelligent IP-devices are available to a user. We hope that this transition will be painless because of the software update of firmware and drivers.

I would like to finish by saying that the modern period is interesting because we are on the verge of fundamental changes in the market. They are fundamental since they are creating a brand new idea of what a security system should provide.