Cloudview’s new agreement with Dynamic CCTV will unlock untapped potential to cloud-enable legacy infrastructure as well as to offer new customers extended storage and analytic capabilities.

Dynamic CCTV and Cloudview have entered into a Premium Partnership agreement, bringing the former’s extensive network of installers the opportunity to transition new and existing installations to the cloud and enabling Cloudview to strengthen its presence in the UK and Ireland markets.

Mr. Yu Ning, Managing Director of Dynamic CCTV said: “This announcement is significant for Dynamic CCTV as Hikvision does not currently offer cloud storage capabilities in the UK or Europe. Cloudview being a UK software developer and service company, offers secure 100% cloud-based UK data-residency and 100% UK-based technical support. For Dynamic CCTV customers, this agreement creates new opportunities as it unlocks untapped potential to cloud-enable existing legacy Hikvision CCTV infrastructure as well as to offer new customers extended storage and analytic capabilities,”

Impact of this partnership on cloud CCTV surveillance

Cloud adoption has accelerated across industry verticals in the UK and cloud has become the preferred mode of interacting with most business applications. The CCTV industry, however, is a study in contrast as it has been rather slow to adopt cloud technologies.

That Dynamic CCTV is now supplying brands with video analytics and artificial intelligence at the edge or at the network level is a stellar example of thought leadership, which promises to bring about a transformation in the CCTV segment.

As the Video Surveillance Adoption curve below suggests, technology innovation and value in the first 30 years of the CCTV industry was linear, evolving slowly through various storage-media and networking approaches.

However, in the past five years, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have made a whole new generation of event-based applications available on the camera, the NVR and in the cloud. These include people and vehicle detection, automatic number-plate recognition, facial recognition, people-counting, line-crossing and any number of object recognition applications to improve the accuracy of analytics, safety and surveillance outcomes in general.

CCTV needs to grow beyond just being a deterrent

According to a police college online publication published a few years ago, there is evidence that CCTV reduces crime overall. There is also strong evidence that CCTV is particularly useful in reducing crime in car parks and, to a lesser extent, in residential areas. The most significant reductions were observed for drug crimes, vehicle crime and property crime. However, CCTV Surveillance can no longer be viewed as just a deterrent. In today’s complex societal context, it needs to play a more proactive role in law enforcement.

The UK for instance, is facing a perfect storm of rampant inflation, unprecedented post-Brexit, post-COVID events and an energy-price hike, all contributing to what experts predict will be a significant period of economic recession. Historically, crime rate has risen in a recessionary environment; according to research conducted over a 76-year period, economic downturns typically lead to increases in burglary, robbery and suicides. Research shows that crime is more prevalent in larger towns and cities, especially in the neighbourhoods with the highest levels of income deprivation and unemployment.

Moreover, surveillance is moving from 24×7 local recording to event-based cloud storage as the latter is much more manageable, cost effective, is devoid of hidden costs. It also creates opportunities to flip from reactive, local, server-based CCTV to proactive surveillance with alerting, which is accessible from anywhere at any time.

Enhanced efficacy of CCTV

CCTV was found to be more effective when:

• It involved the active monitoring of live footage

• It had higher levels of camera coverage

• It was used in combination with multiple complementary interventions, such as street lighting

Event-based cloud video creates opportunities for intervention and forensic inquiry, without having the need to have set up a control room.

Cloud video surveillance economics are now sufficiently proven and the technology is adopted in a wide variety of use cases and the risks of failure are sufficiently reduced, to make cloud surveillance attractive to mainstream buyers. Dynamic CCTV customers across the UK & Ireland can now adopt the Cloud service from Cloudview, on both existing and future installations, whilst still receiving the high levels of customer service and technical support hey have become accustomed to.

Typical challenges in CCTV deployment

• Many installers are unaware of the opportunity cloud video offers and are reluctant to adopt a new model based on recurring revenue as opposed to the one-off margins they gain from installing new cameras and recorders plus their maintenance contracts with call-out fees

• A few operators are getting a poor return and high installer call-out rates from existing CCTV investments due to ageing equipment and inability to review what is going on in a local installation and lack of awareness about cameras which have stopped working

• Some security leaders admit that they waste a lot of time and effort to drive to the physical site to manually review and download footage, sometimes weeks after a security event is discovered or reported

• With a looming recession, budgets for analogue to IP upgrades have evaporated and the new priority is to extend the working life of existing serviceable infrastructure. As a result, security experts may consider ways to enhance services offerings at low cost. Their primary goal would be to enable the analogue infrastructure on the cloud and to replace analogue cameras that provide poor video quality with inexpensive, high resolution IP cameras as required.

Housing

A security architect who is starting with a clean slate can use Cloudview to easily define the capabilities of a next-generation video surveillance system for a residential housing or apartment complex:

•  Only record video events when they happen (people movement, doors opening, vehicles detected)

•  Store all events directly in the cloud and make it accessible from anywhere (to alleviate the risk of NVR getting stolen), with the ability to create alerts for security personnel

•  Speed up forensic inquiry by filtering on all the events from a specific camera and for a selected period

•  Identify a time frame and show all related events for any camera installed in the development.

•  Provide authorities with legally admissible evidence, which includes identifying the perpetrator, details on how they entered and exited the complex along with the actual theft footage.

•  Deliver to Security and property managers, daily reports on the status of each camera – to provide them visibility into their security operation and can enforce SLA’s on their outsourced partner.

Construction

During the planning phase of a major new infrastructure project, a developer was struggling with the cost of securing dozens of remote construction sites with 24X7 manned guarding and traditional fixed CCTV. They decided they needed a more flexible, cost-effective alternative and began to explore modern video surveillance solutions with Cloudview. They selected a solution that could:

• Deter theft of valuable equipment at remote, unmanned sites

• Monitor people and vehicle movements specifically for health and safety reasons

• Create alerts on specific events

• Show live view of cameras on any remote site

• Provide video analytics to detect public intrusion, vehicle movements and the absence of PPE (personal protection Equipment)

• Highlight system health and alert when cameras were offline or not recording

• Provide a 4G connection to the cloud as there was no fixed network infrastructure

Education

Educational institutions are well informed when it comes to how to improve student safety on campus, reduce unauthorised access to restricted areas, cases of theft, break-ins and criminal damage especially when the facilities are closed and left unoccupied during nights, weekends and non-term durations.

With limited budgets, schools cannot afford to invest in extensive video surveillance systems and 24/7 monitoring in a control room. Budget constraints also mean that security personnel end up covering multiple duties, making the task of locating CCTV footage of event a highly time-intensive activity. Local storage of footage mean that schools cannot fully comply with GDPR regulations, exposing them to steep fines and loss of reputation.

As a result, schools are now turning to cloud surveillance solutions, where security can react to events that occur across their campus.

Local Government

Shared amenities such as playing fields and parks form a critical part in the lives of modern communities. By remaining open for public use, such facilities provide much-needed open space for children and adults to lead a physically active life. However, these locations also run the risk of misuse and exposure to damage.

Fly-tipping is a crime and a blight on the landscape, costing councils and communities hundreds of millions of pounds per year to dispose of large-scale accumulation of garbage, building waste and unwanted furniture and appliances. In the country unwanted junk is typically dumped on the roadside or in inner cities, places where it’s easy to pull up and empty a car boot or van load without being seen.

Add to this the presence of anti-social elements in such locations, communities live in perennial fear even as the sites continue to suffer environmental damage.

To combat the rising tide of anti-social behaviour, fly tipping and vandalism authorities must have the ability to identify misdeeds in a timely manner and to penalise such actions swiftly. This is the only way that can make a visible change in attitude and behaviour among people while using public amenities. 

In this context, Cloud surveillance has become a good choice for local authorities as it provides the following capabilities:

● Support existing camera infrastructure to provide remote access from anywhere

● Only record actual events and identify events quickly, without searching ‘empty’ footage.

● Deploy cost-effective mobile solutions using a 3G or 4G connection and minimal hardware.

● System health monitoring service to notify users when a camera is offline and not recording

● Cloud storage preserves footage of video events, even if video recorder is stolen.

How Dynamic-CCTV and Cloudview Combine to Overcome Such Challenges

“Cloudview offers event-based capabilities and smart triggering at the Cloud Edge and this can enable Dynamic CCTV’s Hikvision customers to transform their existing local network surveillance model from a delayed, passive and reactive mode, into a more proactive approach, where timely intervention is possible, to reduce the negative impacts of anti-social-behaviour, theft, fly-tipping and crime.” said Keith Cornell, CEO of Cloudview.

“As a Premium Partner for Cloudview, we have trained our sales and technical teams to engage in constructive conversations with installers and customers to better understand if Cloudview is a good fit for their needs. 

“We are actively training our field support teams team in demonstrating, installing, configuring and taking first-line service calls on the Cloudview system. Naturally, we expect to work closely with Cloudview to implement our first customers so that the installation goes on smoothly and we exceed their expectations.” Said Nathan Garner, Head Technical Ambassador at Dynamic CCTV.

For more information, visit: cloudview.co.uk

This article was originally published in the October 2022 edition of Security Journal UK. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.