Public space systems are at a crossroads. With the majority of systems approaching or over ten years old a large proportion has reached their ‘End of Life’ (EOL).

Add to this the emergence of digital IP technology and it fast becomes apparent that most of the systems need bringing up-to-date or replacing.

Whilst this is now easily achievable from a technical perspective, the main question is how are Local Authorities going to fund the potentially inhibitive associated capital costs ?

Maybe the imminent HO and ACPO report on a ‘National Strategy for CCTV’ will provide an answer ?

Although the National Strategy final draft report has been completed, the majority of us have not yet been privy to its detailed contents but there is no doubt when it is finally published it will be a defining moment for Public Space CCTV. Defining because it will dictate how systems over the next decade will evolve and how manufacturers will respond to meet the new challenges which are posed. Emerging and new technologies will play an important role in this evolvement but manufacturers must understand that the industry will not just adopt the latest technology for technology’s sake. No, it has to bring tangible benefits, and it has to improve what we already have.

One interesting article I saw recently relating to a Video Content Analysis (VCA) agenda for a forthcoming conference asked “Has VCA reached disruptive technology status ?” I am sure some of you are wondering at this point if it is good or bad to reach this ‘status’, is it a badge of (dis)honour like an ASBO in manufacture speak? Well actually it is a good thing, if you are not adverse to change that is. That’s because a “disruptive technology” challenges the ‘norm’, it challenges the way things are currently done or in other words the status quo. It does this by forcing change as a new and untried technology challenging existing technology. A current example of this is the way digital based CCTV systems are challenging the established analogue CCTV based systems. Whilst they are currently inferior in a number of areas to analogue they are able to bring new benefits which are beyond even the most expensive analogue systems.

Whilst most would agree that digital based CCTV systems have reached disruptive technology status, it is currently being held-up due mainly to matters outside of its control i.e. lack of networks which can support the necessary bandwidth to provide images comparable to current analogue images. You could argue, therefore, that digital technology is currently a threat that will eventually replace analogue technology.

A well conceived and designed system is a balanced system. It is not a ‘cutting edge’ technology system which is still yet to discover all of its operational problems; it is not an archaic analogue system which does not have a Bill Gates machine in sight either.

No, a balanced system is somewhere in between the two, always on the move migrating from a mature technology to an emerging technology from analogue video to digital video in our case. A balanced system can therefore be referred to as a ‘HYBRID’ system i.e. one which contains both analogue and digital video.

The key to realising such a system is Integration. Your Command & Control system must not only be capable of integrating both analogue and digital video sources, it also has to be modular and flexible enough to evolve to meet the challenges of tomorrow !