CcTV time

With characteristics of commercial, residential and institutional sector, hotels increasingly have a little bit of everything. This special condition also makes them an important source of creativity and innovation and the area of security is no exception.

by Lyda Durango 

In reality, a CCTV system can cover in a single point the entire structure of the hotel that includes not only interiors and exteriors but the operational aspect of it. The possibility of monitoring the storage of hotel supplies or the counting of money are options that CCTV makes available to the industry. The good news is the cheapening of existing technologies.

More for everyone

Manufacturers and integrators agree on one point: the use of CCTV has registered an increase in recent years in the Latin American hotel sector. "It is obvious that the cost of CCTV equipment has decreased significantly and this has allowed the increase of installations by up to 80% in hotels," explains Héctor Velásquez, product manager for Latin America of Vitek, a manufacturer of CCTV equipment.

In the midst of this boom, hoteliers have been faced with a number of different options and technologies that could lead to confusion. Topics such as the choice between analog and digital recording and that of streaming video over UTP cable or IP network are occupying the attention of the sector. All this as part of a forced transition from analog to digital technologies.

Recording equipment or DVRs are part of this change. A change that only illustrates the general need of the industry. "Basically all customers are making the decision today for two reasons," says Oscar Silva, general manager of automation at EBC Ingeniería, a company based in Bogota, Colombia. "The first reason is that continuing in analog recording implies a number of problems and administrative wear and tear for security management because when looking for an event you have to do it on all cassettes," adds Mr. Silva. The other reason has to do with the fact that no hotel at the forefront wants to be left behind on the technological issue.
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Between digital and analog

Digital equipment allows the search for an event to be much faster and that is one of its great attractions. Another of its advantages has to do with the recording and storage capacity. This has been understood by Vitek, whose digital recorders of the SAGA XL series have an internal capacity of up to 3,000 TB and with an expansion bay with space for 7,500 TB and also offer unlimited recording time.

But as the industry adjusts to the digital age, some manufacturers are making the transition less painful, as is the case of Infinova, a manufacturer of security systems. With its line of multi-protocol products, which operate in both analog and digital mode, it facilitates the operation of the system and its easy integration with other equipment. "In this way, if a property already has an existing platform, it is very easy to be able to do the integration," explains Mr. Carlos E. Leschhorn, vice president of sales for Latin America at Infinova. This company offers a full line of IP products such as cameras and NVR recorders and also features hybrid analog systems such as DVRs and matrix with IP outputs that provide greater flexibility to users.

The right decision

Whatever the reason that leads a hotel to make the update on its recording equipment, the truth is that it is not a negligible investment. Therefore, the decision must be made based on very clear criteria and the first of them has to do with the hotel's security program as such. "Many hotels do not want to invest in this type of technology and in fact on many occasions they do not appoint a security chief but leave the issue as the responsibility of each person," says Gabriel Apel, president of Xiden, an Argentine integration company with 37 years of experience in the market specialized in CCTV and access control.

For Carlos E. Leschhorn of Infinova, putting the budget above the needs is the main mistake. "Unfortunately many times hotel managers when buying equipment put more emphasis on the cost of the products than on the specifications of the same, this results in the purchase of low quality equipment, which has a poor performance."
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Cameras evolve

Hand in hand with the advancement of recording technologies, cameras are becoming the easiest element to update, thanks to their cheapening. "The price of a color camera and a black and white camera is almost the same," says Oscar Silva, of EBC Ingeniería. "And definitely for security management it is very important to recognize the color," he says.

Therefore, Mr. Leschhorn advises that if the equipment is for common areas of the hotel, factors such as human traffic as well as available light or lack thereof should be taken into consideration. "If they are going to be used in money counting areas, they must be color and high resolution," Carlos exemplifies. Sometimes features such as zoom range, resolution and color are relegated to the background by the architectural project, which constitutes a great risk to security. Dome cameras are looking to meet both demands.

Manufacturers like Samsung are already doing it, which is why it recently launched high-resolution vari-focal domes for low light conditions. "The SCC-B5353 model varifocal fixed dome camera is the perfect choice where a low-profile surveillance camera is required," Samsung Electronics GVI comments on its website. This camera has a mobile infrared filter that allows operation as a color camera during the day and black and white at night or in low light conditions.

Network image

The increasing adoption of data, voice and video network transmission is putting the hospitality industry in a bind. Not only because internet access in many of our countries still does not register the numbers it should but because costs still constitute a great barrier. Even under these conditions, video over IP streaming is shown to be a difficult trend to stop.

"The IP theme becomes a very useful tool especially for hotel managers or loss prevention managers in remote access issues," explains Diego Lozano, commercial director of Quaddrix, a manufacturer of CCTV equipment based on IP technologies. "When for some reason there are remote sites to monitor where wiring is not easy, that's when the IP platform becomes a way to solve this issue," he explains.

For Diego Lozano, video over IP is the spearhead of his CCTV equipment. "That's our north," he says. "All our DVRs are IP, that is the central point of any CCTV system and from there we interact with analog and IP equipment," he explains.
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Caution first and foremost

Despite the enthusiasm that an IP platform can generate to develop endless security solutions within the hotel, integrators give a message of caution. "Video over IP is nothing for now," says Gabriel Apel, director of Xiden. "For example in Argentina hotels are just beginning to have WIFI as networks for connection to rooms, so the networks are not set up for a hotel service, less for a security service," he adds.

Mr. Apel's advice on this dilemma is clear: "Hybrid recorders that allow recording analog and digital cameras and carrying out all the structured cabling in UTP". And he adds: "So if tomorrow the hotel is going to move to IP the hybrid recorder is going to allow it and the UTP cabling that is already mounted is thinking for IP cameras."

"What happens is that in the end all technologies converge on one thing: IP," says Oscar Silva of EBC Engineering. "What a customer must take into account is bandwidth," he adds. If the hotel has a network with a bandwidth in which voice, data and video converge, it will surely be in trouble. The video image consumes many gigabytes, so it is recommended in these cases to have a channel dedicated to video transmission. "Depending on the number of cameras we can talk about networks from one giga to 10 gigabytes," adds Mr. Silva.

To all the above features are added the new technologies in video analysis, possible thanks to the use of computer algorithms to filter video information from the CCTV to alert security personnel about a suspicious event. "It is a software that is installed independently of CCTV or recording to help security management based on video recognition and analysis algorithms. It allows people counting, perimeter security, detection of packages left in the lobby, for example,  which makes security management more efficient because operators can not be seeing the cameras 24 hours, many things happen to them, "explains Mr. Silva.

It seems that new technologies in CCTV do not stop, but rather than being impressed by the constant advances in this sector, hoteliers should exercise caution and take into consideration their own needs, installed platforms, security management program and technologies already available to decide when and at what price to make an update or an update complete installation of a CCTV system. Remember that neither the price nor the latest technologies have the word.