The JDL Blog

Do you make your own products?

I came across this post from John Honovich over the weekend, and I couldn't help but feel funny about this. What John has discovered is nothing new, and it is certainly standard operating procedure in many other industries. I would take issue with the tone of his piece though. In so many words, John is suggesting there is something unsavory about the white label/OEM approach. I am not so sure.

As a businessman, what is taking place in the security industry is nothing more than the market's way of allocating resources and capital, a division of labor of sorts. If you have a particular strength in marketing, and the OEM supplier does not, I see no problem whatsoever of private labeling the item and sell for a much higher mark-up to compensate your expertise in customer relations, marketing, support and so on. The OEM supplier thus gain a new market avenue of selling their product, something they couldn't have done without the channel. The market will be the ultimate arbiter of what this added value is worth. For the determined few who want the best prices and are willing to forgo the added benefit of support and various services the channel marketing company can provide, there is always the Internet.

Here at JDL, we see our roles clearly, and we are more than happy to support our channel partners.

posted by Victor

RAID6 vs RAID5 in a Video Recording Environment

http://ipvideomarket.info/report/advantages_of_raid6_over_raid5_for_video_surveillance

This is a great article and should be reviewed by anyone building or buying RAID video storage systems.

Super Simple Remote Access to your DVR

In CORE 4.5x versions, you can pull a frame from any camera at anytime just by entering a URL into your browser like this:

http://70.99.146.180/1

... where the address is your DVR ip address and /X at the end is the camera number. (The URL above happens to be to our Online Demo server)

The browser will ask you to login with your DVR user and password if user rights are enforced. (On our Online Demo the user and password are both "demo" without the quotes.)

 If you hit refresh on your browser, you get the next available frame.

Conceivably, you could create your own webhost to pass this frame through, with an html page that auto-refreshes the camera image every x seconds. This would make it be platform independent, including mobile phones. (Of course, this is something we'll be creating in the future, but for now you can DIY.)

It is not a real video stream, but that is GOOD for platform independence because then your users don't have to worry about their Blackberry or iPhone being able to decode the video format and use all the battery doing do.

- Gryph -

Delphi Resource File Troubles

One of the requirements for our exported media files is that they must have the option to be exported purely as a portable executable file.

In order for certain things to be packed into the executable file, I wanted to add resources to the .exe using kernel32's UpdateResource() function.

The process is simple:

handle := BeginUpdateResource(pchar(fileName), false);
UpdateResource(handle,
                         RT_RCData,
                         pchar(key), 
                         MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_NEUTRAL),
                        data,
                        size);
EndUpdateResource(handle, false);

The file I was adding resources to changed in size, so I thought it worked, however the code I was using to load the resource kept on failing.

After much of debugging, I finally realized that for some reason FindResource() doesn't work for resources that contain lower case letters. Odd since its also a kernel32 call...

-John Su

The JDL Store is OPEN!

 The JDL Store is now OPEN!

Just to go http://www.jdlds.com and click on the STORE link.

• Buy new CORE Software licenses online using our secure checkout by PayPal.
• Order new H.264 Encoder and Decoder hardware along with licenses.
• Check out the new accessories available.
• Download the full 30-day demo of CORE DVR Server and Client.
• Volume Resellers can sign up for special pricing which will be shown right in the store for the same easy purchasing!

Enjoy, and write to sales@jdlds.com if you have any questions.

- Gryph

HikVisionDVR.com - updated!

We just got done updating the HikVisionDVR.com website with links to our current software and a couple of extra goodies. This is basically a brochure for folks who already use HikVision hardware, but don't like the software they already use.

We're the perfect solution to make your HikVision surveillance system BETTER.

Check out www.hikvisiondvr.com

- Gryph

The Market

Economy slowing down.
Businesses, big and small, saving money, afraid to buy anything or change anything.

Stasis is sleep - doing nothing, changing nothing, is a sure-fire way to kill a company. Big or small.

If you have anything to do with video surveillance systems as an installer, integrator, or a end-buyer, call JDL to learn how we can help.

425.467.8088

I know - this blog post is just an ad. Not very creative - but making money in a market like this IS the big news.

- Gryph

More about video than you ever wanted to know...

We love this website:

http://www.100fps.com/

More information about how we simulate video than most people ever want to know.

- Gryph

Self OEM your CORE DVR Server and Client?

Did you know that you can put your own product badge on CORE DVR Server and Client software? Our website talks a lot about it, but doesn't say HOW. Well, here it is:

How to OEM Brand your CORE DVR Server and Client

In the Server or Client installation directory, look for the Release folder.
Inside you'll find the actual graphics used by CORE for the CORE badge and other areas.

Replace those images with your own brand identity, using the exact same image dimensions. Make sure it's a 32-bit BMP file, too!

Next, open the oem.ini file in windows Notepad. Change the name of the software!

Restart your Client and/or Server to see the results.

That's it!

OEM Services

We also provide complete product installers, OEM branded for you, for a nominal setup fee. Since it takes a Windows Software Installation Expert to do the work, we have to cover his time and effort.
If you provide your customers with CORE (or whatever you've named it!) DVR Client installers, this is a very nice way to make sure the complete package has your name all over it.

Just email us at sales@jdlds.com to get a quote on OEM installer services.

- Gryph

Home Internet in Seattle: It's getting better

The first home internet provider I had when I was living on my own was Comcast. They're the cheapest (at least their intro prices). They're the fastest (on paper). They're the one you've heard of. But right from the beginning I started to regret it: there was a (not insignificant) install fee, service dropped a lot, customer service didn't know what was going on.  Then, after the first three months, there were the rate increases.

I grew to despise Comcast immediately. Being in college, I was moving every year, paying install fees every year, and having to deal with their (somehow) deteriorating customer service every year. But I didn't consider changing; in the Seattle area, there's just no other high-speed option... right?

Well, obviously, by the title, the answer is "wrong". When my roommates and I finally grew tired of Comcast's constantly increasing rates, and poor home television service, we tentatively decided to quit. It was painful (no internet for a while, "disconnect" fees, charges for equipment we still had), but I don't regret it. We eventually got Qwest DSL (6 Mbps) and that was great for the rest of the year.

However, my real search started this year, when I moved again, and Qwest (without mentioning it) downgraded me from standalone DSL to 256 K and a phone line. :-/ So, refusing to go back to Comcast, I started looking around, and I've got good news: the industry is actually growing!

First of all, Qwest has plenty of high-speed options at good, non-increasing prices. Speakeasy actually has many interesting options (including a dedicated DSL :-o) at decent prices. Verizon's Fios is getting closer; it's close enough now that I've heard it's awesome from a friend in Lynnwood. I just got a mailer for a company called Broadstripe, who's got 6Kbps for a decent price. But I ended up choosing Clearwire.  Clearwire is pretty cheap and ridiculously, awesomely easy. I needed 2 things: to be able to work remotely, and to be able to stream Netflix. For me the speed is usually about 756Kbps, but gets up to the claimed 1.5 about 30% of the time.

Up until last year, I had been moping and whining that home internet was a Comcast monopoly around here. But the word must have gotten out, because more and more companies keep popping up in the Pacific NW. And now things don't look half bad.

by Aaron

Subprime, Explained

My Mom happens to be a business mortgage loan officer and VP at a major bank (one that's in good shape, thank you) and she sent me a PowerPoint presentation explaining how the subprime mortgage problem became an extinction level event for the American economy. I'd love to just post it here, but unfortunately it has some 'off' language in it (love my Mom!) and so I think I'll just offer it up this way:

Email us to get a copy of Subprime, Explained. It's simple, too the point, and understandable.
sales@jdlds.com

by Gryph

Mostly Unrelated to Work

Occasionally, I find a website that just sucks my time away. Here's one:

http://www.degraeve.com/

I don't know who this guy is, but he's built a mix of useful tools and toys and total time wasters that boggles the imagination.

Do avoid it at work! (But then, maybe not, if you need to do stuff like make a new website favicon or need help with pulling a color palette out of a picture...)

- Gryph

Disk Performance

Design a DVR system is a tricky subject.  The pitfall most commonly encountered is overestimating the disk performance of the system.  Since we are using hardware compression, the DVRs tend not to be CPU bound but IO bound.  It is easy to fall into the trap of scaling based on specifications of disk drives and raid controllers.  Everyone puts out their flashy numbers of a few hundred MB/s but the reality is far from it.

Under the best of conditions, you may be able to achieve somewhere near the specified datarates on sustained sequential access, but like any other real world application, very little of the IO is sequential access.

To break it down with some back of the envelope analysis, we can break down the disk utilization into three major components.  The time taken for the actual data to be written, which is directly related to the throughput of the raid controller and drives.  The time taken to seek to the positions of each video file in order to do the writing, directly related to how often you write (various buffers come into play) and the time taken to seek to the positions of various index or metadata files in order to update them.  (these files tend to be trivially small compared to the video so the time to write them is effectively ignored in this analysis).

Putting it altogether:

Constants:

TP - Throughput in MB/s

ST - Seek time in seconds

BS - Buffer size in MB/s set in setup.ini (0.256)

FR - Frame rate (30)

II - I Frame interval (100)

BR - MB/s per channel (0.25 for 4cif normal)

Variables:

C - # of channels possible

Formula:

C = 1 / (BR/TP + BR/BS*ST + ST*FR/II)

Now you can solve for C and get a theoretical number of channels which can be supported with a particular hardware configurations but there's still a lot of other things which need consideration.  (fluctuations in the instaneous bandwidth of the stream, os level overhead, minimum disk idle time required etc).  In practice the number of channels you'll end up seeing is probably about half of what the math indicates. 

Whatever end result of the analysis, it is clear that the spec throughput of the hardware you have only plays a secondary role in the scaling of your DVR.

-yanda

What IS going on here?

I just cannot tell what is going on here. I can't think of a good reason to use a caulk gun, especially one THAT big, on a DVR or other video device. I mean, maybe if you were applying decorative tile work?

From the last page of the big ad insert in the middle of last months Security Products Magazine.

by Gryph

Good Places to Work

First, let me say, I'm not bucking for a raise, here. I do that with productivity and positive cash flow. ;)

Have you ever worked some place where the owners BBQ for the employees nearly every Friday all summer long?
Have you ever worked some place where there are not only refrigerators full of drinks and snacks to keep the creative juices going, but those snacks are also generally healthy, or at least not a pile of sugar and salt?
Have you ever worked some place where EVERY employee, even those who technically are punching a clock, are given the grown-up good grace to go take care of personal errands during the day, if they must?

If not, start looking. Or better yet, BE the change you want to see in the world - make YOUR company start behaving this way. And just because you aren't the CEO doesn't mean you can't make steps towards this. I mean, go TALK to your boss and bosses boss and the CEO. I've never met a CEO who wouldn't give even the newest employee 5 minutes of their time. So, have the talk.
"Hey, you know what we can do to make it a much better place to work? Let people make up time whenever they can if they need to run to the DMV or the doctor's office or whatever. Ask the managers to find a way to track this sort of time exchange so no one can take advantage of it, but also make it easy for people to run errands on occasion."

Honestly, though, I truly believe that people who work in small companies are happier people, in general. I know SO MANY people who work for huge corporations. They have no self-direction and feel like a cog in a huge machine. In a small company, everyone's opinion is important. In a small company, if you FEEL like a cog in a machine, it's likely that YOU are, but no one is making you be.

- Gryph

When is a +25% false positive rate really good?

When you have analytics that can learn the proper behavior of the scene a camera is monitoring — and alarm irregular activity (Source: Dark Reading).

Because there are so many possible images that might cross in front of the camera, the BRS Labs technology will likely create a fair number of false positives, Frazzini concedes. "We think a three-to-one ratio of alerts to actual events is what the market will accept," he says. "We could be wrong."

Overall, however, the new technology should save enterprises money, because security officers can spend their time diagnosing alerts and less time watching their screens for anomalies. And the system is more accurate than human monitoring, he says.

Funny as it sounds, one out of 4 false alerts sounds really good if the analytics work as promised. It's like a spam filter: you accept a small amount of spam in order to not screen so aggressively that you lose mail from unexpected senders.

– Abigail

Confidence is low, and no wonder

A CA 2008 Security and Privacy Survey (as reported by SecurityInfoWatch) found that only an average  of 8 percent of Americans say they are very confident in the ability of U.S. retailers, government and banks to protect their personal information. And business are hoping to address the loss of trust and confidence, damage to reputation, and reduced customer satisfaction that have been the consequences of major security and privacy breaches.

"U.S. businesses and governments recognize it doesn't take much to shake consumer confidence, and they recognize the need to do all they can to assure consumers and constituents," said Lina Liberti, vice president, CA Security Management. "Businesses used to worry about the hackers and thieves launching denial of service attacks from outside the firewall, now they recognize that their greatest danger lurks within the organization. The good news is that increasingly businesses are turning to identify and access management solutions to ensure that confidential data is safeguarded and available only to the people within the organization who genuinely need to have it

This seems very unsurprising since overall confidence is low, the US Government has been involved in a lot of illegal security breaches and forced the telecoms to cooperate, and since there is so much pressure for tech companies to quickly and competitively expand their integration and usability — perhaps before all the safeguards have been thoroughly tested.

– Abigail

The future of advertising is watching you

No more simply watching ads. They will watch you (UK's Times Online)

Quividi [a French marketing technology firm] installs camera systems in billboards and a computer analyses passers-by. “We know this many people have walked in front of the screen, how many turned to face the ad, and how long they looked at it,” says Paolo Prandoni, Quividi’s chief scientific officer. “We can even tell their gender with an accuracy of 85% and measure who approaches to find out more.”

Quividi has digital adverts that change depending on whether a man or woman is watching and is working on upgrading its system to detect different ages and even family groups.

– Abigail

Boiled down

I love IP Video Market Info. Here's their boil-down of the state of the debate over civic video surveillance:

Key Findings Summary

• The expectation that CCTV systems should be deployed to reduce crime rather than solve crime has created huge problems.
• While the studies show serious doubt on CCTV's ability to reduce crime generally, a strong consensus exists in CCTV's ability to reduce premeditative/property crime
• CCTV is consistently treated as a singular, stable technology, obscuring radical technological changes that have occurred in the last 10 years
• Differences in per camera costs are largely ignored, preventing policy makers from finding ways to reduce costs
• Routine comparison of police vs cameras is counterproductive

Practical Recommendations Summary

• Stop claiming that CCTV can generally reduce crime
• Optimize future public CCTV projects around crime solving rather than crime reduction
• Optimize future public CCTV projects around material and premeditative crimes
• Target technologies that support crime solving and material/premeditative crimes
• Focus on minimizing cost per camera

There's a lot more dialogue about whether to deploy surveillance cameras, and where, than about how to deploy and monitor/use them.

People either want cameras because they want reduced crime (as we see above, unrealistic except in the systemic, longterm sense that more criminals will be caught and therefore taken off the streets) or they don't want them because they feel watched (most civic cameras are unmonitored, their recorded video is used exclusively as post-crime forensic tools).

Looking at new ways to monitor based on alarms or review of recorded video samples will be important going forward. In the same way business are using surveillance video to improve customer experience (read: revenue), law enforcement authorities should use recorded video to better understand patterns of crime and the activities that precede them and can be identified as signals that can be the basis of preventive actions.

- Abigail

Artists develop security against security

Artists in Germany, interested in enriching the debate about public surveillance, exhibited a device that passively protects the anonymity of those being surveilled...

The I-R.A.S.C. is an infrared device, which protects against infrared surveillance cameras. It can be made by anybody; no special skills are required. The device radiates infrared light disrupting the reception of infrared surveillance cameras. A sphere of light covers the face of the person under surveillance and as the interaction is invisible to the human eye (at a frequency between 780nm and 1mm), the individual is unaware of what is going on i.e. they don't see the infrared rays emitted by either the surveillance camera or the I-R.A.S.C.

I'm not sure how widely adopted IR camera technologies are in civic surveillance, but since they're made for low-light and night vision applications, I imagine it's higher than average.

The dialogue continues...

- Abigail