SYDNEY, Australia—The term alone may be a new one for video

HDCCTV Alliance formed

‘The megapixel IP camera is fundamentally inferior’

surveillance installers, allowed

Todd Rockoff, but the concepts
and technology ought to be very
familiar. Thus, the challenges for the
HDCCTV Alliance executive chair-
man are twofold: First, get people

to understand what HDCCTV is; second, get people to see why it’s better than what they’re already installing.

The working definition of HDCCTV: “A video surveillance system wherein broadcast-industry-

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compliant, high-definition video [720p is roughly one megapixel, and 1080p is roughly two megapixels] signals are transmitted digitally over conventional CCTV media, without packetization and without a perceivable compression latency.”

But Rockoff said it more succinctly: “The guy can plug in the coax cable and, voila, the HD image comes up.”

The charter members of the HDCCTV Alliance, which has as its goals both the creation of a global standard for HDCCTV transmission and proselytization through display of the technology, comprise much of a HDCCTV solution. Gennum makes the HD-SDI chips (the standard in broadcast HD cameras) that transmit the video by serializing it for long-range coax cable trans-

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—Bob a

“All the major customers
said, ‘That looks
wesome. How does it
work and how do I get
it?’”

Beachler, Stretch

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mission and then deserializing the signal for display. Stretch makes the chips that take that signal and both compress it for storage on the DVR and pre-process it for live monitor display. Ovii will make the actual cameras and EverFocus will make the DVRs.

For Rockoff and Stretch head of sales and marketing Bob Beachler, the end display is the real selling point. Because the system involves no compression or packetizing of the video, what end users see on their commercial HD monitors is just like what they see on their televisions at home. At ISC West, Stretch showed a proof of the technology that allowed for 720p display at 60 frames per second.

“All the major customers said, ‘That looks awesome. How does it work and how do I get it?’” Beachler said.

This display, the ease with which most legacy installers will be able to upgrade current coax-based systems to HD, the relatively known quality that is the DVR for storage, and the lower price of analog cameras leads Rockoff to claim, “the megapixel IP camera is fundamentally inferior with respect to every business deci-sion-making criteria: reliability, convenience, price and performance.”

Beachler is not as ready to throw IP cameras under the bus: “Is it fundamentally inferior? No. It’s just fundamentally different. There are capabilities that IP cameras can give you that analog cameras can’t. But