Video Integrations: Providing a Unified View
From its origins in World War II, when military forces monitored rocket launches and nuclear tests, video surveillance is now commonplace all over the world. High speed mobile internet and the AI capabilities of modern Video Management System (VMS) platforms add to the effectiveness and accessibility of video surveillance and increase the results they can provide businesses. It’s no surprise that more and more locations consider video to be an essential part of their overall security requirements.
At ICT, our belief in open standards and our long list of integration partners ensures you can obtain the greatest benefit from your Protege system and the existing technology and infrastructure investments you already have on site.
In this article, we’ll outline the benefits of integrating video surveillance with security and access control, explain how the integration works, how simple it is to apply to Protege GX, and give you a helpful list of things to think about if you’re considering a video integration.
Why Use Video Integration?
On its own, a video management system records footage, but can leave you searching frame by frame to find the specific incident you’re interested in.
By integrating it with your access control and intrusion detection system, you will know the exact time an event happened, so you can go straight to the relevant video footage. The integration saves you the time and effort of hunting through endless hours of video, and allows you to react quickly, freeing up security resources for where they are needed most.
Overview of Protege GX Integration
ICT integrates with a large range of VMS platforms including Milestone, Avigilon, Geutebrück and more, meaning you’re not tied to any one vendor. Whatever your requirements are, you’ll be able to find something to fit your needs.
Protege GX offers a full featured solution with seamless video integrations. You can view live and historical video footage, and control cameras, from a single easy to use interface.
Our simple, one-off license fee means you don’t have to worry about ongoing or annual charges from ICT. A standard Protege GX license includes one camera, and you can easily add additional licenses depending on the number of cameras you’d like to integrate. Licensing is also capped at 500 cameras, meaning large enterprise customers that have hundreds, or even thousands, of cameras, are protected from runaway license costs.
A VMS integration with Protege GX provides the ability to:
- Trigger video from events allowing you to easily locate and instantly playback archived recordings in a separate window.
- Associate cameras to doors, inputs, areas, and outputs, allowing you to retrieve footage based on any change of status - for instance, when a motion sensor is triggered, or a door is opened.
- Use a High Level Interface (HLI) to enable pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) triggers and alarm interfaces back to the video management system. This provides full bi-directional exchange of information and allows full control of video management platforms from a single interface.
- Display an automatic popup with live video stream on any door event, allowing you to see when someone is at the door, or when a door has been forced open.
- Include camera windows in customizable status pages to display live video coverage of your site. You can include up to 16 panels, making it ideal for creating a camera matrix or video wall for control rooms.
- Link cameras to items on graphical floor plans, making it quick and easy to locate and view the relevant camera feed for a particular item.
What To Do When Scoping a Video Integration
Even if you have already started on your video surveillance journey, there is some useful information to think about to make the most out of an integration with access control.
Find out which VMS and NVRs (Network Video Recorders) are being used, so you can be sure your integration will work with these platforms.
Think about which cameras you’d like to link to areas or doors in your access control system. Are there any high-risk areas internally and externally that could benefit from this integration?
And, for licensing purposes, how many cameras would you like to integrate?
Thanks to ICT’s open standards, there is a wide range of integrations to suit your organization. Find more information on our Video Management Systems page.
Using Video Cameras with Protege WX
If a simple, practical video solution is all that is required, then you can view many live camera feeds from your Protege WX system.
Protege WX supports the monitoring of IP cameras that allow direct URL access to either a static JPG image feed, or a streaming MJPG video feed. If you can paste a URL into your browser and view the raw camera image, then your camera is supported by Protege WX.
