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Vendors of Security, Surveillance, and Video Conferencing Technology
Many general purpose video technology vendors target
security among other markets.
Contents
 IP Cores
 Chips
 Boards
 Software
 Systems
IP Cores
Global Digital Technologies (GDT)
- Location: Athens, Greece
- Founded: 1999
- Products:
GDT-H264EBH H.264/AVC Baseline Profile hardwired encoder core capable of 720p in 0.18um
technology and D1 rates in an FPGA with an AMBA bus slave interface, SDRAM interface, and
CCIR-656 image sensor interface. Supports VBR with quantization performed at the macroblock
level. Implemented in VHDL. No information publicly disclosed on how the frame is sliced.
GDT also sells various board and software products.
Chips
Pixim
- Location: Mountain View, CA
- Market: Digital CCTV video camera chips
- Products:
D1000 720x540 pixel max resolution or image sensor logic, image processor is based around
an ARM processor core with extensions, software programmable for value add by system
vendors, chips fabbed in 0.18um process technology
D2000 is quite similar to the D1000 with only minor feature differences
Alogics
- Location: Sungnam-city, Korea
- Founded: 1997
- Focused on the security, surveillance, CCTV, and DVR chip maket.
- Products:
AM-7416 2-channel NTSC/PAL video
encoder with 16 digital camera inputs.
AM-7216 2-channel NTSC/PAL video
encoder with 16 digital camera inputs.
AM-7116 2-channel NTSC/PAL video
encoder with 16 digital camera inputs.
AM-7209 2-channel NTSC/PAL video
encoder with 9 digital camera inputs.
AM-524ME 2-channel NTSC/PAL video
AM-5200 video processor with 4
digital camera inputs.
video multiplexer chips
video scaler chips
video wireless modem chips
Cradle Technologies
- Location: Sunnyvale, CA
- Cradle sells programmable DSP chips that were designed with video in mind.
Cradle's marketing particularly targets surveillance equipment makers.
- Products:
CT3400 with 8 DSP cores, 6 general-purpose processors, 230 MHz, 29000 MMACs. Each DSP core
has its own instruction memory and 128 entry 32-bit wide register file. Four
general-purpose processors share a 64 KB data memory and 32 KB instruction cache. The
other two general-purpose processors manage I/O operations and share another 64KB data
memory and 32 KB instruction cache. I/Os are configurable.
CT3600 with two groups of 8 DSP cores and 4 general-purpose processors, 230/300/375 MHz
speed grades and three different configurations (with different numbers of processor
cores) are available with up to 96 GMACs. Each DSP core has its own instruction memory
and 128 entry 32-bit wide register file. Four general-purpose processors share a 64 KB
data memory and 32 KB instruction cache. Configurable I/Os are available, as well as DDR
SDRAM and PCI interfaces.
- Customers:
- Digi-Flower (South Korea) MPEG-4 based streaming internet protocol CCTV video
surveillance systems. It appears that the Cradle chip in this product is used for
encoding in the camera and, perhaps, not for decoding at the display.
Oxford Micro Devices
- Location: Monroe, CT
- Founded: 1995
- Founder and CEO: Steven G. Morton
- The company went silent around 2002. What happened to Oxford Micro Devices, its
people, and its technology intellectual property?
- Products:
A236 software programmable DSP with a data parallel architecture optimized for video.
Fabbed in 0.6um CMOS technology. Programmable in C with third software development tool
support. Capable of real-time MPEG-4 encode (unspecified profile, frame size, frame rate,
bit rate, GOP size, and quality). The strongest market adoption of A236 was in fingerprint
identification and facial recognition applications.
A436 software programmable DSP with a data parallel architecture optimized for video.
Designed, but was it ever manufactured?
Stretch
Boards
Software
ObjectVideo
- Location: Reston, VA
- Founded in 1998 by DARPA engineers
- Former FCC chariman and Washington insider, Michael Powell, is a board member.
- Market: video surveillance for security
- sells ObjectVideo VEW software that identifies and tracks
objects within a video stream and triggers security alarms
according to user-defined rules
- Partners with Ateme running ObjectVideo
software on Ateme reference boards
IntelliVid
- Location: Cambridge, MA
- Market: video surveillance for security
- IntelliVid's main product is Video Investigator, an application that monitors
CCTV camera streams with the ability to track people and objects that move between camera
views, with programmable automatic alerts.
VidSys
- Location: Alexandria, VA
- spun out from Dynamic Technology Systems, Inc. in 2005
- web site has disappeared and domain name has expired
- Sells/sold software for security and surveillance, especially for transportation systems
(subway stations) as well as software for video conferencing systems.
- Products:
VidShield video security and surveillance system software for networked cameras
ITMS intelligent transporation systems (ITS) traffic management center (TMC) CCTV
monitoring system software for running servers and sharing "live" images with other
operators over networks.
VidPhone video conferencing software.
- Customers:
- City of Chicago
- Broward County, FL
- Caltrans
- NSF
- New York City DOT
- ClearChannel
- Texas Department of Transportation
- United States Postal Service
- Picatinny
- University of North Texas
- The Discovery Channel
- California School For The Deaf
- The Smithsonian
Systems
Video Conferencing
Polycom
- Polycom is a system vendor with internal chip design capabilities
- Acquisitions:
LifeSize Communications
- Location: Austin, TX
- High definition video conferencing and security/surveillance systems
- internal chip design expertise
Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) / Surveillance
Bosch Security Systems
- Location: Ottobrunn, Germany
- sells IP network based surveillance and security systems, including hardware and software
- Acquisitions:
- Bosch acquired Nürnberg, Germany based MPEG-4 CCTV equipment and software vendor VCS
Video Communication Systems AG in 2004.
Axis Communications
- Location: Lund, Sweden
- Stockholm stock exchange XSSE:AXIS
- Many networked digital surveillance products including camersa, servers, recording
devices, and software.
- Axis published a great white paper comparing motion JPEG (mJPEG) vs MPEG
Parvus
- Location: Salt Lake City, UT
- Vendor of multi-input video encoder and decoder boards, useful for security camera
and surveillance systems.
- Products:
CTR-1471
8 analog camera input JPEG 2000 encoder board, capable of real-time JPEG 2000 encode for
720x480 video at 30 fps or 720x576 video at 25 fps (10.4 megapixels per second). Encoding
is performed on two Alogics AP-5200 chips, with
a supporting Xilinx FPGA. The CTR-1471 is priced at
$765 in 100+ quantities.
MPEG104+
4 analog camera input MPEG-4 encoder, stackable up to 4 boards (16 cameras), capable of
real-time MPEG-4 SOP Level 3 encode for 720x480 video at 30 fps or 720x576 video at 25 fps
(10.4 megapixels per second). Encoding is performed on an x86 processor chip.
AlphaDVR
8 analog camera input MPEG-4 or JPEG 2000 encoder box ruggedized for transportation
applications. Contains an x86 processor chip, with 10/100/1000 Mbit ethernet and USB 2.0
communications interfaces and a VGA analog display interface.
Cernium
- Location: Reston, VA
- Cernium sells surveillance software with motion detection.
- Products:
perceptrak behavior recognition surveillance system
ExitSentry airport exit-only gateway monitoring system
DSP Research
MDI Incorporated
- Location: San Antonio, TX
- Founded: 1979
- Nasdaq: MDII
- Products:
- SAFEnet large scale security management system
- iTRUST security management software
- ViewPoint cameras and digital video recorders
- Owns Mobile Video Products subsidiary,
selling video/audio observation systems for fleets of school buses, transit buses, tow
trucks, taxis, garbage trucks, RVs, and others.
- Holds US patent
6,892,246
on a method for storing digital video such that when disk capacity is exceeded, older
video quality is gradually degraded to make room for new video rather than older video
being completely erased.
Inetcam
- Location: San Diego, CA
- Founded: 1999
- Products:
iVISTA monitoring and surveillance server. A multi-camera DVR.
Mobile Gateway streaming server. Analog video capture and streaming to mobile phone
networks.
iMIRROR broadcasting servers. Makes audio/video streams available to a large number of
network connected devices at once.
iVPlayer+ data mining software.
iMViewer moblie client video monitoring software. Built on Qualcomm BREW and J2ME.
- Partners:
- Panasonic
- Sony
- Toshiba
- Qualcomm
Global ePoint
- Location: City of Industry, CA
- NASDAQ: GEPT
Mobile digital video surveillance
DriveCam
- Location: San Diego, CA
- primarily targeting trucking companies
- Sells a windshield mounted video recorder that captures a 20 second windows of
video around a forward, reverse, or sideways high acceleration event. The camera
is designed to face forward with an optional rear facing lens for monitoring driver
activity. Data can be used to settle insurance claims in accident cases.
ShiftWatch
- Location: Loveland, CO
- Archipelago Exchange: SWATU
- primarily targeting police and city buses
Honeywell
- primarily targeting school busses
Safety Vision
- Location: Houston, TX
- shotgunning to a wide range of industries
March Networks
- Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- mobile and commercial surveillance equipment
Verint
- Location: Melville, NY
- primary market target is unclear
Integrian
- Location: Research Triangle Park (RTP), NC
- Products:
Digital Safety Technologies / DigitalPatroller public safety digital video system
TransitCam digital video surveillance system providing 30 fps video in a rugged device for
public transit vehicles.
Mobile Video Enforcer system including a Mobile Digital Video Recorder for police cars and
a Digital Video Management Solution for the office.
- Customers:
- Alabama state police contract for mobile digital video recorders
- Acquisitions:
- Competing public safety and transportation digital video surveillance system vendor
Digital Safety Technologies, Inc., with a background of creating cameras for
stock cars, was acquired by Integrian in 2005.
Pips Technology
- Location: UK
- Products:
Automatic license plate reading system for law enforcement.
- Partners:
Boundless Security Systems
- Location: Newtown, CT
- specializes in low bandwidth wireless digital video security surveillance systems
- BSSI provides an array of informative
white papers and tutorials
- Products:
- various server hardware and control/viewing software
- Ultra Low Bandwidth, Multi-Stream Video Server
- Control Panel
- Video Player
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Copyright © 2005-2007 Jonah Probell. All rights reserved.
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