When it comes to software, best of breed is a great goal, but usually carries a high price tag that is very difficult to estimate; so unknown that often it’s not done. Or so expensive that sometimes building capabilities into existing applications is less expensive than performing an integration in the first place. Right now in the video industry, these are perhaps true more often than not.
I predict that in about 5 years this will change for most of the software and hardware for video and audio surveillance. The standards will enable growth in the network video industry because products will bring more value. This value will come from being will be better able to meet customers needs and doing so at a lower cost.
From surveying the activity around ONVIF, SIA and PSIA the first standards will likely do the following things:
1. Enable video streaming from any video source (ie: camera or video recorder)
2. Device discovery to speed installation
3.Method to transmit and receive “meta” data, such as dry contact alerts, video analytics information
4. Security between network video devices
Oh, it won’t take 5 years to make these standards. But it will take years before there is enough “rough consensus” between vendors in the market that customers will be able to buy equipment and expect it to actually work together when it’s plugged in.
I believe the most important of the above is #3. I’ll explain why in a later post…
It’s actually possible to do almost all the above today using existing standards, it’s just that most vendors do not sell equipment or software that do the above. Most integrations existing today are custom tailored software.