Lambert & Associates News

The security industry is full of individuals who call themselves consultants. It’s a term that is thrown around rather loosely, and in some situations the term can be roughly translated as “between jobs.” But “real” consultants provide real value to their clients in a variety of subject matter specialties. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What role should consultants play in the security technology buying decision?

The world of politics, like the world of security, is an environment of constant change. But do changes in one have an impact on the other? Governments around the world are involved in buying a wide variety of physical security systems, so how those governments operate certainly affects how they spend money on security. But in a broader sense, governments (and the associated political forces at work) also impact how their citizens and those in the private sector view threats and, as a logical ex...

Big data is a buzzword, and data – presumably of all sizes – is a driving force in the physical security market. As systems become more sophisticated and expand their capabilities, the result is more data; in some cases, a lot more data. But a key question is: What do we do with the data? How do we use it to provide value? How do we interpret it, and transform it into useful information and/or intelligence? We presented the topic of data to our Expert Panel Roundtable and came away w...

A busy trade show abounds with new products and expanded features, colorful signage and blinking video screens, all competing for attention from busy attendees. It’s a microcosm of how the security marketplace – or any market, for that matter – sells its products. But what happens if the reality turns out different to the sales pitch? What happens when product or system performance doesn’t quite live up to the claims? Some would call that hype, and it can lead to disillus...

IP network dependability matters in physical security and safety applications, given that a company’s assets and people are at risk. There have been strides in the areas of network dependability, fault-tolerance, reliability, and survivability. However, networks (or affordable ones, at any rate) still cannot ensure near-100 percent uptime, which is why system designers acknowledge and plan for the possibility of a network outage. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: How can/...

Sometimes customers expect more out of a security system. A brand new security system just doesn’t perform as the customer expected it would. In fact, one might argue that the many variables in today’s complex systems make it more likely than ever that some element of a system might not measure up to a customer’s expectations. What happens then? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What happens if a customer’s expectations of system performance are greater...

Does seeing video cameras at a location make you feel safer or less safe? Do you feel better to know that video surveillance is capturing everything that happens, thus discouraging crime? Or do you think: What kind of neighborhood (or store) is this that needs a CCTV camera watching everything? Do you feel more secure when the security guard at the hotel elevator asks to see your room key? Do airport screenings ease your mind about getting on an airplane with 100 strangers? The “perception...

Ensuring privacy is often a concern for video surveillance systems, especially in situations where a system intended for “public” surveillance could somehow, perhaps inadvertently, view private areas or situations. The classic example is an apartment building whose windows are within the range of a video surveillance camera. How can you provide video surveillance without invading the privacy of the apartment dwellers? Integrators and end users often turn to technology for a solution....

How mobile telephones have transformed into “smartphones” is one of the great technology stories of our time. What once was a single-function device now can do almost anything – display video, pay for groceries, monitor our health. The smartphones we carry in our pockets today have more computing power than the “super computers” of yesteryear, and that power has found many uses in a seemingly endless array of “apps.” Some of them are directly related to...

As more security equipment categories become commoditized, a previously rich source of income for integrators and installers – markup – is becoming harder to come by. Less expensive products with little to no perceptible value differentiation leave integrators with few options, not to mention the growth of pricing transparency that comes courtesy of the Internet. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Given the increase in commoditized hardware (i.e., lower profit margin...

One of the things all security systems have in common is that they depend on human operators, to one extent or another. But how often is the human factor overlooked in product design? Sometimes, more focus is aimed at increasing the functionality of a system, even at the expense of usability. That’s how we get systems that have more capabilities, although accessing that functionality may be hopelessly complex. Creating effective graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is an ongoing challenge for...

One of the benefits of newer IP systems is the ability to store video inside the camera or in a nearby digital video recorder (DVR) at the edge of the network. Edge-based storage is unlikely to take the place of centralized storage, but it is complementary and provides some interesting new options related to system design. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What is the value of edge-based storage and in what specific applications?

For several years now, the video surveillance market has been involved in the “megapixel race,” with manufacturers touting ever-higher pixel counts on their shiny new models. The implication, though not necessarily stated overtly, is that a higher pixel count is equivalent to a better picture. Too simple, says this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable participants, or more to the point: Not true. But where does that leave customers? We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable:...

SourceSecurity.com’s Expert Panel had a lot to say in 2015 on a variety of topics in our Roundtable discussions.   Not surprisingly, the discussion topics that have generated the most interest (in terms of how much visitor traffic they generated) are the same hot topics we hear about every day in the industry. Our very most-clicked-on Roundtable discussion in 2015 was about the impact of video on privacy rights. Other hot topics that made the Top-10 list of Roundtable d...

Video cameras are smarter than ever. Video analytics functionality is available inside most cameras now on the market. Smarter cameras enable a system with distributed intelligence and also help to manage bandwidth and storage – on-camera intelligence can determine what video is important enough to tie up network resources and to eventually be retained or viewed. But on-camera video analytics have their limitations, and additional video intelligence at the server can add a new range of fun...

Healthcare organizations are an important vertical market for many security manufacturers and integrators. Like other vertical markets, healthcare has its own unique set of requirements and challenges for physical security systems. We asked this week’s Expert Panel: What are the distinctive security problems faced by healthcare organizations? What technologies are being embraced to increase security?

Historically, biometrics applications have often been thought of as specialized, high-tech and used predominantly in governmental markets. Everyday systems have tended toward card readers and keypads, while biometrics have been associated with high-security applications. Today, however, biometrics are much more mainstream. Fingerprint readers, in particular, are as near as our smart phones. Many other biometric applications are also becoming more common in a wide variety of markets. We asked thi...

People using computers to surf the Internet is "so 20th century". Today, the big trend involves machines using the Internet to communicate, exchange and analyze data in what has widely become known of as the Internet of Things. Various security devices are among the IoT components, and how devices connect effectively using the Internet – even devices not related to security – will constitute a large part of the future business of security integrators and installers, whether in the re...

Software changes constantly. There’s always a new patch or fix, and our computers persistently remind us that an update is available. As a core component of today’s IP networked video systems, video management software (VMS) is also subject to the need to be constantly updated and refined. We asked our Expert Panel Roundtable to elaborate: Why is it important that networked video customers keep up to date with the latest version of video management software (VMS)?

College campuses often operate like small communities – or even like large communities depending on enrollment. Although each college and university campus is unique, there are commonalities such as a young and vulnerable population of students, many living away from their parents for the first time. Campuses can be urban or rural, geographically dispersed or densely populated, with a variety of demographics and “wild card” elements such as partying, drugs and alcohol. Campus p...

Most of today’s video surveillance cameras are capable of providing audio, but when should it be implemented? Acceptable uses of audio surveillance, as opposed to video, are a different concept in many jurisdictions worldwide. Privacy laws regarding audio may be more stringent than those for video, but both tend to center around the concept of an “expectation of privacy,” which may mean something different in the case of audio versus video. How can system designers and end user...

An eruption of violence at a church in Charleston, S.C., this June has increased awareness of the potential for such incidents at our houses of worship. On June 17 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in downtown Charleston, a 21-year-old attacker wielding a Glock 41 .45-caliber handgun took the lives of nine people. But it was far from the first security breach at a house of worship. In fact, since 1999, more than 500 people have died a violent death on church or faith-based prop...

More and more physical security systems are being hosted in the cloud. But are cloud-based security systems “safe?” It’s a question being posed by risk-averse security professionals all over the world, and one for which a clear, concise answer may be difficult to find. We decided to pose it to our Expert Panel.

Any business sees its share of highs and low, of flare-ups and lulls. In the security market, several factors can impact general business trends, whether at the macro level or for an individual manufacturer or integrator. The economy is always a factor in the business climate, but are there others? We asked our Expert Panel to assess the impact of another variable – the seasons. Specifically, we asked this week’s Expert Panel: What is the seasonal impact on sales of security technolo...

Violence in our schools and colleges often makes headlines, suggesting a growing and scary trend. A consequence of high-profile school shootings and other reports of violence is to increase awareness of the need to ensure safety and security of students, faculty and staff. The events have prompted more than one educational institution to take a second look at their security policies and infrastructure, with an eye toward improvement. But to what effect? Has greater awareness of violence in educa...

In the vast center of the hall almost none of the randomly shaped stands display their index number I enjoy IFSEC each year, spending three days walking the halls. I do feel frustrated by the acres of "me too" products prompting a "meh" response. So often I’m left feeling the "big news" is that hype and lies are growing and continue to drown out the truth. If companies' marketing budgets were simply given over to their product development departments, we would find thing...

The evolution of IP video has placed a lot of attention on the resolution of video, as measured in the growing number of pixels in a frame. But another variable, receiving less attention, is the number of frames captured per minute (fps). We inherited the idea of “full-frame-rate” video from the analog world, but increasing numbers of pixels (and more data!) have sometimes led to use of slower frame rates. We asked our Expert Panel: What is the value of “full-frame-rate”...

Rapid technology innovation in the physical security market comes with it a commensurate need to dispose of older systems as they are replaced. Some technologies can help minimize the waste, providing, for example, the ability to use existing coaxial cable with newer IP video systems. However, absent the ability to reuse equipment, how should integrators manage disposal of systems at end-of-life? Here are some responses from our Expert Panel.

Going back to the days when we asked our children to program our VCRs, many of us are challenged by the intricacies of technology. However, a benefit of newer inventions such as smartphones and tablets is that they are easier to use and “intuitive” – whatever that means. Security and video surveillance systems are becoming more complex in lockstep with consumer electronics, so we asked this week’s panelists: How does technology innovation in security systems impact the sk...

Megapixel and panoramic camera manufacturers have been predicting the demise of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ cameras) for several years now. They contend that PTZs can be replaced by the higher resolutions of newer cameras, coupled with their ability to “zoom” in digitally on a specific area of an image and show sufficient detail. New panoramic cameras also capture everything in a wider field of view, while a PTZ camera runs a risk of missing important action because it is pointed in the wrong...