Opportunities and challenges brought by 4K HD to security monitoring

According to HIS research, the global security industry's ultra-high definition (above 4 million pixels) market will grow more than five times by 2018, and 4K will account for the vast majority of the share with its unique advantages. Before the start of the network high-definition era, the analog surveillance systems we installed were basically standard-definition PAL, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, almost square. This is also the format of previous DVD movies and requires approximately 1Mbps of bandwidth. It can only meet some basic image display requirements and cannot meet the requirements for attention to details. The emergence of 4K high definition has brought new development opportunities for security.
From the perspective of resolution development, it has only taken a few years since the emergence of 1080P resolution to gradually become popular. And before 1080P has been fully popularized, 4K resolution has surpassed 1080P and has become a hot topic of discussion. It can be said that the concept of 4K resolution has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Here’s the power of 4K: now you can capture the rich visual depth of life like never before.
The security industry is a typical big data industry. With the wave of high-definition and even ultra-high-definition surveillance such as 4K, more and more massive video data are generated. According to statistics, camera shipments are expected to reach 54.54 million units by 2015. The daily data volume of video surveillance recordings alone reaches thousands of petabytes, and the accumulated historical data will be even larger. After the security industry becomes high-definition and intelligent at the front end, the next round of technology demand will come from the back end and platform.
Big data and cloud computing put forward higher requirements for back-end R&D capabilities, such as massive data storage, query, node load balancing, backup and disaster recovery, etc., which are all urgent problems to be solved. Driven by high-definition video surveillance and large-scale networking, video surveillance systems have entered the era of data explosion, and the demand for data storage and data analysis is very prominent. Cloud storage is a cloud computing system with data storage and management as its core. The emergence of high-definition video surveillance storage cloud breaks the constraints of traditional storage models on storage work.
So, what opportunities does the emergence of 4K bring to the security industry? The biggest and most intuitive core value brought by 4K high-definition is that the images are clearer and the details are richer, which can create more customer needs. This means more market opportunities for security manufacturers and unearths a new revenue or profit growth point, because at the current stage of the security market, 1 million or 2 million pixelsNetwork high-definition cameras The competition has become fierce, and there is a strong trend of gradual commercialization.
The market opportunities brought by 4K are obvious, because for most domestic customers, higher resolution will always catch the eye and make people want to stop. But if you calm down and think carefully about the overall system of the next 4K high-definition surveillance from front-end to back-end, you will find that although 4K high-definition cameras are good, they only exist in the front-end stream collection process. A complete ultra-high-definition video surveillance system will inevitably include the stream bandwidth, stream transmission, stream management and stream presentation links after stream collection. Therefore, 4K ultra-HD surveillance are not as beautiful as they seem.
1. Lenses with higher resolution: As a supporting lens for 4K×2K IPC products, the lens needs to have a resolution of at least 8 million or more to fully exert the effect of a 4K camera. Currently, there are few lenses with a resolution of more than 8 million and the cost is high. Lenses that support zoom movement and are suitable for security applications are even rarer.
2. Higher network transmission bandwidth and larger storage capacity: In security applications, generally transmitting 1080P high-definition H.264 code stream requires a bandwidth of about 4Mbps; under H.264 encoding, 4K resolution currently requires at least 12Mbps or even higher bandwidth to achieve better image effects. Likewise, high-bandwidth video also places higher demands on storage space.

3. In terms of code stream transmission, what needs to be considered is, is there any way to reduce the bandwidth of the code stream while ensuring 4K image quality, or is it possible to reduce the code stream bandwidth in some transmission links or links? Regarding the former response method, it currently seems that the application of H.265 will be a better choice. However, H.265 encoding technology is still relatively new and has a relatively low degree of marketization. The costs of related software and hardware are relatively high, and a large amount of R&D and manpower are required for development and testing.

Although the 4K surveillance product line is still in its infancy, with the development of technology and user experience, it is really unknown who can occupy the commanding heights in the future.

(Source: China Security Exhibition Network) www.xldcctv.com