Cisco Aquires SyPixx

illeism writes "Forbes reports that Cisco is getting into the video surveillance business. From the article,"Cisco made the acquisition to capitalize on the trend that has been underway which is moving video surveillance from analog to IP.""

Color me surprised?

[rsborg]

Great... so first they help make the "Great Firewall of China" and now they're helping to bring Big Brother home to the US.

Not that I have anything against surveillance... just as long as it isn't abused [aclu.org]

Cisco Systems acquires SyPixx Networks, Inc.

[Vskye]

Gezz, like CTTV over the internet is such a revolution? I used to work at a local restruant that the boss could kick back at home and watch everything going on. This was based on a Windows box with 2 8-port CCTV cards with real-time backup, etc... but this was in 2001. ;)

Now we have DVR backup, etc. Interestingly enough, SyPixx is a Linux based product. http://www.sypixx.com/ [sypixx.com] It's cool though that Cisco is giving it a go, they actually might do a good thing here. I would like to suggest a few features: like lower cost on.. dvr capacity options, pan-tilt, zoom, feature software set, (Linux based options) and low lux options.

Evil

[1u3hr]

You expect companies in the military-indutrial complex to make nasty products, but it shows initiative for a networking company to cosnsitently specialise in being evil. Censoring for China, surveillance for anyone; next it'll be frikkin' sharks with laser beams.

Don\t mod this "troll" or "insightful", it's just a gut response.

I'm not sure about this.

[jd]

When investors talk about keeping a diverse portfolio, it's because they don't manage the projects and don't know the decisions being made that will make or break all of the investments any given company is making. So you hedge your bets and cover your back.

When companies start talking about keeping a diverse portfolio (ie: lots of totally unrelated product lines), what does that mean? Well, the "obvious" conclusion is that they're not confident enough in anything they're doing and are not confident in decisions that might make or break things for the company down the road. They're not consolidating, they're not buying in any technology or IP they don't have but could use (I can't see how they can use any of it, and what they can they probably have), so that leaves hedging their bets and covering their backs.

If Cisco think IP-enabled CCTV can possibly make enough of a difference to cover the cost of the investment AND believe that none of their own products could produce as much or better return for that same amount of money, I'd look a lot harder at alternatives.

(It doesn't mean I think Cisco will fold - they're far from doing that. It means I think Cisco have run out of ideas, which is generally a much worse place to be. You can always borrow money, but fresh, quality ideas are tougher to find.)

Re:So...

[lennart78]

They're selling IP phones, which by default cooperate nicely with the network when it comes to QoS. Same will happen with webcams and other video-technology Cisco might dive into. And just like the market is moving from traditional telephony to IP telephony, so will CCTV become IP-enabled. All you need is an integrated system, and Cisco will be able to bodge that together.

I don't think IP Cameras are there yet

[EMIce]

Last I looked into IP cameras weren't quite there yet, especially in terms of price/performance ratio. I started out looking for a camera with a pretty typical use case in mind - outdoor surveillance for an office building. Someone was stealing dumpsters worth a few thousand each from a new heating and air conditioning business, and it was happening at night. There is a lot of mob and union influence in the HVAC industry, and they didn't like the new guy in town's hiring practices. The cops seemed to care less so he wanted to catch them red handed.

The requirements came down to being weatherproof, and also having low light capability for night surveillance. As I began pricing things out, I found IP cameras could be had at low starting prices, around $200, but that those models were useless for real surveillance apps. Here are the pitfalls I found.

A) Most IP cameras below $400-$500 lack an auto-iris, but rather simulate one in software. If you can't mechanically restrict how much light is getting to the CCD sensor, you have to sacrifice sensitivity to the point where night time images won't be useful.

B) Many IP cameras use cheap CCD chips. In the CCTV industry people look for SONY Super-HAD and Ex-View CCD chips because of their night time sensitivity. Try finding something IP based with one of these CCDs and see what it costs you. An analog b&w SONY Super-HAD night camera can be had for $115, and a color daytime model only $185. IP Camera? About $1000. Want color and a good night picture? You need a model that uses solenoid to remove the IR cut filter when it gets dark, otherwise the night picture will be no good. Good luck finding an IP version with this at a reasonable price. The cost for a color analog camera with a mechanical day/night filter is $235.

C) Weatherproof models command a much bigger premium than their analog counterparts.

D) Network bandwidth may be an issue for large setups, as full frames are sent via mjpeg. Court precedent says that to be admissable, digital video footage must be stored as complete frames, so count out any of the mpeg codecs.

Now also figure this, whether you use an analog or IP camera you will still need a computer to store all your footage. $50 is what a 4 channel BTTV based CCTV capture board will cost you, and they are much less on ebay. In terms of software, ZoneMinder [zoneminder.com] is open source and will stream compressed video across the internet while recording high quality frames locally. It supports any format ffmpeg supports, even flash video, and does things like auto-cycling and motion detection recording w/ user definable sensitivity areas.

For a 4 camera setup an IP camera solution will cost nearly 3x to 4x as much as analog. So I have judged them as being useful only for large corporate customers with deep pockets. Anyone here using ip cameras, especially for outdoor surveillance? What do you use and what did it cost?

Re:Color me surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surveillance can only be abused if it's involuntary, i.e. mandated by government or run by government. A private individual or group has a natural right to run surveillance over private property, if they choose. That's still voluntary, because others choose for themselves whether or not to be subject to that surveillance. When government runs surveillance, on the other hand, there is no choice, and therefore government surveillance is abuse by definition.

Easy win for Cisco, nice windfall for SyPixx

[simong]

Having worked for a company who were taken over by Cisco, I can confirm that it's not a bad company to be bought into. The good thing is that they are buying a) to expand their portfolio with an existing product and b) that they're pretty happy with the product so apart from some integration, which may be rebadging (or not). Downside is that while development teams will be maintained and either plugged into Cisco's net or brought into the local office (even turned into a local office), support often seems to get integrated into Cisco's helpdesks with the result that backup staff are the ones to go. I had a good employer who shared in the dividend, even when he didn't need to, but after a few months, our product was put into Cisco support and I was out of job. Had a good time though.