Specifications

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The choice between IP-enabled and composite
systems is not a simple one to make. Each has
it upsides and its downsides. That said, a mix
and match approach can see systems benefit
from both technologies. In short, a hybrid
approach makes a lot of sense.
Although there are advocates of using
single technologies, the only sensible
approach is to adopt a hybrid stance. After all,
is it vital that all data in a security system is
transmitted in the same way? Of course it’s
not; all that really matters is the quality of the
final image, and its ability to be used in the
way that the end user requires.
Fitness for purpose is the main concern with
CCTV. It is vital that the system does what it
was designed to do. How it achieves this, in
terms of which cabling infrastructure it uses,
is a secondary concern, and always will be.
That’s why hybrid systems make sense;
installers can freely select the best solution
without fear of compromise.
In some applications, different parts of the
site will have varied needs. A ‘one size fits all’
approach could be a compromise. The video
server is one element of a CCTV system, and
has a simple job to do. It encodes composite
video so that it can be transmitted, viewed
and managed via a network. It is an in-stream
device, in that it sits silently somewhere in the
system. It might be located at the control
room, it might be at the camera, it could be
anywhere in the system. It simply converts
one type of signal into another. So, what is
there to choose between such units?
As with all Benchmark tests, the products
were tested simultaneously in a real-world
environment. The network was clean and only
incorporated the tested servers. Additionally,
performance was retested with each server as
the sole device on the network, ensuring that
any bandwidth-hungry units did not
adversely affect the others.
The main areas for consideration were ease
of installation (including the usefulness of
supporting documentation) and video
performance. Some of the units include audio
coding, but for the purposes of this test, the
feature was not assessed.
Samsung SNS-100
The SNS-100 encodes video at a rate of up to
25fps with a maximum resolution of 4CIF. The
The Hybrid Advantage
PRODUCT Axis Genie CCTV Samsung Verint Videcon Vista
Q7401 NV100 SNS-100 S1950e VIP-R200 VKEncoder1
BUILD QUALITY 85% 85% 85% 80% 80% 85%
FEATURES AND FUNCTIONS 85% 80% 85% 80% 80% 80%
EASE OF INSTALLATION 85% 80% 80% 70% 80% 85%
PERFORMANCE 90% 80% 80% 80% 80% 85%
OVERALL RATING 86% 81% 83% 78% 80% 84%
Samsung SNS-100
Solid performance and easy to configure
Slightly slow when changing configurations
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