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Info4Security interview with JVC
Following the North Lanarkshire CCTV certification ceremony in March, Brian Sims catches up once again with JVC’s Yash Patel to find out all about the company’s strategy
at IFSEC 2010.
Yash Patel – JVC Professional’s executive director of new business
development in Europe – has been a pretty busy man of late. That’s not an unusual scenario for this true gentleman of the CCTV world, though, who has done so much over the last 25
years not just for his employer, but also for the surveillance sector at large.
Back in March, when Yash and I attended the CameraWatch certification ceremony at North Lanarkshire CCTV’s Control Room, he told me that he was in the throes of setting up a JVC operation in Delhi to serve the Indian market.
“The factory has given us the green light now, Brian, and we can really start to get to work on serving the Indian market,” said Yash as we chatted on the telephone just prior to this weekend. “Mind you, there’s a little something called IFSEC that’s commanding our attentions just now!”
IFSEC: a hugely important exhibition
Indeed so, and as the conversation flowed it immediately became apparent how important the show is to JVC as a company.
“There’s no doubt that, since last May, it has been a tough year for almost everyone in the sector,” explained Patel. “However, at JVC there’s a strong desire to keep on pushing the boundaries, and that means we have to be in front of the clients. Where better to do that than at IFSEC?” Quite.
Continuing the fiscal theme for a second or two, Patel said that he feels it’s pretty difficult to tell when we’ll see the other side of the recession.
“We must all remain positive and hope that something effective materialises from whatever is decided among the political parties as the best way forward after the General Election result.”
JVC Professional isn’t doing things by halves at this year’s show. Oh no. My
sources tell me that the company is driving a huge truck to the NEC. A truck that’s packed full of its CCTV products such that visitors might peruse the entire JVC ranges of
analogue and IP cameras, recorders and monitors.
Speaking of monitors… JVC will also be demonstrating its new, large format 3D monitor at the show, while other monitors on display are set to include the super-slim GD-32X1 HD LCD model.
In addition, JVC is launching four brand new cameras featuring the company’s built-in Super LoLux technology. The cameras – rendered in both box and mini dome styles – are “designed to deliver precise colour reproduction under light conditions as low as 0.05 lux in colour mode, and 0.006 lux in black and white mode”.
Digital and analogue in tandem
Patel continued: “Digital’s share of the video surveillance market continues to increase, but it’s fair to say that analogue camera installations still represent the majority of
installed CCTV systems.”
He added: “We know how important analogue technology is to the surveillance industry. On that basis, we’ve made significant enhancements to improve performance in our own systems. For example, our new eco-friendly cameras use around 40% less power than conventional solutions.”
According to Yash, he – like many of the rest of us – has received plenty of pre-show press material and such, but from that he hasn’t pinpointed any one theme for the show. Many are predicting HD technology to be the Talk of IFSEC Town.
Funnily enough, last Thursday Yash found himself in Birmingham nice and early to conduct some casino surveillance scoping work.
“Many end users are just looking at straight swap-out projects just now,” said Patel. “They seem to be happy to carry on with the kit they have until HD is really pushed by the police service and the Courts in the clamour for better quality evidential pictures.”
City Security and Resilience Networks
On Friday last, Yash met with Brett Lovegrove – the popular director of Valentis Bridge, and a former head of counter-terrorism at the City of London Police – to discuss this and
many other issues.
“JVC Professional is going to become a member of City Security and Resilience Networks,” mentioned Yash. “Brett is a director there. Essentially, this is a not-for-profit organisation that builds on existing strategic level partnerships in both the UK and overseas, helping them to become critical resilience networks. Some of the ideas on security for cities are first class.”
Post-IFSEC, JVC Professional will be looking to introduce several new products prior to year end. “There’ll be more cameras and monitors. We’re really having some great successes with our monitor products at the moment, Brian. They’re generating lots of business.”
Having attended the North Lanarkshire CCTV Control Room ceremony, wherein I had a chance to see the JVC monitors at first hand, it wasn’t hard to see why. These systems really are of the highest quality.
“As I said, last year was a struggle for everyone, but our feedback from IFSEC 2009 was excellent,” opined Yash. “We managed to generate plenty of leads. This year, we felt it was vitally important to maintain and even enhance our presence at the NEC. It’s a strategic decision that we happen to think is the right one for so many reasons.”
The JVC-Kenwood-Zetron partnership in action
JVC’s interesting and logical partnership with both Kenwood Holdings and Zetron is going to be heavily promoted at IFSEC 2010.
Kenwood Electronics designs and develops professional radio communication systems, including hand portable and vehicle-mounted communication systems.
For their part, Zetron offers integrated communication solutions for CCTV Control Rooms. Itself a subsidiary of Kenwood Electronics, one of the company’s specialities for the end user is emergency call-talking systems.
“Opportunities for synergy between ourselves and both Kenwood and Zetron are extensive,” commented Yash. “We’re looking at shared applications in transportation, Government, business and industry – including shopping centres and manufacturing – utilities and public safety. The latter includes policing and the prison service, of course.”
Shared applications could involve surveillance and security, facility and site monitoring, situational awareness, incident management, communication and control, field personnel co-ordination and mission critical environments.
“In terms of situational awareness, we’d be talking about the monitoring of site operations through CCTV images, alarm monitoring and communications with field staff on a joined-up basis,” enthused Yash. “Combined technologies would identify appropriate responses to any developing incidents.”
In practice, if Kenwood’s radio-based location tracking solutions are combined with JVC’s CCTV camera control capabilities, the features of an application might include:
- Integration between CCTV surveillance and voice communications
- The display of radio users’ location information on operator screens
- The radio users’ situation determining the CCTV image(s) displayed to the operator(s)
- The image displayed to the operator(s) being determined by radio users’ movements around the site or triggered by radio call (normal or emergency)
- The radio users’ location could select the CCTV camera and pre-set position focus
- Make sure you also check out the Kenwood NEXEDGE wireless imaging system at IFSEC. This solution involves still picture image transmission via digital 12.5 kHz and 6.25 kHz systems. In essence, NEXEDGE uses MPEG4-4AVC/H.264 compression to make a still picture image and reduce transfer time. Sounds very impressive.
Meetings with The Great CCTV Man
Looking back on my own IFSEC experiences – ten of them to date, in fact – almost every year an abiding memory is of The World and His Wife standing in line to have an audience with Yash.
Indeed, on several occasions I’ve had to pop back and see him at a different juncture other than our allotted time slot simply because he was so, so busy, either with representatives of the company who’d travelled over from Japan or with current and prospective clients.
Yash always makes time to chat to me, and I’m very grateful for that on so many levels.
Ever since I left university and started my working life, my father has always repeatedly said to me: “Son, one thing you cannot buy is experience.”
Let me tell you that Yash Patel has CCTV experience by the camera load. If you want to talk about surveillance, he’s most definitely your man.
Article reproduced from Info4Security’s website and was written by Brian Sims. Follow the link to view the original.
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