Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- Video management system company Milestone Systems today announced on a webcast and at its 2012 Milestone Integration Partner Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., some significant changes to its product offering including mobile video recording, upgrades to its XProtect Corporate VMS, and an updated Smart Client user interface GUI.
Most exciting is the company's forthcoming introduction of a feature called "video push". This ability will allow end users to stream video from camera phones into the Milestone VMS recording engine. The feature is coming in 2012 as part of the company's XProtect Mobile version of its smart client, and would require the systems integrator set up the servers for the mobile device in advance (as well as a camera license). But once the server and licensing work is done, the feature would really shine. A security officer responding to a situation would have the ability to stream video of a live scene directly into the recording engine of the surveillance system, allowing that remote video to be recorded and archived right along with all of the video coming in from fixed cameras. It's a fundamental shift in how surveillance works since the feature allows cameras to go to the scene, rather than hoping that an incident scene is captured by existing cameras. According to Milestone, this feature will be coming out later in 2012.
Along with the announcement to add Video Push came the announcement that the mobile version of the smart client will now support Apple iOS devices (iPhone, iPad). Previously the Android operating system was the only OS supported by Milestone's mobile version. The company said it is still reviewing whether to support Blackberry/RIM and Windows Mobile devices, but noted that it focused first on the mobile operating systems with market share and forecasted growth.
The Milestone team is also rolling out its Smart Client 7. This is the core GUI software that an end-user uses to access the Milestone VMS while on a PC. New features on Smart Client include an update timeline controller for reviewing recorded video. They've also update the export settings for archived video which makes protection of the video evidence even stronger. The company is incorporating a digital signature for the video clip, and is stepping up from the previous 56-bit DES encryption to no supporting, 128-, 192- and 256-bit AES encryption. There is also an ability to add video comments in the export, and a feature that allows user to disable re-export (so that your surveillance video doesn't show up on YouTube). Also in the Smart Client are updated features for alarm management, include a mapping interface for alarms, ability to group alarm types, and the ability to create reporting statistics based on alarm data. And it may be a small change but a lot of integrators took note. Milestone's Smart Client 7 will give users the ability to choose a black or a white theme for the video viewing client, and going to a black theme for the windows really helps the video streams jump out of the background – it's ideal for live monitoring situations.
Integrators will want to take note of a new feature in XProtect Corporate that allows them to export a configuration document at the end of their system set up. The configuration report helps integrators show end-users that they've matched the actual installation with the original specs on the work order, and it also helps integrators that are returning to service these systems be able to compare installed specs against any changes that the end-user made after the set-up.
Lastly, Milestone announced the following changes coming in 2012:
- Adding flexibility to the ability to import video from cameras' on-board storage to the VMS (starting with Axis and Sony)
- Updating the XProtect Corporate software to take advantage of 64-bit processing
- Adding HTTPS secure connections from the surveillance cameras to the video management system
