GE's New Public View Monitor Combines Intrusion Detection, Video Surveillance Functions

Dec. 16, 2004
Publicly visible monitor conveys surveillance while preserving friendly surroundings in public venues, retail operations, hospitality locations

GE's Security business has announced the availability of its innovative Public View Monitor, which leverages GE's exclusive UltraView wide dynamic range camera with Xposure technology in combination with a large LCD display, PIR sensor, media input, innovative software and technology to create one of the most advanced and versatile CCTV solutions on the market.

"GE's new Public View Monitor is designed for discreet placement in high-traffic, high-visibility areas to let visitors and customers know they are on camera, but in an unobtrusive manner," said Darren Nicholson, Marketing Vice President in Security's Commercial Solutions business. "The attractive 20-inch LCD flat-panel monitor blends in with the surroundings of banks, department stores, specialty shops, hotels and resorts, and office buildings to maintain a welcoming environment for shopping, visiting or working, while providing effective surveillance."

Utilizing GE's Xposure technology, the Public View Monitor uniquely displays clear, detailed video even in challenging environments such as brightly lit entrances and areas that face direct sunlight. The camera can be pointed directly at a door or window with bright background light and still capture perfect images inside and outside. The Xposure technology does this by exposing the hundreds of thousands of pixels in an image individually. It automatically increases exposure time in darker areas and decreases exposure time in brighter areas to compensate for shadows, glare, reflections and backlighting.

With the Public View Monitor, public venues announce the use of video surveillance by displaying live video when the unit's PIR sensor detects activity in the camera's field of view. The system displays advertising or other multimedia messages until the person walks by and then shifts to the live image. For increased flexibilities, the Public View Monitor can additionally show live images and then switch to messages as well as periodically switch between live images or multimedia messages and other video feeds from any selected input. If the motion detection is disabled, the Monitor continues to show live images.

The Public View Monitor comes with a six-in-one media slot that plays a variety of multimedia files, including JPEG, AVI and MP3, and its built-in memory card reader supports CompactFlash and SD formats. The new surveillance system has several different possible sources, including external cameras, external PC-fed images or one of several flash card slots.

In a typical application, the monitor would show a media clip, then switch to displaying live video images from the built-in camera whenever the PIR sensor is activated. However, the Public View Monitor can also be programmed to cycle between multimedia images or show the image from the camera and switch to multimedia when motion is detected. When the motion detection is disabled, the system shows images from the camera only.

The Public View Monitor is easy to set up and use. The UltraView camera requires no complex calibration and the camera's varifocal lens is easily adjusted using controls on the front of the monitor. A remote control brings up onscreen menus for programming all the monitor's functions. Standard VGA, composite and Y/C inputs make it easy to integrate with the rest of an organization's security system.

The Public View Monitor is available now.