Disclaimer:
The information in the
following document is a first draft and has not reviewed for it accuracy; its
still being modified on a daily bases.
Nothing in this document
should be considered a statement of fact and its author John L. Sokol has been
it’s only contributor up to this point.
John L. Sokol or any
companies, corporation or organizations make no guarantees to this documents
accuracy and by reading past this, you agree to not holding the above or any
other parties responsible for anything contained or inferred in this document.
The information within
this document is considered proprietary by
John L. Sokol and it is requested that this not be distributed or
disclosed to any other parties without his consent.
Proprietary
Copyright ©
John L. Sokol
10/5/2001
Livecam
Digital Camera System
By John L. Sokol
Pre-draft Version 10/08/2001
The mini Livecam™ camera and its applications.
Usually when you think high tech and Internet video the last think you think of is security cameras and surveillance. It’s not very sexy, some guy making minimum wage in a blue uniform sitting behind a bank of CRT’s. It’s a technology that’s been around since the 50’s and it is a very large and well-established market. This market is just starting to feel the impact of the digital revolution let alone the Internet. This is where it gets interesting because the advances in compression, image processing and recognition, AI (Artificial Intelligence), face recognition and broadband are going to revolutionize the entire security industry.
This change will be bad for some and good for other. Many of these companies are still in the Stone Age and barely know what a computer is. This great for a new high tech company as long as they keep this in mind. Not only is the competition in this backward mindset but also are the customers. The key here is not to make the mistake I have seen so often, a low tech customer base intimidated by a wiz bang gadget that will do one thousand and one thing and not one person can figure out how to make it perform basic functions.
This is where the Livecam has always shined, proving the latest and most advance compression and technology inside the box while at the same time keeping the outside familiar, reliable and dirt simple fool proof. Use of standard and familiar connectors for those who already know analog video, a simple web page to access and instantly they are up and streaming live video. The new product design is also that same way. It’s simple and modular allowing those with little technical ability to set it up and those with greater skills to be able to use this as the building block of very powerful system.
History
of the Livecam and
Companies
surrounding it.
Livecam has a long history for an Internet technology. John Sokol had participated in some very early streaming audio experiments over the internet in 1988 and later streaming video at Sun Microsystems in 1991.
The very first Livecam was created in 1995 for Tahiti.com to place Livecams at tourist locations on the Tahitian Islands, this was done jointly with FountainHead Internet Systems. From there, the Yosemite Livecam was place at Glacier Peek and recorded its collapse in 1996 for Internet Outfitters and Yosemite.org . Many Livecams were placed around the country, most would only capture an image every minute or so and place it on a web site.
This work was done under the name Sokol and Associates. S&A had been involved with many advanced Internet projects; it had over 60 costumers with many with very close working relationships. One was with the first Streaming video company Xing with their Streamworks product. Xing was later purchased by Real Video for $78M.
S&A spun out, or was part of several companies, Netsys inc, Symatrix, Process Network Productions, Omnetrix, Light Entertainment, (DVT) Digital Video Technology, and (IBS) Internet Broadcast Systems. NetSys (short for Network Systems) was to deploy a Distributed Serving Network called SDSN in Early 96 it only received partial funding and was later acquired by IBS.
Internet Broadcast Systems deployed a large video rebroadcast network for early Internet customers that were able to charge for video. IBS started with a customize version of the Xing product developed by Sokol. Very quickly be became clear there were problems with Xing product and the Livecam was redesigned to replace Xing as something much more scalable and reliable. At one point over 10,000 views we observer at one time watch Livecam video. IBS funded S&A and DVT to experiment with many different video-streaming technologies. From this the record breaking Afterburner was created. A streaming Wavelet Video was created, Streaming Fractal video, as well as an early MPEG-4 solution that is still plays current MPEG-4 files better then many current players. The Livecam was the simplest and most straightforward of all the solutions and was found to work best in the real world environments. With further development it was achieving almost the same compression ratios as more sophisticated compression scheme while still remaining compatible with the JPEG Standard.
In 1998 IBS became DVBS as part preparations for becoming a Pink Sheet and later a publicly traded company on the VSE (Vancouver Stock Exchange) (Symbol IMVC). In 1999 DVBS California was created and development was moved to San Jose California. At this time the Livecam video Conferencing features were added, performance and picture quality continued to improve and the user interface became much simpler to use. DVBS acquired several companies, Sirex USA, and FutureTech International. In 2000 DVBS began to have funding problems and split apart, the public entity became Pervasys Inc. (Symbol PVYS) and continues to sell a product similar to the Livecam called Felix.
Current
Status
John Sokol, still retaining all his intellectual property went separately and started Zydeo Inc. with new partners in August of 2000. Zydeo so far has not raise money or completed a business plan. The board of Zydeo has agreed to either restructure the company, diluting the original shareholders or allow Zydeo to be acquired by a new company for a small percentage.
The Current Livecam as well as some competing products can be seen at
http://www.videocomplex.com
http://www.videocomplex.com/products/main.asp?menu_id=02&type=cate&s_currency=1&cartid=6498&mode=setup
Economics
of Internet Video
Figure (1) Cost for sending video and audio.
After 10 years of toiling with video over the Internet I began to realize a few things. Most people want to do something “Glamorous”. They think TV stations over the Internet, Independent films or radio stations. Often they just don’t have the content to attract paying customers. They want to provide content for free and pay for it with advertising and sponsorships.
Looking at Figure (1) the cost of Internet video and audio starts off low. Many people think this is a great opportunity just a few thousand dollars and they have a global TV network just like the CNN or AT&T. But on several occasions I have seen this type of thinking, very quickly turn into a nightmare of bandwidth bills. The problem is the way the Internet revenue model works. This is where the send and receiver each pay their upstream ISP for their share; in some sense it’s like a 50/50 Split. Senders (servers / content providers) pay their halve and receivers, the guy at home, pays his $20 a month. Each viewer cost the provider only a few cents to send a video; this is happening 24 Hrs a day 7 days a week 365 days a year and quickly adds up.
Even if it’s 10 cents an hour, per viewer, this is $72 per viewer per month. By each viewer I mean one allocation of resources for a viewer to connect into. This is equivalent to a seat in a restaurant; one seat may have many occupants over the course of a day but only one at a time.
So for 100 (seats) viewers it’s $7200 a month. For 10000 viewers it $720,000 per month, at this point renting air time for infomercials on cable starts to look very cost effective. The other problem is even if you transmit one hour per week to 10,000 viewers, you still need the whole bandwidth, flat rate as if you were broadcasting continuously. Just as you would to seat 10,000 people in a theater you need to build out the theater and pay the full month rent on the building.
The economics just don’t scale up for Internet video. Currently Internet video can only compete where there are a small number of viewers.
Based on Figure (1),
The applications where Internet Video makes economic sense is:
1.) Markets with only a small number of viewers
2.) Markets where people pay to view.
Security and video conferencing fit the first scenario.
This is the market I have decided to pursue and have designed the new product to address the needs of these specific markets.
Education, adult, gambling, special events such as football fit the second.
These are complicated and depend entirely on producing or having access to video or music content.
Video Conferencing could also be used in the second scenario as well but it seems like a difficult market logistically with a large capital outlay.
Another technology option is to use Peer-to-Peer transmission technology elimination the provider’s cost of bandwidth. I have research this to a great extent and found that even with the broadband connectivity available today, the upstream wasn’t sufficient for video, but was fine for just low bandwidth audio transmission. Also there are complication being created with firewalls and NATS (Network address translators) that are used to allow multiple computers on a DSL connection. Although, there may still be an opportunity here.
Analysis
of the Video Camera Market.
Figure (2) Cost of video camera vs. image quality
Currently in the Medium quality, mid-range there only exists analog video systems. Digital is both low cost and low quality or high cost ultra high quality with little in the middle ground. There seems to be no digital solution with adequate quality for security camera use and that is still cost effective.
This is where I plan to place the new Livecam camera product, the only midrange digital solution that beats the “disposable USB Cameras” and provides an industrial grade security solution while still being sellable into business and consumer markets for a higher quality of video conferencing then is available today.
Even if the low cost cameras like the USB or a connectix QuickCam deliver better video it’s not compressed output and they require a $1000 Windows PC to connect to and convert the video into an Internet format. Currently it’s only the very high end DVC equipment that included the video compression electronics to be able to save 1 Hr of digital video to a tape.
|
Figure (3) Xcam2 Wireless Video Camera with built-in Video Transmitter |
The X10 camera that has been seen all over the web with these new annoying pop up from behind ads. There are great little cameras, but they are not digital. These X10 cameras are analog video cameras with analog wireless radio links and have nothing to do with the Internet video. They are another security product that is selling like crazy. It’s one of the few consumer grade security products and before their very effective Internet marketing blitz they were having a very difficult time selling them.
It’s funny because most people perceptions still are they can send video over the Internet with the Xcam2 product. To do this you will still need to use a Livecam or similar to convert and compress the video to a Internet format. I have used these X10 cameras with the Livecam on many occasions to eliminate having to dangle wires across a room or get into difficult to access locations.
This brings up a very valid point. Wireless is an important technology and can simplify the installation of surveillance systems to a large extent. The new Livecam product is designed to connect to standard Ethernet networks. There is an 802.11 wireless Ethernet standard that is very quickly dropping in price and increasing in popularity. Some future models of the Livecam camera will have 802.11 (DSSS, wireless Ethernet) support build in thereby being 100% identical in operation to the wired version but operating wireless. In this version a third Party wireless card will just be added internally to the camera.
Figure (4) Older CCTV (Closed Circuit Television System)
Cameras technologies have improved over time.
Coming soon is:
The technology for 6 and 7 is still being worked out, I would very much see this company eventually make a #7 based product where there is nothing but a chip with a lens and network connections coming out of it. This would be the ultimate in low cost.
Until the mid 80’s there was little improvement in the rest of the system.
VCR’s came in the 70’s but these are just modified consumer VCR’s that move the tape slower and cause severe reduction in picture quality. Most systems still use this.
Also the addition of a control/effect box allowed one TV to
display 4 cameras at one and also allow the rotation of multiple camera images
to cycle through an even larger number of attached cameras.
Figure (5) Current CCTV systems
More recently digital recorders have become available. These are like the consumer TiVo product that store compressed video on a hard disk drive. These units can run from $1200 to $20,000. Most are based on Intel PC computers and some even run windows inside.
Most of the lower cost recorders claim full motion and support for several cameras at once, but when evaluating these I found as soon as you have more then one camera the video drops to a image per second or lower. This is more like a slide show.
Most will not transmit video over the Internet and there are separate boxes that support this. The older Livecam product can be consider one of these, even though it has superior image video quality then the competition, its higher price, larger size and appearance as a desktop PC has limited sales into the security industry. The new Livecam camera rectifies all of these issues.
Figure (6) Livecam Camera in and All Digital CCTV Security System
Size of proposed new video solution. In Inches.
Version with built-in cheap plastic lens.
C-mount removable lens version. Customers can select their own lenses.
Rear view of unit, Notice 2 x 10-BaseT Ethernet Network connectors and power.
Front view of C-mount version.
This is a bad drawing I did to show a typical system setup.
Notice how the cameras are in a daisy chained or start configuration and attach them directly to a network hub and directly onto the Internet.
Articles:
Date
and Source |
Title |
Topic
Area |
09/19/2001 Red
Herring |
Catch
of the Day |
|
09/11/2001 Red
Herring |
Technology |
|
08/06/2001 Red
Herring |
Investor |
|
08/01/2001 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
05/01/2001 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
04/27/2001 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
04/25/2001 Red
Herring |
Dealflow
Europe: DeveloGen, fruit flies get 35.8M for gene study |
Venture
Capital |
04/23/2001 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
04/20/2001 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
04/11/2001 Red
Herring |
Investor |
|
04/03/2001 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
02/15/2001 Red
Herring |
Technology |
|
02/06/2001 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
01/18/2001 Red
Herring |
Technology |
|
01/16/2001 Red
Herring |
Technology |
|
01/01/2001 Red
Herring |
Technology |
|
11/20/2000 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
11/01/2000 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
11/01/2000 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
10/16/2000 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
09/19/2000 Red
Herring |
Venture
Capital |
|
08/01/2000 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
05/01/2000 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
03/01/2000 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
01/01/2000 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
04/01/1999 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
03/01/1998 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
01/01/1998 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
12/01/1997 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
12/01/1997 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
08/01/1997 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
08/01/1995 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
07/01/1995 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
|
04/01/1995 Red
Herring |
Magazine |
COMPANIES
Visionics (face recognition)
Viisage (face recognition)
Identix (fingerprint recognition)
Iridian Technologies (iris
recognition)
EyeTicket (iris recognition)
Keyware (various biometrics)
BioNetrix (biometrics
application platform)
Ankari (security and
authentication)
RSA Security (authentication and
data security)
RELATED STORIES
Heard
from the Buy Side: Identix proves itself
John
Hancock goes digital
Catch
of the Day: Ticket turbulence
Catch
of the Day: Freedom and information
Market
Currents: You are not powerless
Catch
of the Day: Emergency broadcast network
Appendix
Adds of other
competing technologies.
From www.videocomplex.com
The Livecam in this page is the old Zydeo Livecam product.
|
|
|
LIVECAM 1.0 VIDEO/AUDIO STREAMING SERVER [LSX-01] |
The OPTICOM LSX-01 is a broadcast quality streaming audio/video
server. With Broadband Technology becoming a dominant force in the
marketplace, it is important to make sure that users are able to utilize
technology like the LSX-01. Because the LiveCam video stream is actually
Live, and the applet is delivered concurrently with the stream, the LiveCam
video stream can be utilized in unique ways currently unachievable with
traditional streaming systems.
The LiveCam operates on cross platform, all
makes of PC's and Apple/Mac computers can accept and view the stream. Live
video and audio can be e-mailed to opt-in mailing lists, allowing the user to
see video right from their Eudora or Outlook Express mail program. |
|
WEBEYE ALL-IN-ONE HIGH SPEED CAMERA SERVER [WE-10] |
The Webeye™ WE-10 is an integrated camera and video streaming
server all in one attractive unit. The Linux based Web-server combines high
speed networking technology with a 1/3" format CCD camera. In addition
to this, the WE-10 is equipped with a 32bit RISC CPU, making it even more
efficient in processing images. The WE-10 utilizes a High-Speed Internet
connection (ie. Cable modem, ADSL, T-1) by connecting directly into the
Ethernet and providing live motion color pictures via the Internet.
The WE-10 generates pictures in Wavelet format, which is a more efficient, by 30-300%, compression system than standard JPEG. By utilizing the Internet, the user can save expensive long-distance charges often associated with PSTN modem-to-modem dial-up connections, while still able to have real-time monitoring of live video. |
This lists “which is a more efficient, by 30-300%, compression system than
standard JPEG”
In tests this is much less efficient then the original Livecam product requiring more bandwidth to achieve the same frame rates and image quality then Livecam was using. In addition they have a low profit margin because they have had to embed and entire windows PC inside their camera.
http://www.kustomsignals.com/
http://www.kustomsignals.com/product_body2.asp?product_id=11&cat_id=9&strpagename=video
|
|
|
||||||||
|
» Products »
Network Camera and Video Servers |
|
|
|
http://www.ipix.com/products/security/netcam.shtml