Many schools have installed closed circuit cameras for security surveillance purposes.  Some have success and some do not.  Cameras play a major part in this fortune game and we would like to explain what, why and how. 

We have the traditional CCTV cameras that use analogue magnitudes to represent video images and we also have the modern Internet Protocol cameras that use computer binary methods.  The transition is abrupt in terms of technologies employed but very gradual in terms of deployment by the market.  Put an analogue camera and IP camera side by side and assuming they have the same shape and colour, we will see that IP is obviously bigger than its analogue counterpart.  This is because IP needs more space to accommodate the computing chips that convert analogue into binaries.   Are these computing chips justifiable for the increase in size, complexity and presumably price?

Without going into technical details, the simple answer is that IP has improved the resolution or clarity of video images significantly for security surveillance purpose.  The best commercial off the shelf (COTS) analogue camera is equivalent to VGA (640 x 480 pixels) standard whereas a good but not best IP camera is SXGA (1280 x 1024). 

A tutorial on video surveillance cameras can be found here if you wish to know more about cameras. http://www.cnz.co.nz/content/view/67/36/

A PC is a PC, as many people said.  This is a simplistic view because PC is a category and it contains a large range of variations.  To say a category is a category conveys no useful message.  We would like to do better and propose 3 dimensions for reference.  They are eco-being, functional and cost features.  This framework of considerations will help school management makes informed decisions on purchase of PC assets by setting the relative weightings of the 3 dimensions. 

- Eco-being refers to the aesthetics and form factor of a PC, its human interface and its existence in the larger environment. 
- Functional refers to usages such as a cloud device, a standard desktop of a local area network, a server or a dedicated graphics rendering machine.
- Cost features refer to the economies of operation and maintenance such as on electricity, labour, frustrations and opportunities. 

TECHNICAL INFO BELOW

The latest PC technology is integrated graphics in the CPU as a progression towards miniaturisation.  It is a step further than on-board graphics or integrated graphics in the chipset (motherboard).  This enables small form factor machines (micro ATX) to have higher computing power (Intel Core i3 and i5) and graphics processing power (Intel GMA HD) at the same time.  Please click this http://www.compucon.co.nz/content/view/711/200/ to see the specification of such a machine called Compucon Diamond Plus.

This system exceeds the requirements of students (process workers) and enters the knowledge PC domain but is not appropriate for handling graphics intensive workloads.  It is designed to achieve a low total cost of ownership for high end mainstream users. 

Many organisations have installed closed circuit cameras for security surveillance purposes.  Some have success and some do not.  Cameras play a major part in this fortune game and we would like to explain what, why and how. 

We have the traditional CCTV cameras that use analogue magnitudes to represent video images and we also have the modern Internet Protocol cameras that use computer binary methods.  The transition is abrupt in terms of technologies employed but very gradual in terms of deployment by the market.  Put an analogue camera and IP camera side by side and assuming they have the same shape and colour, we will see that IP is obviously bigger than its analogue counterpart.  This is because IP needs more space to accommodate the computing chips that convert analogue into binaries.   Are these computing chips justifiable for the increase in size, complexity and presumably price?  

Without going into technical details, the simple answer is that IP has improved the resolution or clarity of video images significantly for security surveillance purpose.  The best commercial off the shelf (COTS) analogue camera is equivalent to VGA (640 x 480 pixels) standard whereas a good but not best IP camera is SXGA (1240 x 1024).  A tutorial on video surveillance cameras can be found here if you wish to know more about them.  http://www.cnz.co.nz/content/view/67/36/

A PC is a PC, as many people say.  This is a simplistic view because PC is a category and it contains a large range of variations.  To say a category is a category conveys no useful message. 

We would like to do better and propose 3 dimensions for reference.  They are eco-being, functional and cost features.  This framework of considerations will help business owners or professionals make informed decisions on the purchase of PC assets by setting the relative weightings of the 3 dimensions. 

- Eco-being refers to the aesthetics and form factor of a PC, its human interface and its existence in the larger environment. 
- Functional refers to usages such as a cloud device, a standard desktop of a local area network, a server or a dedicated graphics rendering machine.
- Cost features refer to the economies of operation and maintenance such as electricity, labour, frustrations and opportunities. 


Latest PC Technology
 
It is integrated graphics in the CPU as a progression towards miniaturisation.  It is a step further than on-board graphics or integrated graphics in the chipset (motherboard).  This enables small form factor machines (micro ATX) to have higher computing power (Intel Core i3, i5 or i7) and graphics processing power (Intel GMA HD) at the same time.  Please click this http://www.compucon.co.nz/content/view/711/200/ to see the spec of such a machine called Compucon Diamond Plus.

This system exceeds the requirements of process workers and enters the knowledge PC domain but is not appropriate for handling graphics intensive workloads.  It is designed to achieve a low total cost of ownership for main stream PC users.