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Sunday, July 24, 2011

How to Avoid Getting Hacked video

In 1995, a movie called Hackers debuted showing the life of a group of hackers and what kind of trouble they can cause. Hacking is still an ongoing problem today and as a result has crept into the security market through integrated information systems. In this article I’ll share some tips that can help you keep this cyber intrusion away from your home or business.

Generally, most technologically people get excited about the idea of being able to turn on lights, view security cameras, and control other gadgets at home with a Smart Phone. Unfortunately, there are criminals learning how to break into your systems despite increased security and better technology. So as you log in and review footage on your DVR or control feature of your Smart Home, a cyber thief could be following your every move. The best way to keep these so called cyber criminals from hacking into your system is to use encryption. If you leave any part of your system unencrypted, you’ve already created a huge vulnerability.

Many people in the residential market or in small businesses do not need to go to such extremes as encrypting video feeds. It may be necessary though if you’re trying to protect priceless property or have had issues in the past with people trying to steal certain items.

Some DVRs have a watermark feature to aid in preventing theft. This feature can help a viewer tell the difference between a genuine feed and a fake. I also recommend changing user names and passwords on a regular basis. You don’t want to leave your system with the factory defaults of admin/admin or 12345. Login information like this is what hackers are going to try first. Many customers have asked me to log into their systems and when I ask them what their user name and password is, they often respond saying, “I don’t know who set it up, I just have it saved to auto log in”. This is not a good practice and won’t keep your system secure. Remember if you want to keep your security system safe from hackers, you must, first, keep it safe from a 5 year old.

Monday, July 18, 2011

How to Selecting the right CCTV video compression

If you are responsible for planning or designing a new CCTV video surveillance system, you have to make a technology choice regarding which video compression technique to use.

For sure, it will be digital. But which video compression scheme is the most suitable for your application?

1. Motion JPEG CCTV video compression
The JPEG standard was developed by the Joint Photographic Expert Group (part of ISO) for efficient storage of individual frames. Motion JPEG or M-JPEG is a series of separate JPEG images that form a video sequence. When 16 JPEG image frames or more are joined together per second, the result is an illusion of motion video. Video reproduction at 30 frames per second (FPS) for NTSC signals or 25 FPS for PAL signals is called full motion video or continuous-motion video.

Although Motion JPEG is an unlicensed standard it is widely compatible with many applications that require low frame rates or technologies such as Video Analytics where frame by frame analysis is crucial.

Advantages
1. Ability to support multi-mega pixel resolution.
2. Ideal for courtroom single frame evidence.
3. Clearer images at lower frame rates than MPEG-4.
4. Frame by frame playback offers more frames to view.
5. Technology is simpler; this can reduce the cost of a camera or video codec.
6. At low bandwidth priority is given to Image Resolution.
Disadvantages
1. High bit rate for scenes with little or no activity increases bandwidth and storage.
2. Video quality deteriorates at higher compression ratios.
3. No M-JPEG standard often means incompatibility issues.
4. Converting M-JPEG into another format reduces video quality.
5. Dated technology superseded by more bandwidth-efficient encoding techniques.

MPEG-4 CCTV video compression
MPEG-4 is a compression standard that was introduced in late 1998 by the Moving Picture Experts Group. In video surveillance applications MPEG-4 Part 2, also known as MPEG-4 Visual is the version of MPEG-4 most commonly used. MPEG-4 supports both low-bandwidth applications and those applications that require high quality images, with virtually unlimited bandwidth and no limitations in frame-rate. Typically most MPEG-4 based encoders and cameras support video up to DVD quality.

MPEG-4 is much more efficient than M-JPEG because video frames are analysed prior to being sent across the network. The first compressed image (I frame) is used as a reference point, the following images only contain information that differs to the initial I frame reference image. Periodically I frames are transmitted within the video sequence to ensure a recent reference point. The distance between these I frames is known as the GOP (Group of Pictures). The distance between I frames is usually user definable depending on the application and activity in the scene. For example a 25 FPS video stream with a GOP of 50 would mean a new I frame with GOP change information is sent every 2 seconds. The viewing application on the receiving end of the transmission then reconstructs all images based on this information and displays the video.

Advantages
1. MPEG-4 up to 5 times more efficient than M-JPEG at low bandwidths.
2. Increases the amount of time video can be stored compared with M-JPEG.
3. Uses less network bandwidth when compared with M-JPEG.
4. Very efficient at high frame rates.
Disadvantages
1. When the bit-rate is limited video quality suffers.
2. Low efficiency at very low frame-rates or extremely high scene activity.
3. Can be liable to “blurring” on freeze frame or very high motion.

H.264 CCTV video compression
H.264 is the latest MPEG standard for video encoding that is geared to take video beyond the realms of DVD quality by supporting Hi Definition CCTV video. H.264 can also reduce the size of digital video by more than 80% compared with M-JPEG and as much as 50% with MPEG-4, all without compromising image quality. This means that much less network bandwidth and storage space are required. Since the typical storage costs for surveillance projects represent between 20 and 30 percent of the project cost significant savings can be made.

Like many sectors of our industry, the devil is in the detail and system integrators and end-users who wish to see the benefits of an IP-based solution should look to someone who really knows the technology and can give an impartial view. It is common sense that manufacturers will only support their own hardware and will promise the earth for it, whereas a distributor will have evaluated a number of solutions from different vendors and be able to say that product A is the best for solution B because of XYZ whereas product Y is the best for solution C because of etc etc.

Advantage
1. H.264 cameras is that they reduce the amount of bandwidth needed.if your megapixel camera needed 10 Mb/s before (with MJPEG), it might now need only 1.5 Mb/s. So for each camera, you will save a lot of bandwidth.
2. Eliminates barriers: Enables many more networks to support megapixel cameras.
3. The bitstream is fully compatible with existing decoders with no error/drift.
Disadvantages
1. Using analytics with these cameras reduces the H.264 benefit.
2. Costs few hundred dollars more per camera.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Active X & Direct X Troubleshooting for Windows 2000 & XP

Time by Time I got call from Technician/Engineers/Sr. Engineers/Managers says” Hi Arindam I got your ref from XYZ actually we facing problem with Active X Component installing on Windows XP PC/Laptop “. Yes many sites in India on the Internet use Active X or Direct X controls to display web content. If you are having the following issues, the below instructions offer possible solutions. Before applying this you must knowing PC administrator Password.



Issues:
  • Active X or Direct X Will Not Load
  • WINXP IE Service Pack 2 Not Allowing Load
The following applies to Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and is meant to be used by experienced PC users ONLY.
  • Open Internet Explorer, click on Tools, click on Internet Options
  • Click on the Security Tab
  • Click to Highlight Internet, click Custom Level button
    • .NET framework-Run Authenticode not signed—click to ENABLE
    • Run components signed with Authenticode—- click to ENABLE
    • ActiveX controls and plug-ins
      • Automatic prompting for ActiveX controls—- click to ENABLE
      • Binary and scripting behaviors—- click to ENABLE
      • Download signed ActiveX controls—- click to ENABLED
      • Download unsigned ActiveX controls—- click to ENABLED
      • Init and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe—- click to ENABLED
      • Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins—- click to ENABLE
      • Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting—- click to ENABLED
  • Downloads
    • Auto prompt for downloads—- click to DISABLE
    • File downloads— click to ENABLE
    • Font download—- click to ENABLE
  • Java VM
    • Java permissions—— click to HIGH SAFETY
    • Access data sources across domains—- click to DISABLE
    • Allow META REFRESH—- click to ENABLE
    • Allow scripting of IE web-browser controls—- click to DISABLE
    • Allow scripting of windows without size or position—- click to DISABLE
    • Allow web pages to use restricted protocols for active— click to PROMPT
    • Display mixed content—– click to PROMPT
    • Don’t prompt for client certificate selection —— click to DISABLE
    • Drag and drop or paste files—– click to ENABLE
    • Installation of desktop items—-PROMPT
    • Launch programs and files in an IFRAME—- click to PROMPT
    • Navigate sub-frames across different domains— click to ENABLE
    • Open files based on content, not file extensions—- click to ENABLE
    • Software channel permissions—– click to MEDIUM SAFETY
    • Submit non-encrypted form date—- click to ENABLE
    • Use Pop-Up blocker—- click to ENABLE
    • User data persistence—– click to ENABLE
    • Web site in less privileged web content zone can navigate—- click to ENABLE
  • Scripting
    • Active scripting—– click to ENABLE
    • Allow paste operations via script—– click to ENABLE
    • Scripting of Java applets—- click to ENABLE
  • User Authentication
    • Logon
      • click to Automatic logon only in Intranet zone