In a market segment where analogue technology is quickly being replaced by IP video systems, Mobotix, a leading international manufacturer of digital, high-resolution and network-based video security systems, has far better growth prospects than most of its competitors since Mobotix decided not to offer any standard IP cameras, but to focus exclusively on high-resolution, complete systems.
In the decentralised system structure established years ago by Mobotix, the intelligence resides in the cameras themselves and not on a central PC. This enables Mobotix video systems to work with fewer cameras and system components, making them considerably more cost-effective than analogue systems. For example: one single Mobotix camera can monitor an entire gas station with four lanes, recording the video for a full day in the camera itself. The complete system, including the camera and integrated software, recording and weatherproofing, costs less than €1,000 - significantly undercutting the price of an analogue system.
The analogue technology is restricted to just 0.4 megapixels for live images and usually 0.1 megapixels for recorded images - a tiny 1/30th of the resolution offered by the latest Mobotix models. With these resolution rates, analogue systems require one camera for each gas station lane, as well as a PC with expensive software for recording of the images. The vast majority of IP camera manufacturers use the same image size and also the same centralised system structure as analogue systems. Therefore, common IP technology fails to reduce the number of cameras and still requires a central PC with software, offering the user few advantages over a conventional analogue solution. This is why these kinds of centralised IP systems are unlikely to replace analogue systems on a large scale. Only Mobotix' decentralised concept is what makes high-resolution video monitoring profitable in the first place.
If legislators in individual countries were to succeed in their efforts to enforce a minimum image resolution above the 0.4 megapixel limit of analogue systems, the entire conventional CCTV industry - including the cameras, recording technology and software - would be eliminated from the market. The same applies to IP manufacturers whose products are based on the same image and system structures as analogue systems. The high-resolution systems from Mobotix, on the other hand, which have been recording the highest image quality in the megapixel range for years now, are not subject to such limitations. For this reason, Mobotix expects further growth in excess of 40 per cent.
