A pair of reports focusing on the IP camera market have been released by Santa Clara Consulting and Multimedia Intelligence. Both studies reveal considerable growth in IP camera sales for the past year. The Santa Clara study shows 2007 IP camera sales in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America, up 82 percent in 2007. The Multimedia report indicates that in 2007, IP camera sales went up 48 percent worldwide.

A recent study conducted by IMS Research indicates the retailers in Europe are really starting to warm up to the idea of IP-based surveillance as a superior alternative to analog CCTV systems. The growth in popularity of IP cameras for the retail market has to do with a number of factors, including lower installation costs, and exciting features such as video analytics that can serve additional functions beyond video security.

A recent study by MultiMedia Intelligence predicts huge growth for the do-it-yourself (DIY) home surveillance market in the coming years. The study anticipates the consumer DIY surveillance camera market to reach over $1 billion dollars by 2012.

IP camera manufacturers Axis, Sony, and Bosch have announced that they will work together in an effort to develop a standardized interface for network video products. Currently, no such standard exists for determining how products such as IP cameras, video encoders, and recording software should communicate with each other. The companies hope to deliver a new standard of specifications for video streaming, locating IP devices, and intelligence metadata, amongst others, with the end result being greater interoperability for network video products.

There's been a lot of speculation about network cameras lately - that use will double by 2011, that analog video will never die, and so on. Research firm Frost & Sullivan has released a new report - "North American IT and Telecom Opportunities in the Network Video Surveillance Markets" which puts forth a much more drastic claim - that by 2013, half the surveillance cameras in North America will be IP cameras.

Axis Communications recently announced that the latest figures from IMS Research estimate the company holds a 33.5 percent global market share for network cameras. The figure was revealed in the 2008 edition of the annual IMS Research report on "The World Market for CCTV & Video Surveillance." The report is based on data compiled for 2007 and contains info on all vendors dealing with analog and digital surveillance equipment.

The JVC V.Networks line of IP camera products has been reeling in the awards this year. The latest product to receive accolades is the JVC VN-V686WPBU which recently brought home a 2009 Frost & Sullivan Video Surveillance Product Innovation of the Year Award. Recognized for its inventive features, the JVC VN-V686WPBU is one of the first PTZ network cameras to offer Power over Ethernet (PoE). Other notable features include 36x optical zoom, an IP66-rated outdoor housing that guards against weather and dust, a silent direct drive motor, and dual MPEG-4/Motion JPEG streaming.

International Data Corporation (IDC) has released a new market research study entitled "Monitoring the Network Surveillance Market Chain." The study claims that the revenue stream from IP network cameras will increase from $9.3 million in 2007 to $26.5 million in 2013. That's almost a 300 percent growth rate.

According to a recent report released by IMS Research, Axis is now ranked as the number one provider of surveillance cameras worldwide. The report, which looked at global manufacturers of both analogue and network cameras, found that network camera sales are expected to account for roughly 60% of global surveillance camera sales by 2016, a significant increase from 40% in 2011. The positive finding demonstrates the industry shift from analogue video to IP-based video.

Because hackers will always remain a threat, it’s critical to change your IP camera’s default username and password. Once you’ve changed the username and password, we recommend that you update it every six months to protect your network from hackers. Let’s face it: hackers are becoming smarter and more conniving.