The first products to be launched were on show at the recent IFSEC 2008 exhibition as part of Siemens' Innovations Wall feature. The popular SISTORE range of digital video recorders, manufactured in Germany, is the first to benefit from this technology partnership, with four new versions of the SISTORE MX hybrid recorders and three new versions of the SISTORE CX intelligent digital video codecs. This third generation of SISTORE brings a significant enhancement in performance, employing the latest Da Vinci series of digital signal processors from Texas Instruments - the leading signal processors for digital video processing.
This new technology will extend the range of video surveillance platforms available from Siemens and ultimately provide one common hardware platform for the entire SISTORE range. The introduction of the latest chip set significantly enhances the performance of the SISTORE recording systems, offering improved processing performance and with that increasing the recording and transmission frame rates, as well as the resolution supported per video input. This results in products that provide full real-time encoding and streaming per channel (25 frames per second) at full D1 resolution.
The platform also allows more powerful analytics than the already released outdoor object tracking and detection sensor employed in SISTORE CX EDS or the object detection and removal sensor in SISTORE CX ODR, making the systems build of Siemens SISTORE products even more intelligent.
Multiple algorithms and compression technologies such as H.264 can be utilized in future software versions. The variants increase the current channel density for codecs from 8 to 16 channels per 2HU.
One of the important factors for Siemens in the choice of Texas Instruments as a technology partner was the company's approach to scalability in its product offering. Sven Giesecke, Product Manager responsible for the new CCTV platform at Siemens Building Technologies, comments: "It was a strategic decision to set up this partnership and move to a new platform. In addition to the reputation of Texas Instruments in terms of their technological expertise, a major reason in selecting them as our technology partner was their approach to scalability. It mirrors that of Siemens, recognizing the importance of a range which extends from the small entry level products right through to the most sophisticated of solutions."