A recent survey has estimated a worldwide market value for IP in security of around USD 500 million, demonstrating how fast the market is developing. Recognising and responding to this trend, Siemens offers a complete IP portfolio and will soon introduce the latest version of Sistore CX which now offers the option of IP camera recording.

Scalability is a focus of the new Sistore CX, with the capacity to extend a system combining analogue equipment - which may already be installed - with new digital products, thereby offering significant savings. In combination with the Siemens MPEG4 IP camera, the Sistore CX can be used for video content analysis of the analogue video signal and for the recording of MPEG4 video streams. With this combination of products and features, Siemens uses the best from classic, IP and network technologies.

Sistore CX can perform multiple tasks simultaneously. Utilising MPEG4 technology, Sistore CX offers the best compression rates with a low bandwidth requirement. This lessens the impact on the IT network, freeing up bandwidth for other applications. The Sistore CX user-interface is set up like a "virtual matrix", displaying the video inputs on one side of the screen and the video outputs on the other. Live images can be displayed on the VGA screen or a standard video monitor using a simple "drag and drop" operation.

Sistore CX is easy to use and maintain. With its user-friendly, web-based installation and configuration screen, Sistore CX can be tailored to the application's needs with a few simple clicks.

To fulfil all the customer recording needs Sistore CX is able to use internal RAID1, direct-attached storage (DAS) via SCSI or network-attached storage (NAS). Compared with Network Recording Software, the central recording functions are free of charge. One of the major benefits for the customer is that no additional licence costs are generated with this Siemens solution for central recording.