Axis Li Ziming: HD-SDI is only a transitional technology

Axis' position as a market leader in network cameras has not been shaken! Axis is a company with an IT background. Since its inception in 1984, Axis has been committed to the development of products related to the Internet and IT. In 1996, it invented the world's first network camera, thus creating a network video surveillance industry. Solid foundation and rich experience make Axis have better and deeper understanding of network and IT technologies than other vendors. What are the requirements based on the recent relocation of Axis China headquarters and Guangzhou office? What will be the impact on Axis' future development? As an alternative to high-definition video surveillance, will the advent of HD-SDI hinder or surpass the current development trend of network HD? Axis is how to maintain and give full play to its leading edge. Network monitoring technology development trend? ... With this series of questions, recently the reporter of Qianjia.com interviewed Mr. Li Ziming, director of channels and marketing of Axis Network Communications Co., Ltd. China. Let's listen to his views.

Ai Xi Shi Network Communications Co., Ltd. China District Director of Marketing and Marketing Li Ziming [character introduction]

Mr. Li Ziming joined Axis Communications Limited in 2005 and is currently the Director of Channels and Marketing in China. He is primarily responsible for channel sales and market expansion for Axis in China.

Prior to joining Axis, Mr. Li Ziming worked in the Wellhope Group and was responsible for the company's technical services in East China. The company is a well-known domestic IT company that is committed to government informatization and information security, and has provided large-scale business operations and information security integrated platforms for domestic governments and enterprises at all levels. Prior to joining the Wellhope Group, Mr. Li Ziming served as a teacher at Nanjing University of Technology from 1999 to 2001.

Mr. Li Ziming graduated from Nanjing University of Science and Technology with a master's degree in engineering and a bachelor's degree in engineering.

Qianjia.com: First of all congratulate your company on your move! What are the requirements for the relocation of Axis China headquarters and Guangzhou office? What will be the impact on Axis' future development?

Mr. Li: With the rapid development of China's security industry, Axis has paid more and more attention to China's security market. The investment in capital and technology in the Chinese market is also increasing, together with the Axis business in China. With the rapid growth, the company’s demand for talent is also increasing. Axis’ China headquarters in Shanghai and Guangzhou’s offices are no longer able to meet the company’s rapid development needs, so Axis has relocated. In particular, the new office in China's regional headquarters has roughly doubled the area, which can meet the needs of the next two or three years. In addition, Axis has set up a more professional and complete demonstration center in its new office. The center will fully display Axis' latest products and solutions for major industries such as transportation, banking and city surveillance, as well as partner solutions, software platforms, and wiring and other peripheral technologies. As a new platform for Axis exchanges and cooperation with its partners, the center will integrate related products and solutions of partners, conduct tests and demonstrations, and conduct more in-depth cooperation on the compatibility and performance development of both products. In order to provide Chinese users with better IP video surveillance solutions.

The impact of the relocation of the Axis office was very positive. First of all, the relocation has further improved the staff's office environment and can fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the employees so that they can work in a more active and full spirit. Second, at a certain level, partners are also allowed to understand the rapid development of the entire Axis. For them, this is also an incentive for them to have more confidence to cooperate with Axis, grow together, and promote the development of China's IP surveillance industry. Finally, the establishment of a professional and complete demonstration center is of great help to our customers and to Axis' latest solutions. It can directly promote Axis' business development.

Qianjia.com: Next, what plans and strategies will Axis have in developing and developing China's security market?

Mr. Li: From its creation to the present, Axis' success is inseparable from its long-term development strategy. In China, it also has its own long-term development strategy. There are mainly the following six points:

First, brand promotion. Axis will continue to increase its brand promotion efforts in the future, allowing integrators and users to understand Axis more deeply and to recognize the Axis brand, and to obtain more help from Axis' product solutions.

Second, market education. This means that Axis will serve as an educator to share its advanced ideas, technologies, products and knowledge in the field of IP surveillance with partners through Axis Academy, including integrators, design institutes, agents and End users, even some media friends. At present, Axis has launched new strategies for online certification examinations in North America, Europe, and Japan, and China will become the second country in Asia to open this training system. Axis has now fully prepared and plans to officially put this system online in the middle of next year, so stay tuned!

Third, channel expansion and regional coverage. China’s security market is very large. Although Axis currently has about seven primary distributors and two secondary distributors in China, there are a total of 89, but it is still not enough to cover the entire security market in China and it needs to continue to expand. Channel development.

Fourth, breakthroughs in key industries. In China, we are currently locked in the two major industries of finance and transportation. In the field of transportation, such as airports, expressways, and high-speed railways, we have had outstanding successes. In the financial industry, we will continue to work hard to discover opportunities and hope to have new breakthroughs next year. In the same way, we are even more hopeful that there will be more breakthroughs in other large industry sectors in the next one to two years.

Fifth, localization. People in the industry agree that if foreign companies want to succeed in the Chinese market, localization is a key factor. Axis also thinks so and is also very active in promoting localization in China. Including two aspects: First, localized production, and second, localized research and development. Axis has now begun active preparations to establish a professional production and equipment base in China, establish a research and development team, conduct research and development work for the needs of the Chinese market, and develop specialty products.

Sixth, team building. Axis will recruit more talented people and continuously enhance the team strength in China.

Qianjia.com: From Axis’ first half-year report released in 2012, we learned that Axis’ net sales in the second quarter increased by 40% compared to the same period last year, while net sales in the first half of the year increased by 24% compared to the same period last year. Axis’s position as a market leader in network cameras has not been shaken. Please tell us how Axis maintains and gives full play to its leading edge and leads the development of network monitoring technology.

Mr. Li: The reason why Axis has been unable to shake the market leader in the field of network cameras is, first of all, the reason why it is a company with an IT background. Since its inception in 1984, Axis has been committed to the development of products related to the Internet and IT. In 1996, it invented the world's first network camera, thus creating a network video surveillance industry. Solid foundation and rich experience make Axis have better and deeper understanding of network and IT technologies than other vendors.

Second, in the entire development process of Axis, there are three very important strategic factors that have been supporting it - partners, product innovation, global coverage. This is also the three cornerstones of Axis' long-term development strategy.

Partners: Axis has more than 1,200 employees worldwide and its business covers the rest of the world. From the point of view of team size and business coverage, this proportion is obviously very inconsistent, but Axis is very good at using the power of partners to develop together with partners to create a multi-win situation. Axis only focuses on R&D in products, and profits in software, technology, networking, and cabling are shared with partners.

Product Innovation: Axis is a company that focuses on product innovation. It has half of its staff's R&D team. Each year, 10%-15% of annual revenue is also invested in R&D.

Global coverage also refers to geographical coverage. In fact, in some important markets, Axis requires local employees or partners. Only Axis employees in the local area can better convey Axis' technology, products and ideas to partners and recommend them to users.

Qianjia.com: What new products and technologies will Axis launch this year? Please briefly introduce it.

Mr. Li: "Dawner" technology. This technology is a new technology that combines sensor, lens and video compression processing technologies. This technology allows the camera to capture smooth, colored images in almost all dark conditions. Its advantages are high sensitivity, excellent image quality, low noise but rich details, and better color reproduction under low light conditions, while low noise images also mean low bandwidth and lower storage costs for network transmission. .

Super wide dynamic technology. For example, at night, when the headlights of a vehicle come in, “backlighting” often occurs. Using the “ultra-wide dynamic” technology introduced by Axis, it is possible to realize both the recognition of the license plate and the visibility of the driver, avoiding ordinary The camera displays a "white day" surveillance picture. The AXISQ 1604 is one of the network cameras that uses super-wide dynamic technology.

Special camera. It refers to a hidden camera, such as a pinhole camera we introduce, installed in a vertical tube, approximately 1.6 meters in height, which can provide megapixel video, especially for hotels and supermarkets. In addition, Axis also introduced AXISP12 pinhole IP cameras, 360-degree panoramic cameras and others that can be used on ATMs.

Thousands of networks: When the network HD is sweeping the security video surveillance field, HD-SDI has attracted the attention of the industry with its advantages of no delay and easy installation. As an alternative to high-definition video surveillance, will the advent of HD-SDI hinder or surpass the current development trend of Internet HD? Or is it just a fashionable rise, and it will soon drop? Your point of view.

General Li: Axis is also very concerned about this technology. However, we believe that HD-SDI is only a transitional technology and not the direction of future development. After a period of time, I believe everyone will realize its problems.

Since SDI currently does not have a globally uniform standard, there are multiple versions of SDI, and different vendors will use different versions. At present, only some domestic manufacturers are pushing SDI products vigorously, while international video vendors are not optimistic about this technology. In fact, the so-called advantages of SDI such as no delay and easy installation are not as simple as advertising.

First of all, easy to install or easy to upgrade. Can a very simple upgrade on an existing analog system achieve this HD effect like an SDI product? In fact, if you upgrade from an existing analog system to an SDI high-definition analog system, you also need to increase the number of HD cameras, HD recorders, high-definition codecs, optical transceivers, matrix, and many other devices, as well as the replacement of high-definition cables. This is much higher than building a pure IP HD system.

The other is transmission. In fact, the transmission distance of SDI through this copper cable will not exceed 100 meters. It is necessary to add optical transceivers to transmit further. In addition, although SDI transmits a high-definition signal, it must be recompressed, encoded, and then stored again when it is actually stored on the back-end. In fact, there is no difference between the screens stored in the IP HD monitor and the screens stored.

For no delay, in fact, each manufacturer will be prepared to highlight the characteristics of their products. First of all, we do not deny that there is a certain delay in IP network monitoring. However, this delay can be controlled based on the network conditions. Delays within 300 milliseconds are relatively normal. If the network conditions are good, Axis can do it within 100 milliseconds. Then, the so-called non-delay like SDI can only be realized in the case of a local single client. In the case of multiple local clients, there is still a delay because the signal conversion requires a certain reaction time. . In addition, if multi-level networking, SDI delay is very powerful. However, in the case of multi-level networking, the latency of IP monitoring is minimal.

In short, SDI's so-called ease of installation, easy to upgrade, no delay and other advantages, all contain some exaggerated components, in the actual application of these advantages is not obvious. In addition, even if some delays are completely acceptable for IP monitoring, IP monitoring has many other advantages. Moreover, SDI's compatibility and supportability is not good. SDI currently does not have a unified standard. Only a few manufacturers provide SDI products, which are less selective for users; and IP monitoring, like Axis The well-known manufacturers at home and abroad are promoting international standards and users can have more choices.

Qianjia.com: What measures will Axis take to deal with the above issues?

General Li: The facts speak louder than words. First of all, we believe that users will have their own reasonable judgment when making decisions. Therefore, we only carry out a side of market education. Second, if users request on-site testing and comparison, we will be very happy to meet their requirements. We will use our equipment to make a test comparison with the SDI products of their choice and see which technology has more advantages.

Qianjia.com: The digitized and high-definition rhythm of the current video surveillance system in the security market continues to accelerate. In your opinion, what are the key technologies for the development of digitalization?

President Li: Chip technology. The core competitiveness of manufacturers lies in the competition of chip technology. The main role of the chip is processing power and computing power. Video compression, transmission, and analysis are also implemented through the data processing and data processing capabilities of the chip. The better the chip is, the stronger the data processing capability will be. Similarly, in the case of a strong hardware processing capability of the chip, it also needs a very good algorithm. The algorithm and the chip hardware are just like the computer hardware and software. The two must be combined together to form a synthetic advantage.

Then the chip's processing power, the algorithm is good, where are the advantages?

First, while providing high-definition images, it can also achieve low bitstream, small bandwidth occupancy, and low storage space. Under the same conditions, Axis' products can reduce the bandwidth occupation by 20%-30% and save more storage space.

Second, it can provide a powerful network system. I think this is also a lot of users or engineering companies they are not fully aware of. The monitoring we are talking about now is different from the past. The network monitoring that we are talking about means that the monitoring system you set up is a networked system, not a purely weak analog system. In a network monitoring system, each IP surveillance camera is a network node, and the performance of this IP surveillance camera directly determines the stability and high efficiency of the entire network system. The network performance improved by the chip can adapt to various network environments. Of course, the chip processing capability is good and the network performance is good, which can also reduce the network device's delay on the network.

Third, provide embedded intelligent analysis capabilities. We can develop some smart analysis functions that are embedded in the camera without going through the backend server.

In summary, I believe that the key to the development of digitalization lies in the development of chip technology.

Qianjia.com: Looking at security products in the first half of 2012, civilian products accounted for a portion of market share. We have also observed that security companies like Axis, Sony, Hikvision, and Dahua have also launched a variety of civil security products. Please discuss your views on the development prospects of China's civil security market. Please also talk about the original intention of your company taking the civilian security route.

General Li: Generally, when analyzing a market, everyone likes to paint this market into a pyramid shape. The highest-end market is the high-end market. This market has the smallest capacity and is a high-end user. It has the highest degree of acceptance for high-end products. Most of them are large-scale projects and landmark projects; in the middle is the professional market, and its capacity is higher than that of the high-end market. , mainly some professional products, is a mid-range product. Then the base of the pyramid is the low-end market, which is now the civil market. The market base is very large and the market has great potential. Axis has also been paying attention to this market, but also has professional products and solutions to contribute to this market! In expanding this part of the market, the biggest challenge for Axis is actually the price of the product.

In the foreign civilian market, Axis has achieved success and has occupied a considerable market share in the civilian market in North America and Europe. However, in the Chinese civil market, most of the market is used by domestic manufacturers for economical applications. Occupy, Axis is still only in a tentative breakthrough.

With regard to entering this market, Axis pays close attention to it and attaches importance to it. It has already established a certain foundation in all aspects. One professional solution. Although we have not yet fully promoted it in China, it has been fully implemented in Europe and the United States. Axis' AVHS (AXIS Video Host System) and ACC (AXIS Camera Companion) solutions, which are specifically aimed at the civilian market, are favored in European and American countries. The AVHS system is a video operation platform that works with operators. The ACC is a small monitoring solution for home users and small businesses. It is widely promoted in Europe and the United States because of the ease of installation and management. Two has a professional team and has accumulated a wealth of experience. Three professional products. When we talked about Axis' economic products, it was actually for the civilian market. In addition, we are currently also exploring some channels that are dedicated to us to develop this market.