Hanwha Techwin America provides a standard solution for visually verifying access control activity

With end-users looking for maximum benefit from their investment in security, a major objective to the success of any video surveillance system is to seek ways in which it can interact with other security systems. A major trend we are seeing at the moment is linking CCTV with Access Control systems. The opportunity to pass video, data or alarm information between these systems has obvious operational benefits. As well as providing visual verification of anyone attempting to gain access to restricted areas, there is also an opportunity to obtain valuable management information such as time and attendance records.

For end-users to have confidence in the information provided by a video surveillance system and an access control system working in harmony, it is obviously important that access control events and alarms can be reliably and consistently synchronised with the relevant video. Until now there  has not been a low cost method of doing this and for many years users have suffered the frustration of finding that the video they have retrieved from a DVR relates to an event that occurred several seconds or even minutes before or after the actual event they wished to view. 

However, there is some good news for end-users who are looking to gain maximum ROI from their security systems as this technology becomes more widely available. Samsung already provides, as a standard feature, time synchronisation between its fingerprint recognition, proximity and smart card & PIN based access control systems and its SRD digital video recorder range. This can also be taken onto the network by using an encoder with a built-in SD card that records an event when access is granted or denied at the access control reader, allowing users to view video via a webpage.

This easy to implement and powerful feature provides therefore installers and system integrators with an opportunity to increase revenue streams, whilst offering both new and existing clients with reliable access control data, verified by high quality video evidence.