ICS Helps LenelS2 Security Realize its Vision for Industry's Most Capable Video Surveillance System
LenelS2, formerly S2 Security, is a leader in IP-based access control, video management and mobile security management systems. The company is part of UTC's Carrier, a leading global provider of heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), refrigeration, fire, security and building automation technologies. LenelS2 develops powerful, cost-effective solutions to protect people, property and assets, and is recognized within the security industry as an innovator.
Challenge
LenelS2 is constantly exploring new ways to enhance the user experience. To this end, the company wanted to develop a sophisticated digital security surveillance solution more capable than anything on the market.
With a clear vision for an innovative cross-platform solution – S2 Magic Monitor® – LenelS2 turned to Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS) to help turn the idea into reality. The largest user experience, embedded and desktop Qt consulting firm in North America, ICS paired complex video capabilities with exceptional design quality to build a compelling next-generation front end for a unified security management solution.
Solution
When the product launched early in 2015, LenelS2 envisioned Magic Monitor as an elegant solution that enables security, safety and informational content to be displayed in real time throughout an organization on multiple screens in various formats, from single displays to expansive video walls.
The first thing that made this project so challenging was the requirement that Magic Monitor be capable of handling multiple – as many as 64 – simultaneous live video feeds. "From an engineering perspective, it's not that difficult to write a video player that plays one video stream at multiple forward speeds," explained ICS' Mark Antonelli, Senior Software Architect and manager of the LenelS2 project. "There are a lot of free players that do that."
"What you will not see, and what is an engineering challenge, is a system that can play 64 high-definition videos simultaneously; combines live streaming and playback using multiple streaming protocols, file sources, and back-ends; plays down to frame-by-frame detail in forward and reverse mode; and does it all with an intuitive user interface," he said.
It was up to ICS to ponder, problem solve and engineer a product that met LenelS2's exacting standards. Due to the project's scope, the ICS team encountered a number of perplexing challenges. The most puzzling: finding an elegant solution for streaming those 64 live feeds across a congested network, as well running all the video players continuously for months on end.
The challenges were amplified as the project evolved and LenelS2 expanded its vision to include additional, increasingly powerful features, like dynamic content widgets for time-zone clocks, weather, traffic, news-scroll ticker and RSS feeds. Other requirements included the ability to create custom layouts for the visual content display, mapping capabilities that pinpoint where all security cameras in a given system are located and opt-in monitoring of the "health" of a client's security system using the LenelS2 Cumulus cloud service.
These challenges only energized ICS' engineers. Among their solutions: creating a custom video pipeline and building a proprietary algorithm to increase bandwidth to deliver high-performance video.