By Robin Berger
Government Video
The growing trend for police vehicle camera systems is to upgrade those systems for higher resolution, optimized data transmission and bandwidth conservation. In addition, users polled continue to favor ease of use and reliability at an affordable price.
During 2010, Memphis, Tenn.-based Pannin technologies introduced the D1 video resolution format (enabling 720x480 pixels on screen) to its enforcer standalone in car Video system. the enforcer also now incorporates the h.264 compression standard (also known as MPEG4 Part 10 advanced Video coding); h.264 encoding optimizes the transmission of streamed video by significantly lowering the amount of bandwidth needed to transmit it without distorting the images. the enforcer’s bit rate ranges from 12.5 kilobits to 112.5 kilobits per second, according to the manufacturer.
The video produced by the enforcer “is so much clearer,” said Lt. Terry Hastings, spokesman for the little rock, arkansas Police Department, which had about 150 of those systems installed out of a total fleet of 250 cars. he said the department began replacing its former system in 2009, and will (budget allowing) add 50 more enforcers in 2011. “We started the MVR process with VHS tapes – the [video] quality was poor, microphone reception was poor and a lot of times we lost video.”