EMAIL INTERVIEW Marc Petock & Ken Sinclair

Marc Petock
Vice President, Global Marketing & Communications
Tridium
AHR Booth #3962

What is Niagara Video?

Niagara Video is our latest application in providing a comprehensive intelligent building solution that integrates all the common building functions-environmental control, intrusion detection, access control, lighting and energy management with video.

Sinclair: What is Niagara Video?

Petock: Niagara Video is our latest application in providing a comprehensive intelligent building solution that integrates all the common building functions-environmental control, intrusion detection, access control, lighting and energy management with video. It provides seamless integration between today’s building applications and digital video recorders, IP cameras, network video recorders, and video management solutions.

Sinclair: Can you give me an example?

Petock: Let’s use the following scenario: It is Saturday
2:05 a.m. - A facilities BAS system reports a low temperature alarm from the HVAC system.
2:05 a.m. - Simultaneously, as this alarm is being generated and notification is being sent to authorized personnel, the security system automatically re-directs a camera to view down the hallway in the direction of the alarm.
2:07 a.m. - Personnel look at live video; turn hallway lights on; see water leaking from the ceiling; shut down HVAC system and calls for emergency repair-all remotely and in real time.
2:08 a.m. - Immediate action is taken, a disaster is averted, overall damage and repair costs held to a minimum and overall risk is mitigated.

Sinclair: What led Tridium to develop this application?

Petock: Today’s building owners and facility managers are faced with several challenges as they look to maximize the performance of their facilities and look to extend the investment in their video management systems. While many advances have been made in the development and deployment of video-based monitoring systems many of these remain isolated from other critical building systems and therefore are limited to their usefulness and coverage. To optimize the true value of video systems they need to integrate directly with existing systems such as HVAC, energy management, lighting and security to create a new level of real-time visibility into-and resolution of facility events as they occur. We believe that turning traditional isolated building video and security silos into part of an integrated, building-wide facility management solution would further optimize these systems. And with Niagara Video it does.

Sinclair: Is it built using the Niagara Framework?

Petock: Yes, so it can merge with other security and video products to provide a complete building automation, card access and video monitoring system or it can be used as a stand alone system providing a video window that identifies an incident and notifies the proper personnel who can manage the response from anywhere. Niagara Video can be combined with other NiagaraAX applications to deliver a unified, intelligent facility-wide management system that is easy to use, easy to understand and easy to commission.

Sinclair: You mentioned that Niagara Video contains bi-directional alarming. What do you mean?

Petock: The alarming component of Niagara Video is bi-directional so it can initiate video recording of critical events based on Niagara alarms as well as control building functions and view live video in Niagara based on video system events. For example, a flame event in a boiler room can automatically re-direct cameras and record the event, storing the critical video clip in a protected video alarm database for future reference. Conversely, an alarm from a video device, such as a video motion detection alarm, can initiate control logic sequences-such turn on the hallway lights or building lockdown-when a camera sees unauthorized motion activity.

Sinclair: Does it work in local and remote buildings?

Petock: Niagara Video works with local and remote buildings equally as well. The flexibility and scalability of the solution also provides users with visibility into an entire facility or group of facilities via a single browser-based user interface. This allows system users to manage facility events and information from any location without requiring dedicated computers or thick client software.

Sinclair: When will this be available?

Petock: Niagara Video will be available for general release on February 15, 2009.

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