Financial Security: PVMs
Making Public View Monitors Work
The man walks nervously into the bank, looks quickly around, and his head automatically turns to the screen just above his head – which beams back an image of himself, walking nervously into the bank. The flat-panel display is a public view monitor (PVM), with a small camera embedded inside it behind tinted plastic.
The instinctive reaction to look directly at the screen means that the face of everyone entering the bank is captured by the PVM. Sounds like an ideal deterrent to bank robberies – except that unless the lighting conditions are just right, the PVM is more likely to record an indistinct head with facial features that are either uniformly dark or uniformly washed out. Savvy potential bank robbers could conceivably outwit the PVM by timing their entry into the bank to coincide with the highest-contrast lighting conditions facing the PVM.
Banks can do their own outwitting, however, by choosing to install PVM cameras based on Pixim’s Digital Pixel System® technology, which can capture, for example, accurate color, skin tone, and facial features even in harsh or radically changing lighting. Potential bank robbers need to be aware not only of the time of day, but also the technology behind the PVM of their target banks. If they unwittingly choose a bank that has installed Pixim-Powered PVM cameras, they might find themselves caught in the act, with enough clarity and accuracy for successful prosecution.
Pixim’s technology, a true breakthrough in imaging technology, delivers unprecedented image quality in all lighting conditions. Cameras powered by Pixim’s specialized image processing chipsets can significantly enhance financial services security through the following capabilities:
- Widest dynamic range: Captures highlight and shadow detail - including faces in strong backlight - in the same scene.
- Highest total resolution: Makes it easy to distinguish target image features and details, even in highly variable lighting conditions.
- Superior color rendering: Accurately displays color even in difficult lighting such as indoor/outdoor, glare, and fluorescent lighting.
- No "camera blindness": Eliminates the vertical smear, pixel blooming, and other image artifacts commonly encountered in high-contrast scenes.
- High image compression: Improves image quality with smaller file size - allowing DVRs to record with higher frame rate or higher resolution, or both, while maintaining the same total recording time.
| More About Pixim and DVRs | [Hide] |
Pixim, compared with CCD technology, enables the higher compression of images taken by security cameras, which leads to advantages for DVRs:
- Allows the use of higher-resolution settings on the DVR without sacrificing the overall recording time (i.e., # days on a DVR).
- Enables more frames per second to be written on the DVR without sacrificing overall recording time (i.e., # days on a DVR) or resolution.
- Permits the connection of more cameras to each DVR, without sacrificing resolution or frame rate.
- Provides recordings with higher image quality, for more accurate identification of people and events and more compelling evidence.
- Makes it easier to comply with FBI and other regulations that require storage of 10 to 30 days' worth of video - without sacrificing resolution, lowering the frame rate, or reducing the number of cameras connected to each DVR.
- Optimizes the investment in expensive DVRs.
 |
 |
| CCD | Pixim |
|
|
 |
Download PVM security applications brochure |
The U.S. banking industry reports that losses from employee theft exceed $1 billion annually, which is more than the amount taken in bank robberies.