WestPoint · Video software · Digifort
Digifort is Brazilian video software with a catalogue that looks like those of the big platforms —number plates, analytics, maps, failover, web and mobile clients— and a perpetual, modular licence that comes in considerably lower. The data sheet is not the problem. What has to be looked at is who holds this system up eight years from now.
The scene: a specification or a private project whose list of compulsory functions is that of an enterprise platform and whose budget is not.
It happens more than it seems. Somebody writes «number plates, zone analytics, drawings, web client, failover and mobile app» because it is the reasonable thing, and the money there is stretches to half of it. That is where this platform turns up, and it meets the list.
It does not make cameras, and that defines the rest: its interest is in working with all of them, so the device list is long and ONVIF covers the rest. Server on Windows, recording on your drives, a licence per camera and modules per function.
It is very well established in Latin America and reaches Spain and Europe through distribution, and that matters for the part of this page that is not technical. That it is less widespread here says nothing about how it records; it says a fair amount about what has to be asked for in writing before signing.
A classic platform on your servers, with a rules engine that is more generous than the price leads you to expect.
The base comes in low. What puts the invoice up is not the cameras: it is the functions multiplied by cameras.
The model is perpetual and per channel, with modules per function: number plates, analytics, recognition, failover, clients. Each module is licensed for the channels it is used on, and there is the sum that has to be done beforehand: forty cameras with analytics is not the same as forty cameras.
That has a consequence that is not the manufacturer's fault: it is the platform where it is easiest to put in a cheap quotation. A budget with the base and two modules wins the comparison, and eighteen months later somebody asks for number plates at six entrances and recognition on two doors and an invoice appears that nobody had seen.
That is why the licence table is made at the start, with today's functions and those of three years' time on the same sheet, with their price. We do it that way even when it puts our quotation up and leaves it worse than the one next to it. It is the only way for the comparison to be real.
On top of that goes the annual maintenance, which is what entitles you to new versions. The usual thing with one particularity of its own: on a platform with many modules, falling behind in version means falling behind in modules, and analytics from four years ago is not the same as today's. The renewal and reinstatement conditions are asked for in writing.
A video system lives between eight and twelve years. The technical questions get answered on a test rig in a week; these ones never get answered if they are not asked now.
Who picks up the telephone, in what language and at what hours. Not the distributor's: the support that actually solves it when a server will not start on a Sunday. It is asked with names and with the service agreement in writing, and it is asked beforehand.
How many integrators in your country could take charge of this system if yours disappeared. This is the real question, and with a platform that is not widespread the answer is a small number. It is not a reason not to buy it; it is a reason to demand documentation that works without us, and to have the administrator keys in your name from day one.
How often security fixes are published and how you find out. A video system is software exposed on a company's network, and «the installer looks after that» is not an answer. You ask for the channel the notice comes through and who is going to apply the patches, by name.
And the purchasing part, which decides before the technical one: a policy that demands a European manufacturer, a list of local references or particular certifications can rule this platform out without anybody having looked at how it records. That conversation has to be had at the start and sometimes it is not won; losing three months to find out is what has to be avoided.
And we say it about a platform we work with, which is what makes saying it worth something. If in your province the ones holding this up are us, that is a dependency on us, and we would rather you knew it by reading it here than by discovering it the year you decide to change supplier. The way to take the weight out of it is the documentation, and that is why we hand it over the way we do: so that somebody else can carry on.
Here the boundary is not set by the size of the installation. It is set by the specification and by who is going to maintain it.
You need a long list of functions on a budget that does not reach an enterprise platform and you would rather spend the difference on cameras and on drives, which is where the image comes from. If you have an estate of several brands. If you want everything on your servers, with no compulsory cloud and no subscription governing the system. And if there is somebody to tune the rules, because that is where its value is.
Your purchasing policy demands a manufacturer of a particular origin, local references or certifications this platform is not going to bring: that conversation is lost before it starts. If IT only works on Linux. If many premises have to be federated with specification-grade auditing. Or if there is going to be nobody to tune anything, because then you are paying for a catalogue that stays switched off.
The test rig with the real cameras. The device list is long and «it is on the list» is not «with its functions»: what arrives from each model and with what firmware can be seen in half a day. And the licence table with the modules of three years' time inside it, which is the other half of the check.
On this platform the integrator shows a lot, and that is why the most important part of our work is leaving it in a state where somebody else can carry it on.
It splits like any platform on Windows, with one boundary of its own that has to be named: the rules engine.
It is one of the things that gets this platform into a comparison, and it is worth being precise about what it is and what it asks for.
What it brings per module: zones and line crossings, object left or removed, loitering, counting and occupancy, number plates, and recognition where the law allows it and with the written authorisation that requires. For the money it costs, the catalogue is wide, and that is its honest argument.
What can be added: the analytics carried inside whatever good cameras there are, which arrives as an event, and whatever is integrated through the programming interface. With the usual warning: each thing added is another manufacturer and another version that has to square up.
And what module analytics asks for and nobody budgets: tuning. Zones, sizes, schedules and sensitivity, camera by camera, with a week of following up to see what alerts and what does not. Analytics freshly installed is not finished, it is started, and without that week the result is noise that somebody switches off in a month.
The ceiling, which with a catalogue this size has to be said more plainly: these are detectors of defined patterns. They work well on the well-bounded —a zone, a line, a count— and they fall short when the question is interpretative: whether what is going on there is normal or not, with three things at once. No number of modules reaches that.
And the declaration we owe you before the recommendation: in the same house there is IRIS Neural, the NVMS from Infinity Neural, the other company in the group. It is our own product, we make it, and if we did not say so everything above would be worth less.
On many installations they live together, and here the coexistence is technical and without surprises because everything lives on your servers: Digifort governs cameras, recording, retention and permissions, and IRIS brings the understanding of the scene, which is the interpretative question we have just talked about. Both parts look at the same streams, without duplicating cameras and without taking video out of the installation.
And the closing line, which is the same on all twenty: if what is needed is two zones, a line and a count, this platform's module does it and costs less. Then that is the right answer and we say so.
If what brought you here is the price per channel, it is worth looking at the index with the complete licence table in front of you: with the modules in, some comparisons change order in both directions.
Get started
Tell us which functions are compulsory, how many cameras there are and of what brands, how many buildings, what your purchasing department says about origin and references, and whether there is anybody who is going to tune rules. With that we give you the complete licence table with the modules of three years' time inside it, and we tell you whether this platform is any use to you or whether the specification is going to knock it out before anybody looks at how it records.
