ONVIF, the global standardization initiative for IP-based physical security products, hosted its annual membership meeting and elections in late October, providing an update to members on ONVIF activities and accomplishments over the past year. Attendees around the world heard presentations on such activities as the development and publication of two new profiles (release candidates) in 2015, the launch of a false conformance reporting tool on the ONVIF website, and the organization’s ongoing membership and growth in conformant products.

Attendees in the annual meeting, held via webinar, were welcomed by ONVIF Steering Committee Chairman Per Björkdahl, who discussed how ONVIF had recently reached several milestones as an organization by virtue of its 500 member companies and more than 5,000 ONVIF conformant products available in the physical security market today.

On behalf of the ONVIF Steering Committee, Björkdahl shared the goals and strategies for the upcoming year, asking member companies for increased involvement in ONVIF’s work and inviting members to share their ONVIF success stories. He also noted the growing acceptance by the industry at large.

“ONVIF has made incredible strides since our formation in 2008,” Björkdahl said. “Together, we have developed five profiles, offered education and networking opportunities to thousands of people and have gained broad acceptance within the physical security industry. Above all, we are a member-driven group, so we thank all of our members for their hard work and dedication.”

The election results for ONVIF’s committees were announced, as well. Mayur Salgar of Honeywell was named to the steering committee, along with Kim Loy of Pelco by Schneider Electric. For the technical committee, Honeywell’s Ramesh Subbaiah, Pelco by Schneider Electric’s Steve Wolf, Panasonic’s Hasan Ozdemir and Siemens’ Suresh Krishnamurthy were elected. Bob Dolan of Anixter was re-elected to the technical services committee, joined by committee members Fen Chen of Hikvision and Andrew Downs of Pelco by Schneider Electric. ONVIF’s newly elected communication committee members are Mike Mao of Honeywell, Greg Alcorn of Oncam Grandeye, Jason Spielfogel of Pelco by Schneider Electric, and John Ballantyne of VerifEye Technologies.

Hans Busch of Bosch, ONVIF technology committee chair, spoke to members about ONVIF’s newest set of network interface specifications and advised them of an upcoming specification release that will encompass video-related features. Technical services committee chair Andreas Schneider of Sony shared the timeline for upcoming profile releases through 2018 and spoke about the 13th Developers’ Plugfest, held November 11–13, 2015, in Hangzhou, China. ONVIF communications chair Stuart Rawling of Pelco by Schneider Electric closed the meeting with a recap of the ONVIF presence at various trade shows throughout 2015, the forum’s public relations and social media efforts and the findings of an ongoing market awareness survey about ONVIF and its various profiles.

With Profile S for streaming video; Profile G for recording and storage; Profile C for physical access control and the Release Candidates Profile A, for access control configuration, and Profile Q, for easy installation and advanced security features, ONVIF continues to work with its members to expand the number of IP interoperability solutions ONVIF conformant products can provide.