Milestone Systems, the open platform company in networked video management software (VMS), is announcing a new version of the market-leading XProtect VMS product suite for partners and customers. XProtect 2016 R3 marks the third release this year of Milestone’s award-winning VMS. Milestone’s commitment to bi-monthly device pack releases supporting third-party camera interoperability, in addition to the multiple VMS releases, is an aggressive schedule designed to be flexible for addressing market needs.

Partners in focus
XProtect 2016 R3 Advanced VMS has many enhancements, developed based on feedback from the partner community, illustrating Milestone’s ongoing commitment to maximize the business value of video management systems for partners and customers. The rapid development cycle enables Milestone to fulfill market needs and partner demands, keeping the Milestone community agile and responsive.

Innovative video storage handling can save more than 80% in disk activity
In order to minimize disk load for recording servers, Milestone has developed a new strategy for storing video in RAM before committing recordings to disk. By fully utilizing the large RAM capacity in modern servers, recorded video is kept until the VMS determines the video data needs to be written to slower mechanical disks. In systems not using this technology the video is always written to disk regardless of whether it is necessary.

Initial testing shows the savings in disk activity can be up to 80% and even more in scenarios with little or no motion. Reduction in disk activity enables the recording server to handle more cameras, be more resilient and run cooler. Because disk load is reduced, less expensive disk drives can be used. The time it takes to wear out the disk drives is then prolonged, reducing maintenance costs.

Designed for low bandwidth camera networks
The new intelligent use of local storage in cameras supports the rising demand for cameras used in low-bandwidth scenarios, such as wearable cameras, ad-hoc installations, cameras used in vehicles, trains and planes. The limited bandwidth in mobile networks often restricts these types of cameras from sending low-resolution video, making accurate situational investigation difficult. The new Milestone feature, SVQR – Scalable Video Quality Recording, changes this.

With SVQR, a low-bandwidth connection can be used to send low-resolution video to a command center for real-time situational awareness. When the cameras are connected to a high-bandwidth network, high quality recordings from the cameras’ local storage can be retrieved by XProtect 2016 R3 Advanced VMS by event, schedule or manually. This means that SVQR improves evidence investigation as well as real-time situational awareness, providing added value for the Milestone community.

Support for H.265 video compression saves storage and network costs
The growing need for high-performance business video systems has led to numerous changes in Milestone software to meet the needs of increased performance and saving resources. This means that one of the primary focus areas for the 2016 R3 release is to improve storage handling.

Savings in disk space are achieved by the support of the highly efficient H.265 video compression. More video can be stored on a given disk volume. Alternatively, the recording quality can be raised with the same storage use. 4K – Ultra High Definition is also a viable option with this video compression technology. Smaller video files mean less network load for greater savings in bandwidth.
Milestone camera partner Vivotek specifies that H.265 can bring out twice the efficiency of H.264. Numerous Milestone Camera Partners are already either supporting H.265 or in the process of certifying their cameras with Milestone XProtect Advanced video surveillance solutions.

Situational navigation through innovative use of maps
XProtect 2016 R3 Advanced VMS expands situational awareness on several levels. The new Smart Maps function introduces support for Google, Bing and OpenStreetMap, in addition to geo-referenced GIS maps and CAD drawings. This enables users to rapidly get an overview of a situation in an easy-use format. The maps can be used, for example, for guiding patrol guards, directing trucks to loading bays or helping retailers understand their environment.

Cybersecurity enhancements
In order to meet the strict demands for high security in corporate infrastructures, XProtect 2016 R3 Advanced VMS adds support for the IT industry safety standard Kerberos. This support adds a strong and encrypted user authentication to the VMS. The use of Kerberos makes it easy for XProtect Advanced VMS to be integrated with corporate business systems. In addition, Milestone has issued a system hardening guide enabling the partner community to configure safe and secure systems.

Milestone dedicated to partner community
The enhanced focus on Milestone and its partners as one community is a continuation of Milestone’s ongoing commitment to maximize the business value of video management systems for both partners and customers. By accelerating the process of involving the partner community more deeply into development activities, Milestone is addressing increasing market demand to deliver value faster. This means facilitating more partner-to-partner direct interaction and refining partners’ abilities to draw upon community resources and mutual marketing opportunities.

“We are extremely pleased that we are fulfilling the ever-growing needs in the Milestone community at a rapid pace. This is truly a tribute to the power of open platform technology and the energy in the partner community. It also solidifies our position as number one in the VMS market,” states Bjørn Skou Eilertsen, Vice President of Corporate Products Business Unit at Milestone Systems. “This release contains several industry firsts: substantial optimization of storage, a focus on cybersecurity and ever-better situational awareness. This paves the way for an even more exciting 2017.”

Milestone XProtect 2016 R3 Advanced VMS will be available in the fourth quarter of 2016.