:: Shepperton, England, January 26, 2004 - Verdant Technologies (www.verdant-tech.co.uk), a specialist supplier of digital closed circuit television (CCTV) products and associated embedded design and consultancy services, has won a £45,000 Small Firms Merit Award for Research and Technology (SMART) from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)’s Small Business Service.

Gareth Roberts (DTI) presents SMART AWARD to
John Douglass (CEO Verdant Technologies Ltd.)

The Smart feasibility award will enable Verdant Technologies to test its innovative and patent-pending technology, which consists of a low cost, low power transceiver that enables the transmission of digital closed circuit television (CCTV) signals over existing analogue co-axial cabling.

The groundbreaking technique could drastically reduce the cost of ownership of digital CCTV systems by allowing users to utilise their existing analogue transmission lines as a digital network, offering the increased capacity (a full 10 mega bits per second all the time) and versatility of a dedicated digital network, without the problems and costs associated with re-cabling.

John Douglass, founder and chief executive officer of Verdant Technologies, believes that this technology could stimulate growth in the digital CCTV market: “The digital CCTV market has been held back because the only way for security managers to get the bandwidth they need is to invest in their own cabling – an expensive option - or to negotiate with their IT colleagues for a share of the closely guarded office network. Our transceiver provides a compelling and cost effective alternative.”

John Douglass, founder and chief executive officer of Verdant Technologies

Verdant Technologies’ solution – which has parallels with the way that high speed Internet broadband services are delivered over standard copper wire telephone networks using digital subscriber line (DSL) - provides a cost-effective way of moving from an analogue to a digital CCTV system.

Early tests have proved successful using four real-time independent IP video camera sources connected to a single cable of up to 200-metres. The company will use the Smart Award funds to carry out further trials using a variety of IP cameras from leading manufacturers. This test data should be available in the first quarter of 2004.

In the meantime, the company is pressing ahead with working prototypes and is actively seeking trade partnerships to commercialise the technology ready for a formal launch later this year. The company also has plans to improve both bandwidth and maximum cable length in the future.
“What’s exciting our customers is not just the re-use of cable issue but also the fact that by utilising existing co-axial cabling the digital network can be used for the transmission of other information, such as access control data,” added John Douglass. “Customers can also significantly increase effective bandwidth to support up to 40 cameras over a typical CCTV network.”

According to a 2003 report on the CCTV market from MSI Marketing Research for Industry, the installation of the video cabling infrastructure is expensive and labour intensive and typically accounts for over 40% of the cost of a new system. It is estimated that in the last decade, in the UK alone, over £200 million has been invested in video cabling infrastructure.

About Verdant technologies (www.verdant-tech.co.uk)
Verdant Technologies (www.verdant-tech.com) is a specialist supplier of digital closed circuit television (CCTV) products and associated embedded design and consultancy services. Founded by John Douglass in March 2002, the company is focused on the emerging market for networked Internet protocol (IP) based video transmission and digital CCTV systems. Verdant Technologies is privately owned and is based in the UK at Shepperton, Middlesex.

About SMART

The Smart scheme has been running for more than 14 years and aims to boost innovative and exploratory ways of solving practical problems. Grants are available for three types of project:

:: up to £10,000 for a micro project to develop a low cost prototype
:: up to £45,000 for a feasibility study into innovative technology; and
:: funding of up to £150,000 for the development of a new product or process up to pre-production prototype stage.

Organisations can find out more about Smart by visiting www.dti.gov.uk.

Media contact:

Martin Brooke
Martin Brooke Associates
Tel +44 (0) 1223 264050
Email: martin.brooke@mba-pr.com