OMAHA, Neb. Since they were introduced about 20 years ago, onboard bus surveillance systems have matured significantly and even more changes are on the way, says an executive with leading coach industry electronics supplier Radio Engineering Industries.

"In 2009, the catch phrase will be, solid-state hard drives," said Gunnar Guenette, director of marketing at REI.

"Conventional hard drives use moving parts and are thus more susceptible to damage due to vibration and environmental issues. Solid-state hard drives have no moving parts," said Guenette.

However, the new hard drives are "very pricey and there is no expectation that prices will come down anytime soon." So, Guenette expects initial wide-scale acceptance to be slow.

REI sold its first bus surveillance system 1992, and its systems have matured along with the industry.

Today, computer hard drives are used to store video images and other data recorded by surveillance systems.

While many digital video recorders employ 3.5-inch hard-drives, which are designed for in-home use, REI uses 2.5-inch, mobile-rated hard drives and "we go to great lengths to design our hard drive mechanisms with vibration-dampening materials to ensure long life and reliability," said Guenette.

With the record times for todays surveillance system now measured in weeks, instead of hours, attention has been turned toward high-resolution cameras, said Guenette.

"High-resolution cameras provide vast improvements in image quality over conventional cameras, and costs are coming down to affordable levels."

Guenette noted that REI currently has an extensive mix of high-resolution cameras available with more internal and external cameras due out this year.

He also expects to see the use of wireless systems increase "as infrastructure costs come down and the technology that delivers video wirelessly improves.

"Video by its very nature, however, requires huge amounts of bandwidth, and this bandwidth does not come cheaply. On-site infrastructure costs are very high and download times are also very slow, but REI recommends downloading only the images that are essential to an operation. This allows a property to decrease its up-front infrastructure costs as well as implementation time," said Guenette.

The REI BUS-WATCH digital surveillance system is specifically designed for use on school buses. Since it was introduced 17 years ago, 125,000 systems have been installed on buses in North and South America.

In addition to recording activities in and around the bus, the system also will record other activities, such as speed, brakes, turn signals and warning lights. Optional equipment and features such as BUS-TRACKER GPS mapping systems, inertia sensor/accelerometer modules, and wireless network upload of data are available.

The system begins recording data when the bus is started and can be programmed to record up to 10 hours after the bus ignition is shut off. Indicator lights provide positive feedback the system is functional and an event marker switch can be activated by the driver to "tag" the hard drive for easy retrieval of data by school officials.