Surveillance cameras have become more common on college campuses and within enterprise facilities, but monitoring the waves of resulting video remains a challenge. By leveraging video analytics that provide real-time alarms designed to identify specific type events, a single person effectively can monitor video from several cameras simultaneously.
“For one of our clients, the cost of that one fixed-post position would fund 10-15 smart cameras—and that’s a full implementation of camera, video-management platform and analytics,” said Larry Consalvos, IXP President and COO. “It’s a workforce multiplier, in that the feeds from those cameras are going through some behavioral-recognition analytics—they are becoming a force multiplier inside their communication center.”
Video analytics is a very powerful and flexible tool but it must be tailored to the individual customers’ needs. Algorithms can be customized to search for different types of activities, such as a car driving by or a bag being dropped on the ground. It can be fine-tuned even further using the time of the day, the color of the car, and even when there is motion in an area of the camera’s view where there should not be anyone trespassing.
Making it even more useful is the ability to use it proactively or reactively. You can program the system to constantly run real-time searches on all of your incoming video footage, and then send alerts to the dispatcher sitting at the computer. You can also customize searches after the fact, to scan through the recorded footage, and report back with any results within seconds.
It is a technology tool that when balanced with the right amount of operational resources, you have “a real workable, cost-effective solution” which proves to be invaluable to public safety workers.