The isolation and recognition of suspicious behaviors like facial expressions has been a key element of security for years. Security personnel in fields ranging from retail to national security have been trained to recognize movements that may identify a potential thief, criminal or terrorist in order to minimize threats and maximize security. A security professional with years of experience can recognize a thief or criminal simply by their facial expression or the way they swing their arms when they walk. As powerful as this knowledge is, security guards still have to battle with a short attention span – studies have proven that even the most diligent security personnel struggle with paying attention to a security camera or a room after a period of 20 minutes.
Security cameras are an essential addition to retail environments, transportation hubs, public spaces, or any area with a concern for security and public welfare. While analog CCTV cameras are prevalent in many areas, the development of digital technology and wireless networking has made Internet Protocol (IP) cameras into a fast-growing portion of the security camera market. IP cameras take the wired world of CCTV cameras, analog recorders and coaxial cable and take it digital and worldwide. Digital IP cameras transmit high quality footage wirelessly to a computer hard drive or network enabled DVR called an NVR. These network video recorders are able to receive and record footage transmitted wirelessly or through a CAT-5 Ethernet cable. However, unlike DVRs, which only record footage, NVRs have a built-in networking device and can be recognized by a network. This allows an IP camera system with an NVR to transmit footage over the internet, making footage available from anywhere at any time.
The newest development in the world of IP cameras is the introduction of video analytics. Cameras with video analytics capabilities are able to independently analyze camera footage and identify programmed behaviors or occurrences, like cars passing through gates or a customer entering a store. Analytics software consists of algorithms, each of which instructs the camera to analyze footage for an individual characteristic. Therefore, if a camera is to have three specific analytics capabilities (car passing through gate, person passing through a door, notifying a security guard of an intrusion), its software will require three specific algorithms.
Video analytics is widely regarded as the future of video surveillance – security companies will be able to integrate the large database of behavioral knowledge and translate them into algorithms for video analytics cameras. This technology can help security guards isolate threatening behavior without having to cope with the short attention spans that plague the security industry today.
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