Video Analytics on the Edge

Dec 1, 2006 12:00 PM

The effectiveness and cost of video analytics applications are often determined by their location on the security network, says Mariann McDonagh, vice president of global marketing for Verint Systems. And the best place for video analytics technology is at the network edge, she says.

Embedding video analytics technology in intelligent edge devices, including IP cameras, wireline and wireless video encoders, dramatically reduces bandwidth and storage requirements by eliminating the need to send video data across the network to a centralized server for analysis, says McDonagh. Additionally, analyzing high-quality video at the point of capture can increase the accuracy of alarms and alerts generated by analytics, thus reducing false positives and focusing security resources on legitimate threats.

Video analytics at the network edge, integrated within a robust video management platform, allows users to deploy a variety of applications to secure wide-area unmanned perimeters. McDonagh lists the following:

• Intrusion Detection allows users to define virtual boundaries around an area of interest and track movement within that sector.

• Loitering applications detect people or vehicles standing near secure or high value areas for extended periods.

• Tailgating allows security personnel to detect people or objects that gain unauthorized entry through a secure access door by closely following authorized personnel.

• Virtual View applications enable users to track events or suspicious behavior over multiple locations by “stitching” separate camera views together into one scene.

Since intelligent edge devices analyze video data in real-time as it is captured, when a rule is broken, an alert can be sent immediately to the appropriate parties, thus dramatically decreasing response time. And by embedding analytics within the edge device, organizations can easily deploy and scale video analytics without the need to purchase additional servers or storage resources.

Simply put, says McDonagh, video analytics at the network edge provides greater situational awareness, simplified administration and lower cost of ownership.

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