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Better-performing video systems provide better security. Today’s end users demand systems with optimum performance, providing smooth video streams, higher resolutions, efficient storage, better analysis and quick access to stored images.
Here are several technologies driving greater video surveillance capabilities:
Innovations in image processing to boost system performance
Higher resolutions are a challenge for video management systems, but new tools are meeting the challenge. Tools such as more efficient compression and complex video analysis can impact the performance of the overall system. New systems are based on 64-bit software architecture and high performance hardware. Use of graphics processing units (GPUs) can make image processing three times faster, enabling systems to deal easily with new 4K Ultra HD cameras and display several of them in real time on a control computer. Use of GPUs relieves the central processing unit (CPU) of the computational burden of image processing tasks.
Database functionality to ensure access to stored images
Strong database performance is necessary for reliable image recording with simultaneous fast access to stored images. Above all it requires high write/read throughput for the image data – at least in Mbyte/s. But be sure to measure performance based on real-world situations. Performance should not suffer when simultaneously accessing stored images (standard for the video surveillance) and reverse playback (often used for closer analysis of an incident). It is thus important that the database architecture, in particular, along with the storage hardware, be tailored to the needs of the customer.
Optimised bandwidth
Dynamic stream management ensures that the system takes care of the technical consequences of an operator’s actions, in the background and automatically. It optimizes the transmission of image sizes in the network, thereby preventing congestion. Simple logic makes it clear: Not every image is displayed at the maximum resolution at which the camera provides or could provide it. Therefore, it need not be sent over the network at maximum resolution. Instead, the user sees exactly the level of detail he or she needs.
The right storage solutions
When choosing a storage system, it is important to be clear about your specific requirements. Put another way: You must define your needs in terms of reliability, capacity, cost and performance. Of course these requirements are interdependent, making the decision that much more difficult. Users should understand the complexities of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) and iSCSI storage (Internet Small Computer System Interface) and SAS (serial attached SCSI) – and the pros and cons of all the common storage systems.
Robust data protection
Safeguarding privacy, protecting identities, privacy rights and personal image rights are all important. Security is important, but not at the cost of data protection and privacy.
How do we protect the privacy of the persons in the images, be they employees, customers, patients or students? How do we guarantee that these images do not fall into the wrong hands? Combining video security with robust data protection is not contradictory – technology makes it possible to have both. Considerations include prohibiting outside access to video, protecting workplace privacy, and fine-tuning the rights of operators at various levels, including the right to export images. An audit trail should log all actions.
For more in-depth information on technologies to achieve excellence in video security, download Geutebrück’s White Paper.
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