If you are head of security for a retail park, sports stadium or entertainments venue then being able to control crowds, deal with challenges such as criminal or antisocial behaviour and pinpoint particular individuals quickly is vital.
Additionally, if you are trying to keep students secure and safe on a large school or college campus – whether that is protecting them against bullying or from intruders or ensuring they do not break rules against smoking or vaping you need to be able to deal with situations sensitively and intelligently.
Having enough trained security personnel or other members of staff is important but they need the right information to be able to deal with situations properly and take decisions that will calm down incidents or involve law enforcement when this is necessary.
This is when advanced surveillance software, can make all the difference by providing you with the visual and factual information, such as dates, times and locations. Additionally, you will be able to identify individuals or pick up on unusual behaviour that could warrant extra attention from security staff.
Video Management Platforms
Avigilon Unity Video: Avigilon’s video management software, is designed to be easy-to-use and to help CCTV operators identify critical incidents quickly and efficiently. Designed to bring the right information to you so that you can take action, Avigilon Unity Video provides an easy-to-use, AI-enabled user interface to help ensure critical events do not go unnoticed. The software provides award winning, advanced artificial intelligence and video analytics capabilities, including Appearance Search™ and Facial recognition technology to help you quickly detect, verify and act on events.
Aviglon Alta Aware: Aware is a powerful cloud-based AI video management system (VMS) equipped with integrated machine learning capabilities. Aware is suitable for both large, distributed enterprise installations and small deployments and analyses all the video feeds from all your Ava and third-party cameras all the time and in real-time. It identifies objects and events, sending instant alarms based on rules and unusual activity detection. With Aware, you can also quickly search by event, object, and similarity to find a specific person, vehicle, or event of interest through countless hours of video within seconds or minutes.
We also have long-standing experience with Mobotix systems and we will use our expertise to integrate CCTV cameras of all compatible brands with Avigilon Unity Video and Avigilon Alta Aware.
Video management explained
Video management solutions incorporate hardware and software to provide a platform to view multiple cameras live, interrogate and download footage, mass configure recording timetables and integrate with any central analytic functions.
A video surveillance solution consists of the following building blocks:
- Cameras
- Network infrastructure
- Storage solution (not necessary with a cloud solution like Avigilon Alta Aware)
- Software for managing the system, viewing live and recorded video, etc.
In an IP (network video) system, the cameras are connected over a standard computer ethernet network such as LAN, WAN or the internet, very often utilising this infrastructure for power as well as data transmission. Video is stored on a central computer server/PC. However, access to both live and recorded footage has now been transformed by the power of the cloud which means you can have the ability to view bookmarks, manage PTZ camera controls, and export videos to a local drive both on a laptop or any mobile device via smartphone/tablet apps.
Advantages of AI-Powered Video Analytics
Relying on video analytics to automatically monitor cameras and alert for events of interest is in many cases much more effective than reliance on a human operator, which is a costly resource with limited alertness and attention.
So, what is Video Analytics?
Video analytics, is a generic term used to describe computerised processing and analysis of video streams. Video analytics applications can perform a variety of tasks ranging from real-time analysis of video for immediate detection of events of interest, to analysis of pre-recorded video for the purpose of extracting events and data from the recorded video (also known as forensic analysis).
Improving the efficiency of the CCTV system
Various research studies and real-life incidents indicate that an average human operator of a surveillance system tasked with observing video screens, cannot remain alert and attentive for more than 20 minutes. Moreover, the operator’s ability to monitor the video and effectively respond to events is significantly compromised as time goes by. Analysing recorded video is a need that can rarely be answered effectively by human operators, due to the lengthy process of manually going through and observing the recorded video and the associated manpower cost for this task.
Video analytics, combined with cutting-edge AI technology, provides an ideal solution that meets the needs of surveillance system operators, security officers and business managers, as they seek to make practical and effective use of their surveillance systems.
Benefits of advanced video analytics and AI
A user-friendly interface
The Focus of Attention (FoA) interface provides users with an intuitive way to consume information about potential security events. As a head of security it gives you peace of mind that your staff will be using the CCTV as efficiently as possible.
Number Plate Recognition
Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) or Licence Pate Recognition (LPR) analytics automatically reads vehicle number plate information from vehicles, linking it to live and recorded video. This enables security operators to search and quickly find specific captured license plate video for verification and investigation.
Appearance Search
Avigilon Appearance Search is a sophisticated deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) search engine for video. As a head of security it means you know that if your staff have the information about the appearance of an individual, or a vehicle, it sorts through hours of video with ease, to quickly locate them.
Facial Recognition
Facial recognition technology allows you to create watch lists for tracking down particular people and you can upload photographs to add an individual to a watch list. Users can populate and manage the multiple watch lists by either adding faces from Appearance Search, uploading reference images, or finding appearances of the person through recorded video.
Crowd Detection
The advanced AI- enabled video analytics allows you to receive real-time alerts of unusual crowds or when the number of people exceeds the threshold for crowd size. This feature allows you to keep people safe during events and be alerted about areas in your property that need more attention.
Tracking and classifying objects
The processing power of Avigilon Unity Video enables the tracking and classification of over 50 objects. Objects are classified if whether they are moving or remain stationary assisting you to deal effectively with all security challenges.
Frequently asked questions
How does CCTV work?
A CCTV or more modern term is Video Management System now tend to run over standard computer networks as modern phones systems also do. The system consists of cameras, a storage device (that runs the management software), network cabling, Power over Ethernet switch and a viewing workstation or mobile device. Cameras can record continuously to the central storage device and be interrogated locally on a device with software on it. A new addition that replaces the local storage are Cloud solutions that record footage based on triggers such as movement, analytics or detectors. In this case, all footage is recorded in the cloud and accessible via an APP or Web Browser.
What is video management?
Video management solutions incorporate hardware and software to provide a platform to view multiple cameras live, interrogate and download footage, mass configure recording timetables and integrate with any central analytic functions.
A video surveillance solution consists of the following building blocks:
- Cameras
- Network infrastructure
- Storage solution
- Software for managing the system, viewing live and recorded video, etc.
How does an IP CCTV system work?
In an IP (network video) system, the cameras are connected over a standard computer ethernet network such as LAN, WAN or the internet, very often utilising this infrastructure for power as well as data transmission. Video is either stored on a central computer server/PC, a network attached storage (NAS) unit, or on SD cards inside each camera.
What is Video Analytics?
Video analytics is typically associated with analysis of video streams captured by surveillance systems. Video analytics applications can perform a variety of tasks ranging from real-time analysis of video for immediate detection of events of interest, to analysis of pre-recorded video for the purpose of extracting events and data from the recorded video.
How long can I save video for?
The video footage can be save for as long as the designated use of the system requires. Once you have carried out Camera Risk Assessments and defined the purpose of your CCTV System the retention period should be fit for purpose. Generally, a minimum of 14 days is recommended but regularly we see 28-31 days. Banks usually retain footage for 3 – 6 months according to Banking standards but it wouldn’t be unusual for a casino to retain footage for 6-12 months.
How secure is the CCTV video footage?
Your CCTV System is as secure as you make it. One of the securest ways of running a CCTV system would be to only allow known secure traffic to it, maybe by using a VPN. Otherwise if you are running a CCTV system ensure that all of your users are current, know how to operate the system responsibly and have strong passwords to get to the system. GDPR compliant systems will allow the administrator to inspect the logs for use of the CCTV system, this should be taken seriously as the Data Controller is ultimately responsible for the use of the system.
Can CCTV systems detect motion or people?
On some CCTV systems, this is done within the camera either via motion or analytics. Analytics can now identify people, cars or lorries as categories. Even more sophisticated systems can identify car number plates or colours as well as faces, so watch out!