by Mark Bonde, Sales and Marketing Director for Building Infrastructure
Video surveillance cameras are everywhere thanks to the technology advances that have increased resolution and driven down the cost. As the cost for the technology decreases, and the applications and benefits increase, we are seeing cameras in more and more places for a wide variety of use cases.
The surge of surveillance cameras is creating advances in the video analytics market that is helping users to have a better situational awareness in locations being monitored by video cameras. Thanks to advances in chip set technology for cameras and an increasingly competitive VMS marketplace are making video analytics more accessible and affordable. In the past two years, cameras have added more compute capacity and more manufacturers are providing analytics software as part of the package (often for free). Advances in deep learning analytics have also improved the overall reliability of many video analytics algorithms.
Today’s analytics are empowering organizations to use video surveillance in a more proactive manner rather than just being reactive and viewing video after the fact. Video analytics can be used for motion detection, facial recognition and license plate reading, people counting and dwell time monitoring.
Before your organization begins evaluating new video analytics software or systems, there are
a few areas to keep in mind.
- Make sure that clear goals and objectives have been articulated for what you are trying to accomplish with the system. And how you intend on measuring against these goals.
- Start small with a limited number of cameras so that you can build understanding of capability and make sure the solution parameters adequately address your goals and objectives.
- Consider how the solution can be scaled for deployment overtime as your organization learns how to deploy and manage it effectively. Part of this is forecasting the expansion of the system and selecting a platform that is scalable.
As video analytics continues to evolve and the possibilities expand, video will undoubtedly grow in its importance as part of a facility’s physical security strategy. Now is the time to start thinking about how video analytics can elevate your strategy and drive advancements across your organization.