by Gary Myers

Earlier this year, ObjectVideo released an updated OV Ready specification and the corresponding OV Ready reference application (which now includes an ‘event push’ functionality) to our partners to incorporate onto their devices. In addition, we provided the 1.0 version of our new web UIs, which we call the ObjectVideo management console.

For those who are unfamiliar with OV Ready, it is an ObjectVideo program that constitutes a protocol specification, reference code and compliance tools to allow interoperability between various devices and applications with respect to video analytics operations and alerting. More detailed info is provided on our website.

Even though that one-sentence summary is quite a mouthful, think of HTTP as an analogy. At a basic level, it is a protocol that specifies how web browsers and web servers can talk. It doesn’t matter if you are using Firefox or Chrome or IE, you can still talk to IIS or Apache. OV Ready is similar except the focus is on ObjectVideo OnBoard configuration, rule management and event output. We want to make sure all ObjectVideo-enabled devices (cameras, encoders, servers, etc.) can be used by a wide variety of management applications (VMS, PSIMs, etc.) regardless of type or brand.

(more…)

by Bob Cutting

ISC West asked ObjectVideo to participate in a panel discussion on the topic of where video analytics will be in the next 10 years.  Past events hosting such a discussion have yielded a somewhat “same old, same old” outcome.  But I thought the discussion at ISC resulted in a much more productive outlook to where video analytics is heading with respect to analytics technology and real world solutions for end users. 

 My key takeaway was a very consistent message from the panel on the age-old question of “where analytics?”—referring to whether we will see more analytics on the edge or on a server.  We all answered in our own way, but as I was listening to all the responses, I realized we were all saying the same thing.  What finally came out is that the question is typically only answered half-way.  People focus more on real-time video processing for event generation.  But there’s a growing solution focus on using those events or underlying metadata in more advanced ways, either for forensic searching or for correlation to other sensor outputs and data streams (POS, ATM, access control…)

So while it’s hard to argue against using edge devices with embedded analytics for video analytic processing and real-time event and data generation, there is a growing solution based on leveraging that data across multiple cameras and locations for advanced business analysis and innovative detection scenarios using multiple data inputs that require back-end, server-based systems to manage the data correlation and detection/search policies.  We’re seeing this exact trend in the market, and these future solutions further justify the value that can be extracted from video analytic technology.

by David McGuinness, Gary Myers and Edward Troha

Optimism. It was encouraging to hear manufacturers, integrators, a few end-users/customers and even industry analysts talking about positive plans and expectations for the year.  The adoption rate for IP solutions is gaining speed.  Although 2009 was a year of recession, IP video still grew in the 20-25% range and the promotion of IP was clearly the headline from big traditional players such as Pelco and Tyco.  Major manufacturers spoke about more new IP and analytics-enabled products in the 2010 pipeline.  Good for our industry.

Walking around, it is always interesting to see what companies are doing to draw people into their booths. Outside of the obvious, there was a car giveaway, a “game-show” which faced off attendees to see who could install an alarm panel first, former NFL players signing autographs, a Kindle giveaway, and quite a few soon-to-be-released iPad giveaways. Overall, the traffic at the show seemed to be pretty good and these approaches did draw in the people for at least a look-see. It was easy to get sucked into the booth run by a local company (non-industry) that was doing golf club fitting. They had a golf net and launch monitor with lots of clubs to try out… a certain OV golf nut came very close to going home with a new driver!

Even though there were fewer exhibitors this year, ISC West was as busy as ever.  Thinking Friday would be quiet all day, it turned out traffic didn’t thin until about 12:30.  Keeping with the ”intelligent ingredient” theme, ObjectVideo demos of several varieties were hosted by a number of solution partners, including Pelco, Genetec and DIGIOP.  In addition, it’s encouraging to see the growing opportunities the combination of ObjectVideo and Intel technologies brings to the security and business intelligence markets.  Analytics is not the solution, it just helps to bring much greater value to the solution.

by Paul Brewer

We’ve all gotten spoiled by our HDTVs at home.  I for one will never go back to NTSC.  Is the security industry heading down that same path?  You would certainly think so if you walked the show floor at ASIS this week where there was more HD than at your local Best Buy.  But the question that kept nagging at me:  Is the rest of the industry ready for HD?  Will a 1080p, or a 5 MPixel IP camera swamp the network, flood the DVR and generally be just too much for the current state of the video ecosystem?

This recent Pelco/Cisco announcement shows that there is hope. Pelco and Cisco have teamed to jointly develop new HD IP cameras based on Pelco’s Sarix platform.  This is a great team that will be able to support HiDef from the lens to the user.

What does all of this mean for the world of video analytics?  ObjectVideo has been working with HD for years—mostly on military and other federal projects.  The benefits of HD are clear.  More pixels means greater range, wider fields of view and more pixels on target.  In addition, the benefits of deploying analytics at the edge to reduce network load are compelling.

The industry is opening its eyes to HD, which will only make the value of analytics even greater.