Video Synopsis and its Use in Video Surveillance

How often is that surveillance personnel have to pore over hours of video footage, to track down the movements of an individual (of interest) or the motion of an object (of interest) during a target period? And, as the number of cameras in the surveillance network increases; so does, exponentially, the time spent by the surveillance personnel reviewing the footage.

Viewing and analysis of recorded surveillance video are still time-consuming and labour-intensive tasks, despite the adoption of video analytics practices and tools in video surveillance networks. A video analytics tool can raise an alert against a set of defined, and potentially illegal, activities; but, once flagged off, reviewing the progress of the individual/object that set off the alert, through the recorded footage, is a manual and tiresome process. More...

Selective Implementation of Intelligent Traffic Solutions in India

The increasing traffic density on city roads in India has led traffic planners to widen roads, construct flyovers, and build new roads; and, yet, there is no respite from congestion on the roads. Part of the blame for this lies with the bad conceptualisation of new flyovers and new roads, as well as with the fact that Indian roads tend to deteriorate (whether by design or as a consequence of the unique operational and environmental conditions in the country) faster than ones overseas.

However, a significant part of the blame lies with traffic management authorities, for sloppy traffic management and lax enforcement of traffic rules. The concern to Homeland Security authorities is that these issues tend to have an exaggerated effect during times of crisis: a disaster requiring evacuation of citizens or an incident requiring access by emergency response agencies. More...

Cameras Designed for High-Contrast Lighting Conditions

As video surveillance installations become more common in India, in both public and private spaces, the question of how useful the video footage is, for forensics, is increasingly being asked. There have been several incidents, in the past 12 months, where the video surveillance footage should have allowed the police to solve crime: an open-and-shut case, so to say.

The reality is that in all those cases, the quality of the video footage was so poor, that there just as well may have been no video surveillance at all. Most often, the issue is with the ability of the camera to capture images of acceptable quality under high-contrast lighting conditions. More...

Bringing harmony to the relationship between IT and physical security

IT and physical security historically have made an unlikely couple. Coming from two completely different worlds, these two often don’t see eye-to-eye and find that working as a team can be a real challenge.

To IT, physical security seems like the frivolous, spendthrift one, justifying spending on "needs" and consuming an ever-increasing amount of IT resources and time. To physical security, IT is the matter-of-fact naysayer who continually raises the flag and seems to get pleasure by finding technical reasons to derail projects. IT is often perceived as unwilling to put anything into the relationship. This can make for a rocky partnership, as each side can blame the other when things aren’t working out. IT is left feeling overburdened, undereducated and excluded from decisions being made. Physical security feels underappreciated, unsupported and intimidated by their lack of technical knowledge and continued reliance on IT. More...