Digital recording/reproducing apparatus for surveillance

• US 20020051059A1
• Filed: 04/24/2001
• Published: 05/02/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: I-Pro Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Shimizu, Toshihiro, Tagawa, Haruo, Kimata, Hiroshi, Nakaya, Wataru, Misawa, Masahiko, Iseto, Hirofumi
• Granted Patent: US 7,123,820 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/153
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

Arbitrarily setting display patterns of live pictures or reproduced pictures per monitoring area in accordance with the purpose of use. Video signals 41 of the picture shot by monitoring cameras installed in a plurality of locations are digitized per monitoring area using the predetermined standard and recorded on video recording apparatus 8. The video signals 41 are displayed on a monitor (not shown) as live pictures. In this practice, the signals undergo the multi-screen processing via multi-screen reproduce/decoding control means 11 and displayed on screens split by monitoring camera in a monitoring area or by monitoring area.

Claims

1. Digital recording/reproducing apparatus for surveillance, which records pictures shot by a plurality of monitoring cameras installed in monitoring areas, and reproduces recorded pictures or live pictures shot by said monitoring cameras, further comprising:

relevant monitoring camera information, recording condition information and display condition information for each monitoring areas, and

said shot pictures are recorded and said live pictures are displayed based on said relevant camera information, said recording condition information and said display condition information.

2. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display screen is split according to the relevant monitoring camera information in the specified monitoring area and displays said corresponding live picture when a monitoring area to be displayed is specified.

3. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, the display screen is split according to the relevant monitoring camera information in each monitoring area and displays said corresponding live picture as well as switches between split screens per monitoring area according to said display condition information.

4. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 3, the switching display timing per monitoring area is switched by the operation time.

5. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, displayed picture is switched to said live picture corresponding to the relevant monitoring camera information in the specified monitoring area when a monitoring area to be displayed is specified.

6. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, the display screen is split according to the number of said monitoring areas, and said live picture corresponding to the relevant monitoring camera information is displayed in the specified monitoring area on each split screen according to said display condition information.

15. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of the preceding claims, further comprising:

means for displaying the state of said monitoring cameras.

16. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of the preceding claims, further comprising means for simultaneously displaying the live picture and reproduced video of said same monitoring camera via screen splitting of said display means.

17. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of the preceding claims, further comprising:

backup means for automatically or manually making a backup copy of a recorded picture of a specific monitoring area on an external recording medium.

18. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of the preceding claims, further comprising means for storing a recorded picture from a specific monitoring camera for a long time, and means for comparing the stored picture with the picture under shooting.

19. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of the preceding claims, said preset recording conditions for the corresponding monitoring area are changed when a fault in the video input from said monitoring cameras has continued a certain period.

20. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of claims 1 through 6, wherein pictures shot by other monitoring cameras installed in said monitoring area is input without live picture display, and recorded with a special identifier appended.

7. A digital video recording/reproducing apparatus for surveillance, which records pictures shot by monitoring cameras installed in monitoring areas under recording conditions set per said monitoring area, and reproduces said recorded pictures, characterized in that

shooting time information is recorded in correspondence with the recording of said video, and that

said monitoring digital video recording/reproducing apparatus searches and reproduces recorded videos based on said shooting time information and monitoring area information.

8. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 7, wherein said recorded video is reproduced independently per said monitoring area.

9. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 8, wherein said recorded video is reproduced on the screens split per said monitoring area.

10. A digital video recording/reproducing apparatus for surveillance, which records pictures shot by monitoring cameras installed in monitoring areas under recording conditions set per said monitoring area, and reproduces said recorded pictures or displays live pictures shot by said monitoring cameras, comprising

means for inputting one of more alarm signals and

means for retaining the relationship between said alarm signals and said monitoring areas or said monitoring cameras,

wherein the recording conditions set per said monitoring area are changed as well as changes display conditions for live pictures when said alarm signals are input.

11. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 10, further comprising

motion detection means for detecting the motion of an subject based on the videos shot by monitoring cameras corresponding to said input alarm signals,

wherein recorded pictures is selected based on the information on the correspondence between the detection results of said motion detection means and the monitoring cameras.

12. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 10 or 11, wherein shooting time information is recorded in correspondence with the recording of said video, the input times of said alarm signals per alarm signal is retained and a corresponding picture is searched and reproduced by using the alarm signal information as a key.

13. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to claim 12, pictures of corresponding monitoring areas or from monitoring cameras recorded at the input times of said alarms signals are searched, and the pictures thus searched are reproduced in the order to input time.

21. The digital video recording/reproducing apparatus according to any of claims 10 through 13, further comprising means for totaling said alarm count per said monitoring area.

14. A digital video recording/reproducing apparatus for surveillance which records pictures shot by monitoring cameras installed in monitoring areas under recording conditions set per said monitoring area, and reproduces said recorded pictures or displays live pictures shot by said monitoring cameras, comprising:

means for setting the operation times of said monitoring cameras per said monitoring area and

means for turning off the power to said monitoring cameras except during the operation times.