USE OF VIDEO CAMERA ANALYTICS FOR CONTENT AWARE DETECTION AND REDUNDANT STORAGE OF OCCURRENCES OF EVENTS OF INTEREST

• US 20110043631A1
• Filed: 11/05/2010
• Published: 02/24/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Avigilon Analytics Corporation (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VideoIQ, Inc. (Motorola Solutions, Inc.)
• Inventors: Marman, Douglas H., Saptharishi, Mahesh
• Application Number:
  US12/940,829
• Publication Number:
  US 20110043631A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/143
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/66 Remote control of cameras or camera parts, e.g. by remote control devices
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/772 the recording apparatus and the television camera being placed in the same enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/7921 for more than one processing mode
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

Video analytics and a mass storage unit are contained in a camera housing of a video camera. Video data representing a field of view of a scene observed by the camera are stored in the mass storage unit. The video analytics analyzes video data produced by the camera and detects whether there is an occurrence of a defined event of interest. A video clip of the scene representing the event of interest is sent to a remote storage unit. Since only about 1% of security video data is reviewed, storing only video data representing events of interest remotely, while storing more complete video data of the scene observed by the camera local to the camera, reduces the remote storage capacity and bandwidth demand for the video system. Remote redundant storage of events of interest also provides higher reliability and fault tolerant storage for the video data that are most important.

Claims

1. A method of providing redundant storage of video data representing an event of interest while reducing storage and bandwidth requirements of a video camera adapted for connection to a network communication system that includes a remote storage unit, the video camera producing video data representing a field of view of a scene and including a camera housing, comprising:

using a configured event of interest for detection by analysis of the video data produced by the video camera, the video camera provided with video analytics and a mass storage unit contained in or forming part of the camera housing, and the mass storage unit storing the video data representing a field of view of a scene;

causing the video analytics to analyze the video data produced by the video camera and detect whether there is an occurrence of the event of interest; and

sending from the video camera for delivery to the remote storage unit, in response to detection by the video analytics of an occurrence of the event of interest, a clip of the video data representing the field of view of the scene in which the video analytics detected the event of interest.

2. The method of claim 1, in which the clip of the video data sent in response to detection of the occurrence of the event of interest includes a video clip file of the event of interest.

3. The method of claim 1, in which the clip of the video data sent in response to detection of the occurrence of the event of interest includes a stream of the video data representing the event of interest.

4. The method of claim 1, in which the network communication system includes a central monitoring station, and further comprising sending an alert from the video camera for delivery to the central monitoring station in response to detection by the video analytics of an occurrence of the event of interest.

5. The method of claim 1, in which the network communication system includes a central monitoring station, and further comprising, in response to detection by the video analytics of an occurrence of the event of interest, supplying from the video camera for delivery to the central monitoring station the clip of video data representing the field of view of the scene in which the video analytics detected the event of interest.

6. The method of claim 1, in which the event of interest includes motion detected within the field of view of the video camera.

7. The method of claim 1, in which the event of interest includes motion of a blob detected within the field of view of the video camera.

8. The method of claim 1, in which the event of interest includes recognizing a predefined object or tracking movement of the predefined object.

9. The method of claim 8, in which the video analytics uses geometric calibration to recognize the predefined object as it moves to various portions of the field of view.

10. The method of claim 1, in which the storing of video data in the mass storage unit includes storing video data representing a field of view of a scene in which there is no occurrence of the event of interest.

11. The method of claim 10, in which the occurrence and nonoccurrence of the event of interest constitute two events of multiple events of interest, and further comprising using multiple configured video data retention policies based on the multiple events of interest such that certain ones or combinations of the multiple events of interest are retained in the mass storage unit for corresponding lengths of time.

12. The method of claim 1, in which the video data are stored at a first bit rate when no event of interest is detected and are stored at a second bit rate when the event of interest is being detected, the first and second bit rates being different from each other.

13. The method of claim 1, in which the clip of the video data sent for delivery to the remote storage unit includes the video data stored when an event of interest is being detected but not the video data stored when no event of interest is being detected.

14. The method of claim 1, in which the clip of the video data sent for delivery to the remote storage unit includes the video data stored when an event of interest is being detected and a portion of the video data representing the field of view of the scene at a time immediately preceding occurrence of the event of interest.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising encrypting at least some of the video data stored in the mass storage unit.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising controlling an amount of time of storage of at least some of the data included in the video clip.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising sending, from the video camera for delivery to the remote storage unit, the video data stored in the mass storage and representing a scene in which no event of interest has been detected.

18. A method of reducing video data storage and network bandwidth requirements of a distributed network video surveillance system that includes network communication paths between network video imaging devices and first video data stores, the network video imaging devices producing video data representing scenes under observation by the network video imaging devices, and the first video data stores storing video information corresponding to the video data produced by the network video imaging devices, comprising:

associating with each of multiple ones of the network video imaging devices second video data stores that are capable of storage of video data produced by an associated network video imaging device, the second video data stores including video analytics that analyzes the content of the video data and local video data stores that store portions of the video data representing an event of interest in response to the analysis by the video analytics; and

delivering from each of the multiple network video imaging devices, through the network communication paths, to the first video data stores, the video data representing scenes under observation to provide redundant storage of the video data representing at least the event of interest.

19. The method of claim 18, in which each of the network video imaging devices includes a housing, and in which the second video data stores associated with each network video imaging device are contained within or form part of the housing.

20. The method of claim 18, in which the portions of the video data are stored in the local video data stores at a first time, and in which the video data representing scenes under observation include the stored portions of video data and are delivered to the first video data stores at a second time that is later than the first time.