METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING DATA FROM DIGITAL NETWORK SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS

• US 20140232874A1
• Filed: 02/14/2014
• Published: 08/21/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: 1591655 Ontario Inc.
• Original Assignee: Steven Philip Meyer
• Inventors: MEYER, STEVEN PHILIP
• Granted Patent: US 9,986,209 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/159
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19656 Network used to communicate with a camera, e.g. WAN, LAN, Internet
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19669 Event triggers storage or change of storage policy
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19671 Addition of non-video data, i.e. metadata, to video stream
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19676 Temporary storage, e.g. cyclic memory, buffer storage on pre-alarm
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19682 Graphic User Interface [GUI] presenting system data to the user, e.g. information on a screen helping a user interacting with an alarm system
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19691 Signalling events for better perception by user, e.g. indicating alarms by making display brighter, adding text, creating a sound
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

A computer implemented method of establishing and managing an arbitrarily large, geographically distributed video surveillance network is provided. The method comprises a plurality of independent video processing components operatively coupled by a data network, each independent video processing component configured to implement one or more tasks, the one or more tasks comprising video capture, relaying, recording, processing, storage, analysis and event-monitoring of video and audio files and information.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method of establishing and managing an arbitrarily large, geographically distributed video surveillance network comprising a plurality of independent video processing components operatively coupled by a data network, each independent video processing component configured to implement one or more tasks, the one or more tasks comprising video capture, relaying, recording, processing, storage, analysis and event-monitoring of video and audio files and information, the method comprising the steps of:

discovering and registering each video capture component of the plurality of independent video processing components with a distributed database;

transmitting streaming data, by each video capture component, to one or more associated recording components of the plurality of independent video processing components;

converting the streaming data into a succession of compressed media segments, storing each of the compressed media segments on a storage medium, and transmitting an event notification message to one or more event-monitoring components of the plurality of independent video processing components, by said one or more associated recording components; and

transmitting event notification message to one or more event-monitoring components by one or more analysis components of the plurality of independent video processing components;

wherein upon receiving the event notification messages from one or more video processing components of the plurality of independent video processing components, the one or more event-monitoring components update the distributed database with received event notification messages.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising forwarding received event notification messages to one or more selected video processing components by the one or more event-monitoring components.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the distributed database is operable to use a data format that records status, configuration, events, and recording locations available in the data network, wherein the data format enables one or more video processing components to find and retrieve information needed for live viewing, processing, analysis, display, and playback of videos, and system management.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the event notification message and/or the media segment data is digitally signed by respective originator devices in order to certify the integrity of the data.

5. The method of claim 2 further comprising processing the video or audio files, wherein the processing is undertaken to transform the video or audio information and to generate the media segments in one or more standard formats suitable for distribution to and/or viewing on client devices.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein one or more video or audio files are tagged to include information representing one or more of:

system prefix, identifier of video source, start time of the video or audio, length of recording in seconds, events contained in the media segment and/or format of the each of the one or more video or audio files.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein unprocessed video or audio files are retained for further processing, or as redundant data storage to be deleted later.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the processing of the one or more video or audio files comprises encrypting the contents with a digital key, digitally signing video or audio data file and supplementing the video or audio data file with additional information such as camera name or zone.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the distributed database is notified whenever a media segment is added to the storage medium, the notification comprising the location of the one media segment in the storage medium.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the location of each of the media segments may vary from one media segment to the next media segment.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein a record of each of the media segments in the distributed database comprises tag information, device name, device zone, server identifier and/or location of the media segment.

12. The method of claim 2 wherein the distributed database is uniformly accessible by all client devices of the data network.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein a client device is operable to query the distributed database over the network for one or more media segments and to obtain from the distributed database the identifiers and locations of the one or more media segments.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein a client device requiring to view a video file is directed to establish a network connection with the appropriate network data repository.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein a client device may obtain continuous video for display by requesting a list of URLs of available media segments stored in the distributed database and retrieving and playing the content stored at each URL in the list of URLs in sequence.

16. The method of claim 14 whereby a user associated with a client device may download a copy of the current media segment by means of a one-step user selection.

17. The method of claim 2, wherein the discovering of a video capture component of the plurality of independent video processing components is performed at geographically distributed locations and comprises determining capabilities, name and zone settings, admission suitability, and security credential validation of one or more devices associated with the video capture component.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein the name and zone setting of the one or more devices is undertaken prior to discovering of the device.

19. The method of claim 18 wherein the name and zone settings of the device are overridden during or after the discovering process.

20. The method of claim 17 further comprising determining the system management, wherein the system management includes an administrative option to define a plurality of zones to be supported.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein access by users is controlled on a per-zone basis so that a user may only have access to the media segments and event information associated with one or more zones for which the said user is authorized in the plurality of zones, wherein event information are based on the event notification messages.

22. The method of claim 5 wherein policy for capturing streaming data and monitoring events is established on a per-server and per-device basis.

23. The method of claim 22 wherein the policy comprises one or more of:

a) keep recordings until the storage medium reaches a predetermined limit, then stop recording, b) when the accumulated storage reaches or exceeds a predetermined limit then delete the oldest recordings until the storage medium is under the limit, c) delete recordings beyond a predetermined age, d) delete recordings containing or alternatively not containing predefined events, e) copy recordings beyond a predetermined age to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage, f) move recordings beyond a predetermined age to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage, g) copy (replicate) recordings containing or alternatively not containing predefined events to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage, and h) move recordings containing or alternatively not containing predefined events to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage.

24. The method of claim 2 further comprising a deletion policy, established on a per-server basis, for recorded media segments and event notification messages.

25. The method of claim 2 further comprising capturing an image snapshot by a video capture component upon detection of an event, and saving of an associated event notification message and the image snapshot to the distributed database.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein the image snapshot comprises one or more pieces of information relating to the image snapshot at or around the time of capture, including one or more of:

a data format, a limited series of static images, a short video clip, a processed representation of the image snapshot, a marked-up representation of the image snapshot with overlayed information, a data structure of derived information from the image snapshot, and a data structure of environmental information.

27. The method of claim 26 wherein the distributed database further stores event information that includes one or more of:

a) the identifier of the video source, b) the zone of the video source, c) the type of event, d) text description of the event, e) time of the event and f) the snapshot of the event.

28. A computer network system for establishing and managing an arbitrarily large, geographically distributed video surveillance network comprising a plurality of independent video processing components operatively coupled by a data network, each independent video processing component configured to implement one or more tasks, the one or more tasks comprising video capture, relaying, recording, processing, storage, analysis and event-monitoring of video and audio files and information, the system comprising:

one or more video capture components of the plurality of the independent video processing components discovered and registered with a distributed database;

one or more recording components of the plurality of the independent video processing components, the recording components associated with the one or more video capture components;

one or more event-monitoring components of the plurality of independent video processing components;

one or more analysis components of the plurality of independent video processing components; and

a storage medium;

wherein the one or more video capture component transmits streaming data to one or more associated recording components, the associated recording components configured to convert the streaming data into a succession of compressed media segments, store the media segments on the storage medium and transmit an event notification message to the one or more event-monitoring components;

the one or more analysis component transmits an event notification message to the one or more event-monitoring components; and

upon receiving the event notification messages from the one or more video processing components, the one or more event-monitoring components updates the distributed database with received event notification messages.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein the one or more event-monitoring components forward the received event notification messages to one or more selected video processing components.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the distributed database is operable to use a data format that records status, configuration, events, and recording locations available in the data network, wherein the data format enables one or more video processing components to find and retrieve information needed for live viewing, processing, analysis, display, and playback of videos, and system management.

31. The system of claim 30 wherein the event notification message and/or the media segment data is digitally signed by respective originator devices in order to certify the integrity of the data.

32. The system of claim 29 the one or more associated recording components are further configured to transform the video or audio files and to generate the media segments in one or more standard formats suitable for distribution to and/or viewing on client devices.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the video or audio files are tagged to include information representing one or more of:

system prefix, identifier of video source, start time of the video or audio, length of recording in seconds, events contained in the media segment and/or format of the each of the one or more video or audio files.

34. The system of claim 32, wherein unprocessed video or audio files are retained for further processing, or as redundant data storage to be deleted later.

35. The system of claim 32, wherein the processing of the video or audio information comprises encrypting the contents with a digital key, digitally signing video or audio data file and supplementing the video or audio data file with additional information such as camera name or zone.

36. The system of claim 32, wherein the distributed database is notified whenever a media segment is added to the storage medium, the notification comprising the location of the one media segment in the storage medium.

37. The system of claim 36, wherein the location of each of the media segments may vary from one media segment to the next media segment.

38. The system of claim 37, wherein a record of each of the media segments in the distributed database comprises tag information, device name, device zone, server identifier and/or location of the media segment.

39. The system of claim 29 wherein the distributed database is uniformly accessible by all client devices of the data network.

40. The system of claim 39 wherein a client device is operable to query the distributed database over the network for one or more media segments and to obtain from the distributed database the identifiers and locations of the one or more media segments.

41. The system of claim 40 wherein a client device requiring to view a video file is directed to establish a network connection with the appropriate network data repository.

42. The system of claim 41 wherein a client device may obtain continuous video for display by requesting a list of URLs of available media segments stored in the distributed database and retrieving and playing the content stored at each URL in the list of URLs in sequence.

43. The system of claim 41 whereby a user associated with a client device may download a copy of the current media segment by means of a one-step user selection.

44. The system of claim 29, wherein the discovering of a video capture component of the plurality of independent video processing components is performed at geographically distributed locations and comprises determining capabilities, name and zone settings, admission suitability, and security credential validation of one or more devices associated with the video capture component.

45. The system of claim 44 wherein the name and zone setting of the one or more devices is undertaken prior to discovering of the device.

46. The system of claim 45 wherein the name and zone settings of the device is overridden during or after the discovering process.

47. The system of claim 44 further comprising a system management component, wherein the system management includes an administrative option to define a plurality of zones to be supported.

48. The system of claim 47, wherein access by users is controlled on a per-zone basis so that a user may only have access to the media segments and event information associated with one or more zones for which the said user is authorized in the plurality of zones, wherein event information is based on the event notification messages.

49. The system of claim 32 wherein policy for capturing streaming data and monitoring events is established on a per-server and per-device basis.

50. The system of claim 49 wherein the policy comprises one or more of:

a) keep recordings until the storage medium reaches a predetermined limit, then stop recording, b) when the accumulated storage reaches or exceeds a predetermined limit then delete the oldest recordings until the storage medium is under the limit, c) delete recordings beyond a predetermined age, d) delete recordings containing or alternatively not containing predefined events, e) copy recordings beyond a predetermined age to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage, f) move recordings beyond a predetermined age to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage, g) copy (replicate) recordings containing or alternatively not containing predefined events to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage, and h) move recordings containing or alternatively not containing predefined events to a different storage medium, such as a long term storage.

51. The system of claim 29 wherein a deletion policy is established on a per-server basis for recorded media segments and event notification messages.

52. The system of claim 29 wherein an image snapshot is captured by a video capture component upon detection of an event, and the video capture component is further configured to save an associated event notification message and the image snapshot to the distributed database.

53. The system of claim 52 wherein the image snapshot comprises one or more pieces of information relating to the image snapshot at or around the time of capture, including one or more of:

a data format, a limited series of static images, a short video clip, a processed representation of the image snapshot, a marked-up representation of the image snapshot with overlayed information, a data structure of derived information from the image snapshot, and a data structure of environmental information.

54. The system of claim 53 wherein the distributed database is further configured to store event information that includes one or more of:

a) the identifier of the video source, b) the zone of the video source, c) the type of event, d) text description of the event, e) time of the event and f) the snapshot of the event.