Surveillance video router

• US 8,928,756 B2
• Filed: 01/04/2011
• Issued: 01/06/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 10/22/2010
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Alcatel-Lucent SA (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Barber, Brian A., Wengrovitz, Michael S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Perungavoor, Sath V
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le, Peter D
• Application Number:
  US12/984,491
• Publication Number:
  US 20120098969A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,463 Days
• Field of Search: 348/143, 348/159, 725/105, 370/401, 709/231, 709/227, 709/228, 379/221.1, 713/173, 340/937, 702/181
• US Class Current: 348/159
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/185 from a mobile camera, e.g. for remote control

Abstract

A surveillance video router routes digital video streams to video receiving devices. The surveillance video router is coupled to a packet-switched network to enable communication with the video receiving devices and to receive respective digital video streams captured by remote surveillance cameras. The surveillance video router receives a request to route a first digital video stream generated by a first remote surveillance camera to a first video receiving device and then routes the first digital video stream to the first video receiving device via the packet-switched network.

Claims

1. A surveillance video router for routing digital video streams to video receiving devices, comprising:

a network interface coupled to a packet-switched network to enable communication with the video receiving devices and to receive respective digital video streams captured by remote surveillance cameras; and

a processor including a rule-based engine having a video analytic system for video analytic processing of content within the digital video streams, the rule-based engine dynamically selecting a first digital video stream generated by a first remote surveillance camera for routing to a first video receiving device based on the video analytic processing of the content within the digital video streams, the processor further for routing the first digital video stream to the first video receiving device via the network interface.

2. The surveillance video router of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of logical source ports, each for receiving one of the digital video streams; and

a plurality of logical destination ports, each for communicating with at least one of the video receiving devices;

wherein the processor copies the first digital video stream from a respective one of the logical source ports for the first digital video stream to a respective one of the logical destination ports for the first video receiving device to route the first digital video stream to the first video receiving device.

3. The surveillance video router of claim 2, wherein the processor receives a Session Setup Signaling Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request at the logical destination port for the first video receiving device and routes the first digital video stream to the first video receiving device within an HTTP response.

4. The surveillance video router of claim 3, wherein the HTTP response includes Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) over Real Time Protocol (RTP) packets or a series of Motion Joint Photographic Experts Group (MJPEG) frames.

5. The surveillance video router of claim 2, wherein the processor initiates a video session with the first remote surveillance camera by issuing a Session Setup Signaling HTTP request from an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the surveillance video router and the logical source port of the first remote surveillance camera, and receives the first digital video stream from the first remote surveillance camera within an HTTP response.

6. The surveillance video router of claim 2, wherein the processor further receives a request to route the first digital video stream to an additional video receiving device via the network interface.

7. The surveillance video router of claim 6, wherein the first video receiving device and the additional video receiving device are each coupled to the same logical destination port.

8. The surveillance video router of claim 6, wherein the processor further copies the first digital video stream from the respective one of the logical source ports to an additional respective one of the logical destination ports for the additional video receiving device to route the first digital video stream to the additional video receiving device.

9. The surveillance video router of claim 8, wherein the processor further transcodes the first digital video stream to produce a transcoded digital video stream and routes the transcoded digital video stream to the additional video receiving device.

10. The surveillance video router of claim 1, wherein the processor further processes the first digital video stream to produce a processed digital video stream and routes the processed digital video stream to the first video receiving device.

11. The surveillance video router of claim 1, wherein the network interface includes at least one first network interface card for communicating with the remote surveillance cameras via at least one first packet-switched network and at least one second network interface card for communicating with the video receiving devices via at least one second packet-switched network.

12. The surveillance video router of claim 1, wherein the processor further routes the first digital video stream together with other digital video streams to the first video receiving device in an Internet Protocol (IP) tunnel.

13. The surveillance video router of claim 1, wherein the first video receiving device includes a display device, a video management system, a video analytic system, a video recorder or an additional surveillance video router.

14. A method for routing digital video streams captured by remote surveillance cameras to video receiving devices, comprising:

receiving the digital video streams from the remote surveillance cameras at a surveillance video router via a packet-switched network;

processing, by a rule-based engine within the surveillance router, the digital video streams, the rule-based engine having a video analytic system for video analytic processing of content within the digital video streams;

dynamically selecting, by the rule-based engine, a first digital video stream generated by a first remote surveillance camera for routing to a first video receiving device based on the video analytic processing of the content within the digital video streams; and

routing the first digital video stream to the first video receiving device by the surveillance video router.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the routing further comprises:

copying the first digital video stream from a respective one of a plurality of logical source ports on the surveillance video router to at least one of a plurality of logical destination ports on the surveillance video router to route the first digital video stream to at least the first video receiving device.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein the routing further comprises:

routing the first digital video stream together with other digital video streams to the first video receiving device in an Internet Protocol (IP) tunnel.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

receiving a request to route the first digital video stream to an additional video receiving device.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the request is received as a control input from a third party source.

19. The method of claim 14, wherein the routing further comprises:

routing the first digital video stream together with other digital video streams to the first video receiving device in an Internet Protocol (IP) tunnel.

20. The method of claim 14, wherein the processing further comprises:

processing the first digital video stream to produce a processed digital video stream, the processed digital video stream being routed to the first video receiving device.