It seems that the perceived value of video surveillance ebbs and flows based on the events that occur in our everyday lives. Over the past few years, the use of video surveillance has been thrust into the spotlight, bringing praise from law enforcement officials about its effectiveness and raising expectations about the depth of information video can provide.

Beyond the preventive measures the mere presence a surveillance camera can bring, the ability to retrieve information from recorded video quickly is considered one of the most valuable tools in an investigation. And in our society, which expects instant access to information, video surveillance is no exception.

Imagine former methods of searching for video applied to recent events, where thousands and thousands of frames of video were taken. To find a specific piece of footage searching frame-by-frame-by-frame…well, you can imagine the number of hours that could take. Today’s video intelligence software “watches” every frame of video produced by the camera and records data about each frame of video it’s watching; this is called metadata and it is based on analytics rules predefined by a system administrator. Time, date, motion/linger, direction, etc. are just a few examples of the data that can be stored about each frame.

Consider the following example: A car was allegedly damaged in a parking lot, and now the security supervisor must investigate the incident. The only information known is that the car arrived at 8:00 am and left the lot at 8:00 pm, meaning that 12 hours of recorded video needs to be reviewed. Without the tools offered by modern video systems, such as motion based or video analytics based searches that identify relevant scenes within a few minutes, the hunt for relevant video clips could take hours.

Both motion based or video analytics based searches use this metadata, which guarantees that searches can be performed within seconds. You can compare meta-data in video to a simple Google search, where the system is already creating results as you are typing your keywords into the Google search bar. Because Google uses meta-data about the Internet, search results can be presented in a fraction of a second.

Like Google, this metadata creates a wealth of intelligence that security operators can quickly and easily search and retrieve, obtaining the critical results desired. Combining the speed of state-of-the-art Network Video Recorders (NVRs) and ultra-intuitive user interfaces, this powerful meta-data provides faster, more reliable search results to system operators, and in turn to law enforcement or corporate security looking for answers in the wake of a security event.

Watch this short video covering some of the video analytic features of the victor Management Software for Unified Security and VideoEdge NVR that are critical to event management and especially investigations.

Have you seen examples of fast video results making a difference in everyday life? Let me know by leaving a comment below.