What is the latest CCTV technology I should know about?  

Since CCTV Systems first started appearing within the United States, many technological advancements have been made. The first systems were generally very basic – poor quality cameras wired and sent to several small, equally blurry TVs that – while beneficial for stopping crime – made it hard to truly monitor who and what was occurring at any given time. The picture quality and management systems allowed for clues, but were not ideal for truly surveying the surroundings.

Luckily, since then a number of technological changes have been created, many of which within the last decade, and these advancements have helped shape what is now one of the best ways to monitor your property.

 

Latest Advances in CCTV Technology

·        Video Content Analysis

Perhaps the greatest advancement in CCTV technology was the creation of video content analysis, or VCA. VCA translates the images on the screen into data that can be analyzed on a computer. VCA allowed users to search for things within the data, thus making it possible to find and identify objects within video. Greater advancements in computing have turned VCA into a crime solving machine, able to recognize numbers, faces, and even categorize items (like dog, bike, car) based on input criteria.

·        Computerized Monitoring

While the technology has not yet been finished, VCA has led to computerized monitoring capabilities. Human beings, no matter how perceptive, cannot focus on everything at once. If focus is brought away from a screen, anything that happens on that screen will be missed. Computerized monitoring lets the computer do all the searching, only notifying security when it perceives a problem through analysis of its own data.

·        Multi-Camera Tracking

Another CCTV advancement has been with individual tracking. Security cameras are limited to the directions they can point, and the visible area within those directions. When a person goes out of the range of the camera, they are no longer visible. But more advanced CCTV technology allows these security cameras to pick up where one camera leaves off, following the person as they move from visible area to visible area.

·        Action Focusing

Finally, CCTV advancements can pick up actions, such as fights or loud noises, and tell the security cameras to focus on these actions so that the sound and activity can be more easily viewed. Cameras can be automatically programmed to move and zoon in towards the commotion in order to get a better view of what is happening.

Technology for CCTV cameras and systems has come a long way over the past several decades. What originally was a basic way to monitor security cameras all in one place has advanced to become its own data system that allows for easier management, greater monitoring, and improved crime prevention. As things like VCA continue to evolve, it will not be long until it becomes extremely difficult to get away with any illegal activities without getting caught.

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