Interactive video monitoring services and new opportunities for the security industry.
by Avi Lupo
We are at the point where there is an overabundance of recorded cameras and videos. This overload of video information is basically useless and is what I call "junk video".
The solution is an opportunity to add value to your customers by providing services that include video monitoring. In addition, it is an excellent new RMR generator with minimal costs for your central station.
Like intrusion monitoring, visual monitoring can range from simplistic solutions to comprehensive video monitoring that includes artificial intelligence with audible and visual deterrents.
Visual monitoring and interactive video monitoring
Most monitoring centers see visual monitoring as a basic video verification. But video verification has become much more than when I helped introduce the service with OzVision to the industry about 20 years ago.
In addition, with analytics and artificial intelligence, monitoring centers can now offer enhanced video monitoring, including advanced video verification and interactive video services. Think of it as the difference between reactive monitoring and monitoring that is proactive, preventative, and interactive.
Simply put, video verification and other interactive video services are bringing valuable additional information to monitoring centers. This allows your company to provide a level of service that meets and even exceeds customer expectations.
Artificial intelligence
True artificial intelligence (AI) allows video surveillance systems to "learn" what a potential threat can look like. AI will understand what a typical activity looks like in a scene and then detect and mark unusual events – this adds a new level of automation to monitoring and surveillance.
It's amazing how far we've come. Cameras can now detect a person or a certain vehicle, a person with a gun, specific clothing, human behavior, and much more. In addition, you can do so during the established hours. With machine learning, the system is "rapidly improving" even beyond the capabilities of a human operator. That opens up a variety of automated services that weren't possible just a few years ago.
Systems are now smart enough to analyze, understand, and prioritize video, along with priority level. That level will determine whether the video alarm goes to an end user, a central station operator and/or recorded. A person who has a gun will have a high priority, while a person who has a cell phone will have a low priority.
Operators can also interact by remotely controlling sirens, strobe lights, lowering their voice, opening and closing gates and doors, as well as turning lights on and off. It is a new generation of ideas and opportunities that uses the infrastructure of the central station with its main business model.
End users and video monitoring services
Millions of consumers have access to videos through their cell phones. This leads them to believe that security companies should have the most up-to-date technology to easily provide similar services. There is currently a huge gap in what a customer expects and the services a company provides. With interactive video services now possible, we can bridge the gap.
* Avi Lupo is co-president of New DICE. He served as CEO of FST21 America, a security technology company with offices in Israel and the U.S. And he also served as co-founder and president of OzVision Global, a leading developer of advanced video solutions in the international security monitoring market. Among its many accomplishments, Avi formed strategic alliances that introduced Video as a Service (VaaS) into the security industry, setting industry standards.
