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We are living in a world that is increasingly becoming technology dependent for almost every need. With the arrival of CCTV-enabled centralized monitoring, the need to rely exclusively on the deployment of human security personnel was eliminated. And now, video analytics technologies are enabling preventive vigilance as well as quick investigation, identification of criminals and resolution of incidents such as trespassing, burglary. Today, video analytics evolution offers ample scope for global transformation across industry verticals.
There are billions of cameras deployed for surveillance purposes all over the world. Add to it another billions of cameras fitted into the smartphones and other personal devices, and we have a mind-boggling ecosystem that is generating unimaginable volumes of video data every minute. Integration of AI analytics with machine learning is now bringing to fore novel ways of utilizing this video data that stretch far beyond the good old security needs that the CCTVs were expected to meet. Video content analytics is being used in a number of ways in modern smart cities. Traffic and crowd management, video surveillance, retail store management for better customer experience and remote monitoring of contagion patients in healthcare facilities are some of the prime use cases.
However, new trends are rapidly emerging on the block. The video analytics platforms are being embedded with the conventional CCTVs to add abilities such as object and facial identification, analysis of image data captured from videos, and edge analytics at the camera end that eliminate the need to transfer data to the central server for analysis. This results in reduced bandwidth usage and enhanced speed.
Future of video analytics
Analytics is a rapidly evolving technology and with advancement of AI engines, the video data can now be used as a basis for predictive analytics and forecasting future market trends, patterns, and behaviors which help make the surveillance system increasingly intelligent and capable of taking decisions.
Video analytics trends indicate that the technology has barely scraped the surface of its potential as well as deployment so far. With further surge in IoT and cybersecurity demand, advanced video content analytics will be adopted at a much faster rate. The eventual merger of advanced video content analytics with cybersecurity tools will open up a whole new vista of opportunities.
Usage of video analytics enables businesses to generate highly actionable data from vast volumes of video and preserve only this information instead of storing several terabytes of video footage generated by the cameras. The likelihood of human error is also reduced when the video AI technology is used to identify different actions, objects and behaviors.
Another rapidly growing aspect of video analytics is in the form of smartphone apps. It is possible to use mobile cameras in sync with video analytics in various processes. In health and fitness, we are witnessing how video analytics is helping people improve their workouts courtesy of motion capture and analysis features.
Video analytics technologies are already being used in various functions such as:
Detection and tracking of objects – Unidentified objects lying at an airport or haphazardly stored items on a store shelf, it is possible to identify and track objects throughout monitored premises through the technology.
Motion tracking – Integrated image sensors, night vision and other tools enable video analytics usage for purposes such as speed tracking of vehicles to intrusion monitoring on perimeters.
Facial recognition – In the arena of security, video analytics has great potential courtesy of facial recognition features. Monitoring of people, spotting unusual behavior as well as identifying criminals from an integrated database are some of the things that can be done.
It is due to these advanced features and analytical capabilities that finds utility in various business verticals such as the following.
Sports and event management: Using video analytics in sports has been around for quite a while. Coaches and analysts use video footage of players to understand what they are doing and how a player’s actions are impacting his/her as well as the team’s performance. For instance, monitoring a footballer can help a rival coach to understand his strategy and advise his team to counter it. In event management, the technology can be used to monitor attendees and take steps to enhance their experience.
Retail: Video analytics is proving to be a pot of gold for retailers as it enables generation of crucial insights about customer behavior that regular data analytics isn’t capable of. Creating heat maps of the customers makes shopkeepers identify their best performing and worst performing products and aisles and lead to optimisation and improvement of the customer experience.
Healthcare: Observing patient behavior, perimeter surveillance and monitoring of patient vitals remotely are some of the things that video analytics can facilitate in healthcare. Doctors can safely monitor and advise multiple patients without the need to risk visiting each patient in-person especially in times like these when there is a heightened risk of infections.
There is no doubt that video analytics has now opened the door through which we can overcome human limitations and eliminate human errors. The technology is becoming increasingly responsive and useful with the evolution of video cameras and AI-powered image capture technologies. Trends indicate that video analytics will play a role in almost every aspect of life in 2022 and beyond.
The author is President and CEO, Graymatics
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