Body-worn cameras are seeing increasing popularity over the years. Specifically, they are in high demand among police and firefighters who face a lot of danger in the line of duty.
Body-worn cameras are seeing increasing popularity over the years. Specifically, they are in high demand among police and firefighters who face a lot of danger in the line of duty. In this regard, body worn cameras can play a critical role in protecting them as well as collecting evidence for post-event investigation.
That was the point raised by
Great Lite International, who is demonstrating a series of body worn cameras at Computex this year.
The company positions itself as a video treatment total solutions provider, offering a series of IP cameras, recorders as well as gateway/transmitter devices that compress video to make it more transmission-friendly and help ease the burden on storage. Further, the devices put metadata tags on the video to simplify analysis on the backend.
At the same time, the company has also expanded to the market for body worn cameras, demonstrating various models. The full-color night vision model, for example, features Ambarella’s S5L series SoC, 130-degree lens, H.265 compression, 1080p/4K record and transmit function and AK7755 echo inhibition high audio quality. The low lux 4K model is equipped with Ambarella’s S5L series SoC, 190- to 360-degree panoramic lens, H.265 compression, 5M/4K record and transmit function and AK7755 echo inhibition high audio quality.
All models can transmit live video to the command center via 4G or Wi-Fi. “This is an important differentiator for our products. Most similar products found in the market today only has a record function with no transmission capabilities. Even if they transmit, they don’t transmit the image so well,” said Kevin Cheng, Sales Department Director at Great Lite International. “For us, we can transmit not only via Wi-Fi but also via 4G as well. So even if your command and control is in Japan or Korea, they can still see everything live. Also we offer near zero latency in transmission. In critical situations, even a few seconds of latency can cause irreparable damage.”
According to Cheng, live streaming plays another important function – the video can be recorded to the system at command and control for evidence-keeping purposes. In certain countries such as the Philippines, there are accusations of human rights abuse against police officers in their war against drugs. In this regard, stored video can provide the needed evidence to prove the innocence of police.
“Most of competing solutions in the market record only to the body-worn device. If the device is taken away from an officer, the recording there can be tampered with. Our solution, on the other hand, streams video to the command center where the video is also recorded and kept, which can be used for post-event investigation should it become necessary,” Cheng said.
Fighting fires
Another important application for the body-worns, according to Cheng, is firefighting. “The camera is attached on the firefighter who can transmit video live to the command and control, where operators can provide instructions on how to proceed based on the visuals provided,” Cheng said. “Further, in most firefighting incidences, the younger firefighters are always on the frontline while the senior ones are on the back providing support. The body worn device can serve as a communication bridge between the two as the younger firefighters can be told what to do.”
Besides law enforcement and firefighting, the cameras can also be used on buses or other types of vehicles for transmitting and recording. Meanwhile, Great Lite International is also showcasing a point-to-point streaming solution – whereby the camera streams to a personal computer – that is more for home use.