ObjectVideo offered some guidelines on the acquisition and deployment of video analytics for the most effective central management system possible.
ObjectVideo offered some guidelines on the acquisition and deployment of video analytics for the most effective central management system possible.
Simply putting everything into one room does not necessarily equal effectiveness a new video wall will simply display problems in higher resolution. Rather than defining the central management system (CMS) itself, which can vary by organization and industry, let us instead determine what the goals of centralizing surveillance infrastructure, management and reporting are. What can this movement bring to the enterprise, and what roles should analytics play in making the CMS valuable to the operation?
The goal of the CMS is to distill information into a common operational picture. Video analytics provides a high degree of value to this operation. But the pitches made by analytics providers are often full of capabilities that cannot be delivered. How can you weed through this fiction and find what you want? When it comes to working with your trusted integrator or consultant to choose video analytics to specify and define your CMS, keep it simple.
The Three Value Dimensions
Today's computer vision-based video analytics, or truly intelligent video software 
carry valuable abilities that can bear fruit in the CMS environment that were not available three years ago. Intelligent video technology can supercharge conventional video surveillance capabilities in three important areas. The potential value propositions of video analytics in a CMS environment are:
Fusion: Video analytics enables the fusion of data from a variety of disparate sources. There is no more practical way to fuse data, as video becomes a data source of its own in the analytics world, rather than one used just to annotate or verify.
Visualization: Video analytics enables effective visualization of data, allowing the focus to be on the event that is most important. This visualization ability provides the user with detail and context over and above the imagery itself.
Extension: Because video analytics enables forensic analysis of a type that humans are incapable, they extend the value of video.
What Do Users Want?
1. A blend of ingredients
If video analytics is a high-value ingredient placed appropriately within the video infrastructure either in devices or as software then it can do its job independent of other ingredients. In this way, the value of analytics combines with the value provided by the other devices and the architecture itself, rather than stacking new systems on top of other unlike systems.
2. Working worldwide
Users, along with integration partners, need to ensure that they are proficient in all possibilities to complete the solution. This is true for choosing video analytics. Look for a provider with the most experience and the greatest ability to support issues that may arise.
3. Familiarity breeds success
The user should expect to configure the software; define and edit rules; and receive alerts within their existing video management environment. In this way, video analytics is a natural extension of the video management environment, so the return from the investment in analytics is faster. Users will be more creative with technology, solving problems sooner.
4. Wide open
There is a movement toward the standardization of video analytics data. 
Standards bodies, notably in security and retail, have formed committees to figure out when and how to standardize. Users demand open systems that can be operated with other systems. Choose an analytics provider who uses standard protocols to communicate with different devices and platforms. The greater your ability to choose what fits into your CMS, the more return you will receive.
5. Analytics-enabled
Video analytics can produce value for the end user. When video analytics was only available as heavy, server-based enterprise software, there were user limitations regarding effectiveness, ease of deployment, user interface management, interoperability and price. These limitations can be removed if the user and integrator design a CMS which is analytics-enabled, rather than to deploy analytics capabilities.
The way you want it
Video analytics technologies have become acceptable to end users. Analytics providers have made their software better, more robust and capable of solving more problems. If the focus had been making the software perform to expectations, the burden now is to make it more usable, practical, interoperable and affordable.
On the end user side, continue to push for open standards, interoperable capabilities, familiar environments and ease of deployment. Only then will video analytics achieve the status of that single, high-value core ingredient within the video infrastructure, making every other component of the central management system sing in perfect harmony.