Patent Application
20060171452
N/A
N/A
This invention relates to video surveillance and, in particular, to an apparatus and method of storing video data in a video surveillance system.
Storing video data gathered by video surveillance systems has been a challenge because of the large amount of data involved. In many instances, the video data must be archived for thirty days or more. The storage problem is compounded by the number of channels in a multi-channel system. Moreover, the stored video data must provide good quality images to allow accurate identification of people and things captured by the video cameras. The present solution to this problem is to install more hard drives to provide more storage capacity in the recorder or to archive the system data in external storage before the internal system storage becomes full. Adding additional hard drives to the system is expensive, and the alternative of external archiving is labor intensive and can be prone to error or mishandling. To avoid the costs of additional hard drives and archiving, as well as the possible data loss associated with the archiving, prior art users have undergone complex set-up processes that requires the user to guess which cameras in the surveillance system are most likely to observe an event and set those individual camera recording rates higher. Correspondingly, the prior art user must slow the recording rate of all other lower priority cameras to achieve the total recording time needed. Obviously, this is a lengthy and error prone procedure and a compromise that most surveillance system users would prefer not to make.
Accordingly, there has been a long felt need in the art for a system and method that provides the video data needed for quality images for identification purposes, but requires nominal storage capacity and eliminates the need for constant external archiving.
In accordance with the present invention there is provided a method of recording video data in a surveillance system comprising the steps of receiving video data from a surveillance camera, recording the received video data at a first rate, and recording the received video data at a second rate with the second rate being slower than the first rate. This concept takes advantage of the fact that most people know within a few hours that a security event has taken place, and would desire to have the best possible images available for recall and review. Should the event go un-noticed for a few days, the system will still have a subset of the original images in the longer-term memory. The step of recording the received video data at a first rate can comprise the steps of compressing the received video data from a plurality of surveillance cameras and storing the compressed video data from the plurality of surveillance cameras. The step of recording the received video data at a second rate can comprise the steps of sampling or taking a subset of the video data from the compressed video data and storing the sampled video data or sampling the received video data from the plurality of video cameras, compressing the sampled video data, and storing the compressed sampled video data. In an alternate embodiment the method can further comprise the step of digitizing the video data received from said plurality of surveillance cameras.
The present invention also provides an apparatus for recording video data in a surveillance system comprising a plurality of inputs for receiving video data, a first memory for storing video data, a second memory for storing video data, and a processor connected to the plurality of inputs and the first and second memories. The processor compresses the video data received on the plurality of inputs, stores the compressed video data in the first memory at a first rate, samples and forms a subset of the compressed video data, and stores the compressed sampled video data in the second memory. The video data in the first and second memories can be overwritten when each memory becomes full. The second memory will take longer to fill up as it is being written slower with a subset or sample of the data being written in the first memory. If an event is detected as abnormal or critical, it can be marked to prevent the automatic overwriting of data. It is also evident that one memory partitioned into two storage areas, can be used instead of two separate memories. The compressed video data can be stored in the first memory at the same rate that video data is received at the plurality of inputs or at the maximum rate allowed by the capacity of the digital video recorder as configured, whereas the compressed sampled video data is stored at a lesser rate. In an alternative embodiment, the apparatus further comprises a plurality of analog-to-digital converters connected between the plurality of inputs and the processor to convert analog video data to digital video data.
Still further, the present invention provides a video surveillance system comprising a network, a plurality of video cameras connected to the network, and a digital video recorder connected to the network. The digital video recorder has a plurality of inputs to receive video data from the plurality of video cameras, a first memory for storing video data; a second memory for storing video data, and a processor connected to the plurality of inputs and the first and second memories. The digital video recorder compresses video data received on the plurality of inputs and stores the compressed video data in the first memory at a first rate. In addition, the digital video recorder samples the compressed video data, and stores the compressed sampled video data in the second memory.
The present invention provides two separate and different recording modes in the digital video recorder. One mode provides high quality, maximum or high update rate video for a short period of time, for example, a day, for all cameras. This provides the user with the maximum amount of information to review recent events, i.e., within the predefined period of time before which data will be overwritten, if not marked as important. The present invention provides ease of use over prior art systems because the user does not need to try to determine which cameras may be more likely to be positioned in an area where an event will occur and then set priorities in the setup of the digital video recorder so that the selected priority cameras will be recorded at preferred speeds and resolution. The system of the present invention allows all cameras to be recorded at high speed, i.e., the rate at which the video data is received or which the system can process. It allows the recording of all or most of the frames received for each camera at the full frames per second rate received by the video recorder or within its processing capability.
The second mode provides time lapse recording where the various cameras are recorded at a slower rate and, if desired, at a lower resolution but for a much longer period of time to allow the user to have record of an event kept for a month or more but without full details as provided by the first mode. Users of video surveillance systems usually know within minutes and almost certainly within a few hours that they have had an event occur that warrants reviewing in detail or saving of the recorded video data. The present invention also provides time lapse recording of video data with lower resolution, if desired, for longer term archival storage and for events that have not been detected and would otherwise be lost because of the overwriting of the data required by the constant large amount of video data being recorded by the first mode at the higher rate and higher resolution. In addition, when security personnel respond to an alarm event, they will always miss the beginning of the occurrence. In the present invention, the short-term storage always has the desired video data for the alarm event.
In addition to recording video, the digital recorder to also accept audio signals and point of sale data associated with specific cameras. In previous embodiments these signals have been superimposed on top of the video images. This has the disadvantage that if the video was recorded at a slow speed to maximize image storage time, the fidelity of the audio is compromised or may not be recorded at all, and the update rate of the POS information is reduced to less than needed rates. The audio can be allocated to a third recording channel and the POS to a fourth channel, each optimized for their specific application and independent of the video recording rates. These additional recording paths would be set to overwrite at the same time as the sampled channel. Also, these additional channels can be locked and prevented from overwriting along with the critical video data. The multiple recording paths can use different memories, or one memory partitioned into multiple sections.
Other advantages and applications of the present invention will be made apparent by the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention.
Referring to
As shown in
The present invention provides a first mode in which the video data received from each video camera connected to digital video recorder 18 is stored in short-term storage at the same rate that it is received or at the maximum capacity of digital video recorder 18 so that a user can view high quality, full rate videos. Depending upon the image rate from the cameras, the number of cameras connected to digital video recorder 18 and the capacity of video recorder 18 to record data, digital video recorder 18 records the data either at the rate that it is received by video received by digital video recorder 18 or its maximum capacity to either capture the video data in its entirety or as much as possible allowed by the current configuration. These high quality, full rate videos consume a significant amount of digital storage that will fill a hard disc drive in a short period of time, such as a few days. The video data is stored and then overwritten in normal ring buffer fashion. The second mode of the present invention provides time lapse type recording where the various cameras are recorded at a slower rate and if desired at a lower resolution but for a much longer period of time to allow the user to have record of an event kept for a month or more but without full details as provided by the first mode. This long-term storage or memory can also overwrite when full if desired, but this will occur in a longer period of time than the short-term memory in the first mode. The embodiment of the invention shown in
In addition, if an event, such as an alarm, occurs in surveillance system 10, digital video recorder 18 can be notified via network 20 or other suitable means as is known in the art. Digital video recorder can then mark the pertinent video data in short-term video memory 62 to protect the data recorded during the event to be protected so that it is not overwritten. For example, an appropriate entry or flag can be provided in the descriptor field of the pertinent data. Alternatively, the video data could be written to a designated portion of short-term video memory 62 or another independent memory where it is never overwritten until released. Similarly, the audio data and point of sale data can also be protected from overwriting.
It is to be understood that variations and modifications of the present invention can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. It is also to be understood that the scope of the invention is not to be interpreted as limited to the specific embodiments disclosed herein, but only in accordance with the appended claims when read in light of the foregoing disclosure.
