Miami, Fla. – At the annual Video Content Analysis Conference for North America presented by IMS Conferences being held March 10 and 11, 2009, in Miami, Fla., industry researchers, product and system developers, integrators, and end-users have come together to assess the current state of the video analytics industry. What is to be seen is an industry niche that is maturing, but is still somewhat in its infancy.

Presenting information which he had collected in his position as director of research for security and identification for IMS Research, Simon Harris spoke of the barriers that video content analysis (VCA) technology has found in the security space. Chiefly, Harris noted that the industry is trying to get beyond a time when unreasonable expectations were set for video analytics, creating what he termed a “bubble of exuberance.” Now in 2009, he says that the initial exuberance about video analytics has left the building, and integrators, product vendors and end-users are being forced to be much more realistic about how quickly the technology – which can do things such as identify an intruder and track their movements or recognize abandoned objects – will be adopted.

Lest you think otherwise, said Harris, the industry is not in dire straits. A list of all publicly known VCA deployments shown as a slide during Harris’ presentation on Tuesday, March 10, expresses the scope that video analytics is reaching. On that list is a high number of airports, public transportation systems and even some military sites, but Harris’ main contention is that analytics is appearing in the commercial sector as well, and he references such installations as the Statue of Liberty, City of Seattle, Foxwoods Casino Resort, DHL, Best Buy, Hertz and others to prove there’s a larger installed based than many would initially believe. Admittedly, he says, well over 80 percent of these installations would still be classified as pilot projects, but the spread into commercial sector indicates that the VCA field is gaining real traction.

But for that traction to stick, says Harris, the industry has to overcome some major hurdles. Besides the aforementioned challenge of reasonable expectations, Harris says that more equipment manufacturers have to get behind video analytics and make this more common place in regular video surveillance components like NVRs, DVRs and video management systems. There’s also the problem of cost; video content analytics on a surveillance system can quickly ramp up the installation costs of a system as the analytics rules engines are set up and as cameras are especially fine-tuned in their placement to ensure correct field of view to capture things like perimeter breaches without being distracted by unimportant events happening in the background.

Finally, Harris noted that the industry is sorely needing some standards to help develop overall confidence for analytics. On that front, both the ONVIF and PSIA groups are actively looking at VCA metadata standards as part of their overall video surveillance standards. There is also work to develop standards being done by the Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Joseph Kielman, a science advisor for the DHS, presented on the first day of the conference about how VCA fits into the DHS efforts for overall interoperability. There is also research being done by the technical standards working group of the American Public Transport Association (APTA) to help classify the different algorithms, create standards on VCA adoption in public transit, and to present best practices for APTA members who are implementing leading technologies like networked video systems and video analytics. The APTA’s work was presented by Dave Gorshkov, chair of the APTA’s technical standards working group.

Because of these problems – cost, standards, expectations – the technology still gets lumped, right or wrong, into the “future technologies” bin.

“People generally still perceive this as a technology for the future – something that they may invest in but they are not ready to invest in yet,” said Harris.