3VR SmartStorage Aids Video Archiving and Searchability

July 9, 2007
New storage management technology designed to improve storage efficiency, improve access to needed evidence

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — July 09, 2007— 3VR Security, Inc., the pioneer of searchable surveillance, today announced 3VR SmartStorage, a breakthrough technology that captures, catalogs and stores critical video information while reducing video storage requirements by as much 10x over traditional DVRs. The first-of-its-kind technology enables expedient and comprehensive investigations across vast amounts of video information and time, and eliminates the compromise between video evidence quality and video storage capacity and cost.

"Since the introduction of video surveillance, security professional have been forced to compromise both budget and video evidence quality in order to meet long-term storage requirements," said Stephen Russell, Chief Executive Officer of 3VR Security. "3VR SmartStorage is a pivotal breakthrough that makes it possible to store higher-quality video evidence for much longer periods of time while at the same time dramatically reducing storage requirements and costs. It's a win for investigators, security professionals and the IT departments that support them."

3VR Adds Intelligent Storage to Award-Winning Innovations in Video Indexing and Search

Traditional digital video recorders (DVRs) and network video recorders (NVRs) treat essential video evidence and useless video footage equally. Security professionals are often forced to degrade video quality through compression to reduce storage requirements, a compromise that reduces costs but destroys important video evidence. Alternatively, organizations can , invest in large storage arrays to retain large volumes of high-quality video but they incurr large equipment and management costs. Additionally large farms of storage arrays lack tools to find critical evidence from staggering amount of unstructured video. 3VR SmartStorage, now part of the 3VR system, is a new approach to video storage and management that eliminates the compromise between video quality and storage costs.

3VR SmartStorage leverages 3VR analytics to intelligently identify and catalog the best images from within video and then save these images in Event Cards—3VR's unique approach to managing and reviewing video events. Event Cards are high-resolution images of faces, text, objects and motion that are identified by the 3VR system and indexed before they are stored. This unique approach saves only important video, reducing costs making essential video evidence readily available even across the largest surveillance deployments. Additionally, all 3VR systems provide RAID storage to protect video and event data from loss or corruption. 3VR SmartStorage innovations include:

• Automatically finds the best representative images from within surveillance video to create lightweight, easily catalogued and stored Event Cards
• Retains and optimizes resolution of images to preserve evidence quality
• Allows users to store Event Cards separate from the large associated video files
• Makes event cards searchable for specific faces, text, objects, and motion

Gavin Long, Head of Research for USBX Advisory Services, a security industry analyst commented: "Large volumes of security data have rendered users overwhelmed and unproductive. As the amount of video data grows it becomes more difficult to manage and is often discarded — making long-range investigations impossible. By using 3VR, organizations can store security information for longer periods of time and make it accessible and useful across the enterprise. 3VR SmartStorage is an important "efficiency-breakthrough," unlike any other approach in the industry, improving the efficacy and efficiency of security data, while reducing the total cost of ownership."

Banks and Retailers Use 3VR to Improve Investigative Efficiency and Effectiveness

Banks and retailers combating fraud and theft require immediate access to comprehensive video surveillance evidence in the case of an investigation. With claims often sitting unreported for months, or even years, investigators often find that the video evidence they need has long been deleted and or severely compromised because it has been compressed to optimize storage. By saving high-quality video evidence for long periods of time, investigators are able to more effectively fight fraud and win convictions with complete cases. Using 3VR, investigators can instantly query for specific transactions, point-of-sale events or faces; review results in well-organized, easy-to-scan storyboards of Event Cards: create a comprehensive evidence trail spanning multiple years and multiple locations and add events to a central case management system that is easily shared with law enforcement.

3VR SmartStorage is immediately available from 3VR and authorized dealers. Existing 3VR customers can contact [email protected] for upgrade information. For more information about how 3VR systems reduce costs and improve security and investigations, visit www.3VR.com.