With the proliferation of CCTV surveillance cameras in the world today, it only makes sense to leverage them and turn them from passive watchers into smart security devices and intelligent information gathering tools – this is what video analytics software can do. If your business has video surveillance systems in place and you are not using intelligent video analytics software, you are missing out on valuable opportunities to not only significantly enhance your security and cut the related costs, but also gain more insights about your customers. In today’s post, we will look more closely at what is video analytics and how it can benefit businesses.
How does video analytics work?
Video analytics is advanced software applied to an existing video surveillance system which, through sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI), provides real-time video content analysis for enhanced security monitoring and reporting, and the gathering of customer insights. This not only saves the time and costs of manually monitoring video feeds and finding footage for investigation purposes, but also allows for business and marketing strategies to be tailored to actual customer behaviour.
Video analytics also allow for real-time alerts to be sent, in-depth reports to be generated, and the video and data to be available for viewing anywhere, anytime through the cloud.
Video analytics for security
By analysing video frame-by-frame and pixel-by-pixel, intelligent video analytics software is able to detect minor changes in the environment, such as when something or someone is somewhere they should not be, or when something is moved. It is then able to track said object or person over multiple cameras. This is made possible by advances in motion detection, facial recognition, licence plate identification and other innovative technology. Video analytics software is programmable to the needs of a particular business, so the alert criteria for a retail outlet can be different to say a factory.
Alerts of suspicious behaviour or incidents are instantly sent to authorised personnel for their follow up. This frees up security personnel from having to constantly monitor live video and also reduces the manpower needed and the possibilities of human error or false alarms. In case an investigation is required, the video analytics software can easily find the relevant footage, thereby drastically reducing the time it takes for a manual search.
Video analytics for business insights
Because video analytics works through CCTV surveillance systems, many people consider it as just an enhanced security solution, but in fact the software has far more uses in the form of providing business insights. For instance, using video analytics software for people counting, queue management, dwell time monitoring and the gathering of demographic information, can be very useful for a retail outlet to tailor staffing, marketing and merchandising decisions to the actual activity of customers. In a factory setting, a video analytics solution can be set to alert users of the failure of a piece of machinery. These are just a few examples of the uses of video analytics software that extend out of just security.
All this, combined with the fact that video analytics software operates through an existing video security system, makes it a powerful and cost-effective tool with significant ROI advantages.
So, that is the answer to what is video analytics, and with the video analytics market size projected to grow from USD 2.61 billion in 2017 to USD 11.17 billion by 2022 according to a 2017 MarketsandMarkets report, businesses should really be looking to capture the benefits of video analytics software to keep ahead of their competition.
Learn more about Guardforce’s Video Analytics Solution
We have seen that using intelligent video analytics software has a wide range of benefits for businesses. To learn more about Guardforce Hong Kong’s Video Analytics Solution, download the product information leaflet here. And for a more detailed look at how video analytics software can help keep your premises secure, see our post on How Video Analytics Solutions Enhance Perimeter Security.
