We’ve come a long way since the early disappointments in video analytics, and the technology is finally moving out from under the shadow of the days when “over-promise and under-deliver” was the unspoken mantra within the space. While that may no longer be the case, there is still a danger of history repeating itself unless all the facets of the technology are fully understood.

“Video analytics is growing into a hot topic for many customers, yet many of the features touted by manufacturers are often not fully implemented or do not meet customer expectations. This is in part because analytics can be overhyped by the vendor, or the application environment may not be suitable for the desired analytic,” says Jeff Whitney, vice president of marketing, Arecont Vision, Glendale, Calif. “In a very busy area with multiple people, equipment or vehicles moving through the scene, it may not be a successful deployment. Therefore, while video analytics are becoming increasingly important, they remain only part of the solution.”

That said, from security to public safety to crowd management and beyond, video analytics are increasingly being used to reduce risk, enable efficiencies, reduce costs, ensure compliance and provide faster access to stored video. For example, data derived from video analytics can produce actionable intelligence so security can understand and best respond to current situations, says Jonathan Lewit, director of technology leadership, Pelco by Schneider Electric, Clovis, Calif.

“With the increasing amount of intelligence provided with new video analytics, security integrators can offer customers more choices to secure their facilities, processes and procedures, and make security an essential element across enterprise operations,” he says.

Currently Trending

According to Steve Birkmeier, vice president of sales and business development, Arteco, St. Louis, the top trend in the space is for a broader set of analytics moving effectively to the edge and becoming part of the basic feature set of cameras. That may not be terribly new or earth-shattering, but the key word in this case is “effective,” thanks to camera manufacturers.

“It’s really due to the chipsets and other breakthroughs from a development standpoint. They’re finally making analytics a viable option,” he says. “More importantly, it’s making these applications easier to set up and use, which is having direct effects on integrators who are installing them. It also means analytics are actually being used. For a long time, it was this ‘me too’ application that was really used just to check off an RFP when in reality it was a very small part of the market that was using these applications.”

As video analytics grow and mature, the technology is playing a key role in expanding the role of video beyond traditional security and surveillance to more data-driven applications, says Sean Murphy, director of regional marketing – video systems, Bosch Security Systems, Fairport, N.Y.

“Integrators who understand the ability for video to provide business benefits that extend beyond end users’ traditional security needs will have an advantage over their competitors,” he says. “Given this trend, we are challenging ourselves and our customers to rethink video security to get more from video systems than they have in the past. We believe that in the future, video analytics will help users achieve 100 percent utilization of the huge amounts of information contained within the video data collected — using the hidden potential of video to monitor presence to reduce utility bills, identify patterns in customer activity, and much more.”

According to Bret McGowan, senior vice president of sales and marketing, Vicon Industries, Milford, Pa., video analytics seem to have splintered into two separate segments. The first is a basic set of technologies, such as line-crossing, intrusion-detection, tampering and object counting, which were at one point premium analytics but are now included in most higher-end cameras.

The second segment, McGowan says, is high-end analytics. Commonly server-based, these technologies can shoulder multiple analytics and multiple channels simultaneously. For example, companies have recently begun offering post-recording analytic search options that take advantage of the video metadata that is captured to quickly search across multiple channels to track a person, object or event.

“This technology is still in the early stages of development and even though they seem to look impressive, there are still significant limitations in their real-world performance capabilities and they often require an investment in very specific hardware,” he says.

A number of camera manufacturers are also adding deep-learning capabilities to their video analytics. The advanced algorithms behind deep learning allow devices to learn on their own, performing hierarchical data extraction and continually adapting over time even in a complicated environment, says Jennifer Hackenburg, senior product marketing manager, Dahua Technology USA, Irvine, Calif.

“Thanks to this continual adaptation and quicker processing, accuracy of pattern analysis and classification are increased,” she says. “In this way, analyzing video content in real time becomes more efficient and more powerful. Three key features of deep learning are traffic data collection, facial analysis, and heat mapping.”

Because deep learning capabilities involve processing more data, it “learns” to differentiate between humans, vehicles and other factors on a higher level. And the more it is applied, the more robust the analytics become.

“In our process, we spend several months of collecting data for human recognition. The more parts of the world we apply the product to and collect data from, the more we can differentiate between different types of human beings, different clothing, ways they walk and behave,” says Doug Gray, senior product manager, Hikvision USA and Hikvision Canada, City of Industry, Calif. “The more you add to that database, the more it learns. It’s just like reading a book or going to school. You take more classes, you learn more and you grow.”

The Sweetest Spot

Traditional security applications will continue to be the sweet spot for video analytics into the foreseeable future, but broader, non-security applications are quickly growing. And nowhere is this more prevalent than in the retail sector.

“Retailers are using analytics for optimizing their operations, product placement and other functions,” says Brian Carle, director of product strategy, Salient Systems, Austin, Texas. “With a heat map, for example, you can use the information to optimize store layouts to increase sales or even to sell shelf space like in a grocery store.”

True integration between video analytics and point-of-sale (POS) data can provide valuable real-time marketing reports on a number of factors, including conversion rates. This is important for traditional retailers who must compete against their online counterparts, Birkmeier says.

“We’re living in an age when online retailers know so much about their clients’ buying habits and this is a way for the brick-and-mortar stores to take that back a little bit,” he says. “As the analytics get better, the next thing we’ll be looking at are bio trends like gender and age — all these different things that we’re seeing inside of a retail store that, for the most part, online retailers can do.”

These developments are only being accelerated as the lines between brick-and-mortar and online retailers are blurred, as seen with Amazon’s recent acquisition of Whole Foods.

“They’re now going to want to have more data about their customers and how they can combine brick and mortar and online retail applications. To think that a security software application is the gateway into doing things like that is pretty exciting,” Birkmeier describes.

Deep learning can play a key role in helping those in retail and other industries further increase the value of video analytics by helping companies run more efficiently.

“For example, when a retail worker is taking too long to stock a shelf or to retrieve shopping carts, an alert is sent to the manager,” Hackenburg says.

While there may not be an obvious use case for video analytics in some end users’ applications today, security integrators need to educate their customers about the value of the data that solutions can pull from video, Murphy says.

Mirroring previous trends in other technologies, there will likely be a day when video analytics are simply an assumption, rather than an exception, Birkmeier says.

“Security cameras are now seen as very much accepted, and almost required in many areas of our lives. I think we’ll continue to see that with video analytics,” he says. “If something happens and there’s not video analytics in that application, people are going to ask why we didn’t have it there.”