A report from IMS Research forecasts that the world market for software to analyse video content will explode over the next five years, growing from $67.7m in 2004 to $839.2m in 2009.
Video content analysis software analyses live or recorded video streams to detect suspicious activities, events or behaviour patterns. Simon Harris of the market research firm IMS Research describes the case for video content analysis as extremely compelling.
What they say
"CCTV operators are being overloaded with video content that they are not able to effectively monitor. Experiments have shown that after 22 minutes, operators miss up to 95% of all scene activity. We need intelligent video to improve the effectiveness of surveillance systems and ease the burden on the operators."
Besides improving the effectiveness of a security system, video content analysis also enables extra information to be gathered on loss prevention, public liability issues and consumer behaviour in retail, IMS adds. The report states that the provision of this additional information to the security function makes it easier for end users to justify the expense of adding analysis capability to their video surveillance systems. The researchers predict that content analysis algorithms will increasingly be embedded in front-end surveillance equipment, such as cameras, video servers and recorders. This greatly improves the use of network bandwidth, it is claimed, as the intelligent field devices can determine when something of interest occurs and only then transmit video, thus preserving bandwidth when nothing is happening. Moreover, the researchers say, manufacturers of IT infrastructure are expected to embed software for video analysis in their products so as to further improve the performance of video networks. By 2009, embedded applications are forecast to account for around 60pc of the video analysis software market.
