Most businesses are no strangers to using video as a means to maintain good security, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg in the benefits a good video system can provide. With advances in big data analytics and automated technologies, many organizations are starting to take advantage of video analytics. It’s the direction much of the world is going these days, but analyzing video can be a challenge. Consider how much data is involved in a simple video. For many years, companies were simply incapable of performing meaningful analysis of the video they captured, but things are changing at a rapid pace now. Storage capabilities have increased to the point where data from video can be saved, eliminating the need to continuously delete new video recorded. Analytics technologies have also improved, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes and types. Put in simple terms, video analytics is set to be a major player in the data market.
When most organizations think of surveillance cameras, their minds naturally gravitate toward their uses as security and safety tools, but they provide so much more. Whereas hours upon hours of video was recorded and saved to keep an eye on what was going on at a place of business, now it can be analyzed to discover much more. Think of video analytics as taking image analytics to the next level. For obvious reasons, analyzing video requires much more processing and involves a lot more data than analyzing an image, but businesses can gain a whole lot more at the same time. With huge amounts of data in play, organizations can now use advanced facial recognition technology along with a better understanding of human behavior.
The true strength of video analytics lies in its use of dynamic data. Seeing people in motion reveals a lot more about them than a still image would. If anything, it provides more context for their actions, giving organizations more data to work with. This can obviously be used for security purposes, but it may also impact many other areas of a business. Video analytics can provide companies with information on what customers do once they enter a retail store, for example. This can help them plan where to place displays and set up advertisements. From the data collected from video analytics, businesses can get to know their customers better, particularly when it comes to making purchasing decisions. With this information in hand, marketing professionals can plan out their campaigns so they are more effective. Video analytics can also use the data to plan out the best spacing for stores, allowing for the most efficient foot traffic. All of this is available to organizations at a level of accuracy they’ve never had before.
The benefits of video analytics aren’t just for businesses. Transportation organizations can use data collected from surveillance systems to keep a close eye on everything that is happening. An airport, for instance, can use video analytics to maintain security and ensure travelers have enough time to reach the right terminal and baggage carousel. Sports venues are always trying to find the best ways to get a flood of people in and out the doors without creating significant bottlenecks. Law enforcement can use data from street cameras as an accurate predictor of when and where crimes may occur, helping them divert their resources more effectively.
Sorting through the massive amount of data video analytics needs would be a tall order for any person to handle, which is why video analytics systems come complete with automated analysis. With machine learning technology, specialized algorithms can sort through a tremendous amount of information to deliver helpful insights that organizations can then act upon. This is especially important because the amount of video being recorded and stored is only going to get bigger. Smart cities will likely employ hundreds if not thousands of cameras to find ways to manage city services better. And the Internet of Things will be generating lots of data to go with the number of devices with cameras that can connect to the web.
If businesses felt like video analytics was beyond their grasp, it’s time to change that line of thinking. Video analytics does involve a lot of data, but now organizations have the capability to utilize it to the fullest extent. The more it grows, the more video analytics will be a large part of the data market.