The Camera Is Only the Beginning

For decades, choosing a CCTV system was largely about choosing cameras.

How good was the image?

What resolution did the camera offer?

How did it perform at night?

How much video could you record?

Those things still matter.

But at Usee.ie, we believe the most interesting thing about a modern CCTV camera increasingly isn't the camera itself.

It's what happens after the image has been captured.

Welcome to the next generation of intelligent video surveillance.

From CCTV Cameras to Video Intelligence

Traditional CCTV systems were primarily designed to do one thing well: record video.

Something happened, somebody investigated it, and an operator searched through recorded footage looking for evidence.

Modern video surveillance can work very differently.

Cameras are increasingly becoming intelligent sensors capable of providing information that software and analytics can interpret.

That creates a completely different question when designing a CCTV system.

Instead of simply asking:

“How good is the picture?”

we can start asking:

“What can we learn from the picture?”

That's a much more interesting question.

AI Is Changing What CCTV Can Do

Artificial intelligence and modern video analytics are changing the capabilities of commercial CCTV systems.

Depending on the technology being deployed, video systems can help operators search and understand footage based on people, vehicles, movement, objects and other defined events.

Instead of manually searching through hours of recorded footage, intelligent video surveillance can help narrow an investigation to the moments that actually matter.

That's an important distinction.

The objective isn't necessarily to collect more video.

Most organisations already have enormous quantities of it.

The opportunity is to make existing video more useful.

The Camera Is Becoming a Sensor

We increasingly think about cameras differently at Usee.

A modern network camera isn't simply a recording device.

It's a sensor.

And once you start thinking about it that way, the possibilities become considerably more interesting.

Video information can potentially interact with other systems and sources of data, including access control, alarms, sensors, transaction systems and operational software.

The camera provides visual context.

Another system provides data.

Software connects the two.

That's when CCTV starts becoming something much more powerful than a collection of cameras recording onto a server.

Cameras + Data + Software = Intelligence

This is an area we're particularly interested in at the Usee Industrial Design Lab.

Rather than developing another CCTV camera, we're exploring what can happen when excellent camera technology is combined with additional data and purpose-built software.

Our recently developed till-monitoring platform is one example.

Till transaction information can be associated with relevant video, allowing defined events such as refunds, voids, discounts, no-sales and no-charge transactions to be surfaced for investigation.

Instead of asking an operator to search through hours of CCTV footage, the software can help take them towards the transactions and associated video that warrant attention.

The camera hasn't changed.

What we're doing with the information has.

Search Is Becoming as Important as Recording

This is one of the biggest changes we see happening within CCTV.

Historically, enormous attention was placed on recording.

How many cameras?

How many frames per second?

How many days of storage?

Those questions remain relevant, but another question is becoming increasingly important:

How quickly can you find what you're looking for?

Imagine an organisation operating hundreds of cameras.

Recording another month of footage isn't particularly useful if finding a specific event still requires somebody to manually search through hours of video.

Intelligent search and video analytics can dramatically change that experience.

The value of a surveillance system therefore isn't simply determined by what it records.

Increasingly, it's determined by how effectively organisations can use what has been recorded.

The Software Layer Is Becoming Critical

This is why we believe software will become an increasingly important part of physical security.

Camera manufacturers continue to make extraordinary advances in image quality, processing power, cybersecurity and analytics.

But there's another opportunity.

Connecting that technology with the systems organisations already use.

That could mean bringing together information from cameras, business systems, sensors or other security technologies and presenting it in a way that helps someone make a better decision.

At Usee, we're increasingly interested in this intelligence layer.

It's not about replacing the camera.

It's about getting significantly more value from it.

Making Sophisticated Technology Simple

There's another principle we think matters.

The technology can be complicated. The user experience shouldn't be.

AI, computer vision, edge processing, cloud infrastructure and data integration can all be technically sophisticated.

The person responsible for security shouldn't need to understand all of that.

They should be able to ask a relatively simple question and get useful information back.

What happened?

When did it happen?

Where did it happen?

What video is associated with it?

Are there other similar events?

The technology should do the hard work in the background.

What Does This Mean for Businesses Buying CCTV Today?

It means organisations should perhaps think beyond camera specifications when considering their next video surveillance system.

Resolution and image quality remain important, but businesses should also consider the wider capabilities of the platform.

How easily can footage be searched?

What analytics are available?

Can the system integrate with other technologies?

Can additional software be developed around it?

How easily can the system evolve as AI and video analytics improve?

And perhaps most importantly:

Will the system simply give you more video, or will it help you understand what's happening?

That's becoming a very different procurement conversation.

Welcome to the Usee Industrial Design Lab

This thinking is one of the reasons we've created the Usee Industrial Design Lab in Dublin.

We're testing cameras and technologies from leading security manufacturers, but we're also looking beyond the hardware.

We're experimenting with AI.

Video analytics.

Data.

Sensors.

Integrations.

And software.

Sometimes we'll find something useful.

Sometimes an experiment won't work.

And occasionally connecting two technologies in a new way may create something genuinely interesting.

That's what a lab should be for.

Because we believe the future of CCTV isn't simply about building a better camera.

The camera is only the beginning.

Usee.ie — We make sense of your video.

Usee.ie designs, integrates and develops intelligent video surveillance and security technology for organisations throughout Ireland.