Metadata is driving the future of video and with it, the future of the security industry and the value that it can offer to businesses within and beyond the function of security. We asked four leading IP video companies – all ONVIF members – their thoughts on how metadata is being used today.
Gunnar Erlandsson, Global Product Manager, analytics, Axis Communications
Metadata is becoming increasingly important. Automatically generated metadata with information about what’s happening in a scene makes it easier to build tools to help operators handle large amounts of video data. Metadata can be used in the video management software context, to enable automated or human responses to alerts, and also to dramatically decrease the time needed for video searching. Another integration possibility is to collect the metadata as statistics in dashboards, e.g. visualizing summaries and trends, that can give actionable insights.
Rudolf Spielberger, Solution Business Partner Program, Bosch Security and Safety Systems
Video analytics, a form of Artificial Intelligence, has long produced metadata to add sense and structure to recorded video footage, which helps users to understand scenes and situations. Metadata makes it possible to retrieve the correct footage from hours of stored video. It also analyzes scenes to identify potential undesirable events and provides various statistics so users can act faster and more efficiently or make smarter business decisions. It’s the main reason Bosch video security cameras have had built-in video analytics as standard since 2016.
Barry Norton, VP of Research, Milestone SystemsMilestone Systems
The security industry and Milestone see a significant increase in the use of structured data, including video metadata and events. At Milestone, we are continuously building capabilities for the ingestion and utilization of such data.
Todd Dunning, Director, Product Management, Video Security & Analytics, Pelco
Pelco by Motorola Solutions used metadata in analog video solutions 20 years ago with Pelco D protocol sending date and time metadata from the camera to the VMS. As the industry migrated to digital video, the ability to expand metadata and standardize methods for metadata has increased. Today ONVIF Profile M provides a standardized method to provide metadata for geolocation, vehicles, license plates, and human faces and bodies.
