Eptascape, ioimage Take Analytics To Broader Market

• By Steven Titch
• Sep 24, 2007

Axis Communications has signed an agreement with Eptascape to package Eptascape’s MPEG7 encoder with its video surveillance management system.

Under the terms of the deal, scheduled to be announced this week at ASIS International’s 2007 Seminar and Exhibits in Las Vegas, Eptascape’s ADS-100 video analytics encoder will be incorporated into Axis’ 242 IVS Video Servers. The Eptascape equipment will allow the Axis servers to be faster and more efficient at searching, identifying and analyzing specific events recorded by a large-scale surveillance system.

MPEG7 is an ISO/IEC standard developed by the Motion Picture Experts Group for describing the multimedia content data that supports some degree of interpretation of the meaning of the information. That interpretive information, in turn, can be passed to another device or a computer code, independent of the actual multimedia content. In surveillance applications, MPEG7 creates metadata descriptions of video images that can be centralized and searched. Use of metadata is common in IT. For example, Web pages contain metadata that can be read by search engines although they are invisible to viewers.

With Eptascape encoders, Axis 242 IVS Video Servers become, in effect, video content analysis devices able to process one or two simultaneous video streams from analog or network digital camera inputs and produce MPEG7-compliant annotations at a rate between 10 and 25 frames per second. But because the annotations are in the form of metadata, not actual images, bandwidth use is far less. Information contained in 1,525 frames, for example, can be handled in 2 kilobytes, Graziano said.

The MPEG7 annotations are encapsulated in a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) stream and processed by server-side software, such as the Eptascape Detection Engine, for behavioral analysis and event detection. Objects can be identified by segmenting the image. Pre-existing descriptors, tagged to image characteristics such as shape, color and texture, can be extracted and searched in real time, Graziano says.

The use of the MPEG7 standard, as well as the plug-and-play nature of the encoder, constitute a push by manufacturers of analytics hardware and software to make the technology more economical for a broader base of users, says Marco Graziano, CEO of Eptascape. “Our goal is to get the cost of analytics down to less than $1,000 a camera,” says Graziano, a cost point he says will begin to open up the small and medium sized business market.

In a similar vein, ioimage is rolling out what it describes as an entry level video encoder with built-in analytics, part of what it promises to be a broad line of video surveillance management equipment aimed at smaller enterprises and operations the company will exhibit at ASIS.

ioimage’s iobox trk1, already available in Europe, is a single-channel MPEG4 encoder that supports analog and digital cameras. It is designed for plug-and-play set-up and operation and is addressable with a standard Web browser. The device provides a wide-area solution that is uniquely accessible to small sites, as well as for supplementing larger installations. End-user cost depends on configuration, but like Eptascape, ioimage is targeting $1,000 per camera, says Dvir Doron, vice president of marketing at ioimage

“There is a need for a more affordable product to cover the one-channel world, versus four and eight channels,” says Doron.

But packaging and ease of set-up are as important as price when addressing the low- and mid-range segment, Doron adds. Software applications must work with existing customer base, including analog cameras and devices. Set-up must be easy without sacrificing performance, he says. “I see the whole market improving in that respect,” Doron says.

ioimage claims the trk1 can be set up in about five minutes. The company has posted a six-minute demo video on YouTube that walks users through the steps. Analytics capabilities are largely trip wire functions, says Doron, such as intrusion detection, entry detection, maintaining sterile areas and other types of virtual fence applications.