GB2507785A

GB2507785A - Identifying Events of Interest in a Video Archival System

Info

Publication number: GB2507785A
Application number: GB1220231.3A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Hamish Chalmers
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2012-11-09
Filing date: 2012-11-09
Publication date: 2014-05-14
Also published as: GB201220231D0

Abstract

A video archival system comprises a video camera (1, 101, 201) for providing video data for a location and a video data recorder (5) for recording the data provided by the camera. The system further comprises a portable control device (7, 107) having user operable controls enabling a user to identify in real time an event of interest in the location, a timer for providing timing information and an event data store for recording event data comprising timing data encoding the interest event timing. A data processor (9) receives and processes the event data from the portable control device. The data processor and the portable control device are physically separate but are couplable by a physical or wired interface for transferring the event data. The data processor is arranged to use the event data received from the portable control device to determine the interest event timing and to use the timing to identify the location of the video data for the interest event on the data stored on the video data recorder. Video data for interest events may be copied to a video store (13). The system may be used for recording events of interest for professional development purposes.

Description

Video Archival System

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a video archival system. In particular, this invention relates to a video archival system for use in archiving clips of video data for events of interest.

Background to the Invention

It is known to transmit video signals from video cameras to remotely located monitors for surveillance purposes. Such systems are known as closed circuit television (CCTV) systems, and are increasingly to be found in public locations.

The positive effects of closed circuit television systems include increased crime prevention and crime detection.

In some applications, for example on buses and trains, the video signals are recorded, for example on an analogue or digital video recorder. This avoids the need for real time monitoring of the signals. The recorded signals may also serve as permanent evidence of what has been observed.

Closed circuit televisions systems are increasingly being implemented in private businesses and in public service organisations, such as schools. It has been recognised in such applications that, if the video signals are recorded, the systems may also serve as professional development tools.

A problem associated with the use of closed circuit television systems in which the video signals are recorded is the difficulty of finding data for a historical event of interest. In particular, even if the approximate timing of the event is known, a system operator may need to review several hours, if not days, of data to find the relevant video clip. A further problem relates to the fact that systems usually have a limited data storage capacity and therefore repeatedly overwrite the data in a loop. As such, a system operator may find that the video data for a historical event of interest has been overwritten, and cannot therefore be retrieved.

It is known to implement a closed circuit television system in which the video data is only recorded during certain times, for example during normal working hours, thereby reducing the amount of unwanted data that is recorded by the system. It is also known to implement a system in which the video data is only recorded when motion is detected in a location of interest. However, in both of these systems, large amounts of unwanted data are still recorded, making it difficult to retrieve the data for particular events of interest.

Moreover, these known systems are not well suited for use as professional development tools.

GB 2446433 A discloses a video archival system intended for use as a professional development tool. However, there is a continuing need for video archival systems that meet a variety of different requirements.

Summary of the Invention

According to the invention, there is provided a video archival system for recording events of interest for professional development purposes, the system comprising: a video camera for providing video data for a location; a video data recorder for recording the video data provided by the video camera; a portable control device having: user operable controls for enabling a user to identify in real time an event of interest in the location; a timer for providing timing information; and an event data store for recording event data comprising timing data encoding the timing of the event of interest; and a data processor for receiving and processing the event data from the portable control device, wherein the data processor is physically separate from the portable control device, the data processor and the portable control device being couplable by a physical or wired interface for transferring the event data, wherein the data processor is arranged to use the event data received from the portable control device to determine the timing of the event of interest and to use the timing to identify the location of the video data for the event of interest on the video data recorder.

The invention thus provides a system which enables a user to conveniently identify isolated events, or clips, within raw video data which may represent many hours of footage, using user operable controls. The event data may be used to copy the specific video data for the event to a separate location, or the position of the video data for the event may be marked in some way. The separate location may be the hard disk drive of a personal computer, for

example.

The system may be used to create an archive of events of interest for professional development (training) purposes. For example, the events may be examples of good teaching practice in a classroom.

An advantage of the system is that it does not rely on a wireless interface of any form. The event data is stored locally in the portable control device and can then be transferred to the data processor at a convenient time after the identification of the event of interest, which may be minutes, hours or even days later. Such operation is possible because the portable control device comprises a timer for providing timing information and the event data stored in the event data store comprises timing data encoding the timing of the events of interest.

The timer of the portable control device may be a clock for providing absolute timing information. Such a clock may be synch ronised with a clock in the data processor. Alternatively, the timer may provide relative timing information, for example by measuring the time from operation of the user operable controls to the point in time at which the event data is transferred to the data processor. In the latter scenario, the event data may only be written to the event data store immediately before being transferred to the data processor.

In one embodiment of the invention, the portable control device does not have any form of wireless communications interface, which may advantageously reduce cost and/or complexity. The physical or wired interface between the data processor and the portable control device needs only be engaged when event data is to be transferred. The interface could, for example, take the form of a Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable.

The portable control device is preferably a hand-held device, such as a battery operated hand-held device.

In preferred embodiments, the user operable controls of the portable control device may comprise controls for identifying the nature of the event of interest, and the event data may then encode the nature of the event. For example, the controls may comprise a pair of controls for identifying positive and negative events.

The user operable controls may comprise controls for identifying a person or group of persons associated with the event of interest, and the event data may then encode the person or group of persons associated with the event. A list of persons may be stored in the portable control device and persons may be selected using curser controls and a display, such as an LCD, for example.

The system may comprise a plurality of video cameras for providing video data for different locations, for example, different rooms, and the video data recorder is then for recording the video data provided by the plurality of video cameras.

The user operable controls may comprise controls for identifying a camera or location associated with the event of interest. In this way, video data from the correct camera can be identified.

The portable control device may comprise means for automatically identifying its location, so that a video camera associated with the location can be identified, and so that video data from the correct camera can automatically be identified.

The means for automatically identifying the location may comprise a Radio S Frequency Identification (RFID) reader. In this case, the system further comprises a plurality of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) transponders associated with respective ones of the locations.

The means for automatically identifying the location may comprise a satellite positioning system receiver, for example a GPS receiver, or a local positioning system receiver arranged to use a triangulation technique to identify the location of the portable control device.

The system may further comprise means for changing the direction of a video camera, i.e. its field of view. The video cameras may be directed at an identified location of the portable control device.

The portable control device may comprise further functionality, such as a microphone and/or a video camera for providing audio and/or video data. Such a feature may be useful in locations not clearly covered by fixed cameras.

According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a video archival method of recording events of interest for professional development purposes, the method comprising: operating a video camera to provide video data for a location; recording the video data provided by the video camera on a video data recorder: identifying an event of interest using a portable control device, the portable control device having: user operable controls for enabling a user to identify in real time an event of interest in the location; a timer for providing timing information; and an event data store for recording event data comprising timing data encoding the timing of the event of interest; and coupling the portable control device to a data processor by a physical or wired interface, wherein the data processor: receives the event data from the portable control device; uses the event data to determine the timing of the event of interest; and uses the timing to identify the location of the video data for the event of interest on the video data recorder.

Brief Description of the Drawings

A preferred embodiment of the invention will no be described in detail, by way of example only, with reference to the following drawings: Figure 1 is a schematic view of a video archival system according to the invention; and Figure 2 is a view of a portable control device, which is one of the components of the system shown in Figure 1.

Detailed Description

The invention provides a video archival system for recording events of interest.

The system enables a user to conveniently identify the video data for events of interest, which data is then archived for professional development (training) purposes.

Figure 1 shows an exemplary video archival system according to the invention, in schematic form. Referring to the Figure, the system comprises a plurality of video cameras 1, 101, 201 in respective different rooms 3, 103, 203 of a building. The video cameras 1, 101, 201 are fixed to the walls of the rooms 3, 103, 203 and are arranged to provide video data for the rooms 3,103, 203. The video camera 1, 101, 201 are small in size so as to be discrete in operation.

The video cameras 1, 101, 201 are connected by wires to a digital video data recorder 5. The digital video data recorder 5 is arranged to receive a flow of digital video data from the video cameras 1, 101, 201 and to record the data.

The data is recorded in a ioop, so that older video data is continuously overwritten by more recent video data. The digital video data recorder 5 is arranged to record the data from all three video cameras 1, 101, 201 at the same time. At any one time, the digital video data recorder 5 holds at least two hours of data from the video cameras 1, 101, 201.

To the above extent the system is conventional, representing a multi-location video monitoring and recordal system.

In addition to the video cameras 1, 101, 201 and the digital video recorders, the system comprises a plurality of portable control devices 7, 107, a data processor 9, which may be a personal computer, and a video data store 13, which may be a hard disk drive associated with the personal computer.

The portable control devices 7, 107 are small hand-held devices. In the example, two portable control devices 7, 107 are being carried by users (not shown) in two of the rooms 3,203. The portable control devices 7, 107 are for use by the users in identifying events of interest, and will be described in more detail with reference to Figure 2.

Figure 2 is a front view of one of the portable control devices 7, 107. The device is battery operated, and comprises a number of user operable controls 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, a timer (not shown), an event data store (not shown) and a wired interface in the form of USB socket 25.

The user operable controls of the portable control device 7, 107 comprise event buttons 15. The event buttons 15, 17 are used by the user to identify the timing and nature of an event of interest. For example, if the user becomes aware of a positive event, he presses the event button 15 having the "tick" symbol. The time at which the button is pressed is representative of the timing of the event of interest.

The user operable controls of the portable control device 7, 107 also comprise a "where" button 19, a "who" button 21 and curser buttons 23. These buttons and a liquid crystal display 25 enable the user, after having pressed an event button 15, 17, to identify a location and a person or group of persons involved in the event of interest.

The event data store of the portable control device 7, 107 is arranged to store event data which encodes both the timing and nature of the event of interest, together with the location and the person or persons involved in the event. The event data is automatically generated by the device 7, 107 when the user operable controls are operated by the user to identify an event of interest, the timing of the event of interest being derived from the timer.

The wired interface 25 is arranged to transfer the stored event data from the event data store to the data processor 9 and for this purpose the data processor 9 is also provided with a wired interface 11 in the form of USB socket 11 and a USB cable (not shown).

Referring again to Figure 1, the data processor 9 of the system is arranged to receive the event data from the portable control devices 7, 107 over the wired interface 11, 25. The data processor 9 is arranged to use the event data to identify the location of the video data for the event of interest on the digital video recorder 5. Having identified its location, the data for the event of interest is copied onto the video data store 13 which is coupled to the data processor 9.

The data processor 9 is arranged to identify the video data for the event of interest using a number of settings which can be manually adjusted using software running on the data processor 9. In particular, the data processor 9 decodes the timing of the event of interest, i.e. the time at which an event button 15, 17 was pressed, from the event data. Based on this information, the video data is identified. According to the settings, the video data clip is taken to begin a fixed time period before the button press and to end a fixed time period after the button press. The settings may, for example, be such that the video data clip begins ten minutes before the button press and ends five minutes afterwards, making a total video clip length of fifteen minutes.

Having identified the video data for the event of interest, the data processor 9 is arranged to copy it from the digital video recorder 5 to the video data store 13 for future reference. At this time, labels are attached to the video data indicating the nature of the event, the location of the event and the person or persons involved in the event, each decoded from the event data.

Typically, a plurality of users will each carry a portable control device 1, 107.

Upon becoming aware of an event of interest, a user will press one of the event buttons 15, 17. The portable control device 1, 107 then prompts the user to enter further information regarding the event: Firstly, the user is prompted to identify a person or group of persons involved in the event from a list displayed on the liquid crystal display 25. The person or group of persons is selected using the "who" button 21.

Secondly, the user is prompted to identify a location of the event from a list displayed on the display 25. The location is selected using one of two methods. Firstly, the location can simply be selected by pressing the "where" button. Alternatively, the location can be selected by holding the portable control device 7, 106 against a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag 27, 127, 227 mounted in the user's location. In this case, a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader (not shown) in the portable control device 7, 107 reads information encoded on the tag to identify the relevant location.

Having received all of the appropriate information, the timing of the event of interest derived from the timer and the nature, location and person or group of persons involved in the event are encoded as event data. The event data is stored in the event data store of the portable control device 7, 107 ready for later transfer to the data processor 9 over the wired interface.

As described above, the data processor 9 is arranged to use the event data to copy the video data for the event from the digital video data recorder 5 to the video data store 13 for longer term storage. Where video data from more than one camera is recorded on the digital video data recorder 5, the event data is used to determine the specific camera for which the video data is copied.

Labels are attached to the video data to facilitate later retrieval from a large collection of archived clips of video data. While the video data on the digital video data recorder 5 is overwritten at regular intervals, the clips of video data on the video data store 13 are retained until they are manually deleted. Thus, the clips can be used at a later date for personal development purposes.

A single preferred embodiment has been described above. However, various modifications and additions may be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

For example, the digital video data recorder may be replaced by a separate unit for each video camera, which are all then linked to the data processor 9. In the example, data is transferred and stored in digital form, for example using an MPEG standard, but in alternative embodiments analogue data may be used.

The portable control device may have additional functionality. For example, the device may be provided with its own video camera for use in locations not covered by a fixed video camera. The video data from this camera may either be wirelessly transmitted or locally stored for future downloading. Microphones may also be provided, either with the fixed cameras or as part of the portable control device.

The portable control device may comprise a wireless receiver for receiving audio data. For example, the wireless received may be arranged to receive verbal comments or instructions from a mentor observing the user of the remote control device. In this case, the portable control device could be coupled, for example by a wireless connection, to an earpiece worn by the user and arranged to receive the audio data.

The portable control device may comprise a satellite or local positioning receiver for accurately determining its location. In this case, the system may be arranged to adjust the direction of the relevant video camera so that it is always directed towards the location of the portable control device.

In the embodiment described above, the clip of video data for an event of interest is determined as beginning a fixed time period before a button press and ending a fixed time period after a button press. However, alternative techniques are envisaged, including one based on two button presses. Such techniques may be controlled using software running on the data processor, as described above, or using software running on the portable control device.

In the embodiment described above, video data for the events of interest is saved onto a video data store in the form of a hard disk drive coupled to a data processor. This hard disk drive may form part of an email server, and the coupling may be over a computer network or the internet. In this way, according to the invention, the video data for the events of interest may be attached to and sent with ernails.

In the embodiment described above, the timer of the portable control device provides absolute timing information and is synchronised with a timer in the data processor. In alternative embodiments the timer may provide relative timing information, for example by measuring the time from operation of the user operable controls to the point in time at which the event data is transferred to the data processor. In this scenario, the event data may only be written to the event data store of the portable control device immediately before being transferred to the data processor.

In some embodiments, particularly in an educational setting, location may be defined in terms of different activities. For example, location may be defined in terms of different practical activities each associated with a different part of a classroom.

Claims

Claims 1. A video archival system for recording events of interest for professional development purposes, the system comprising: a video camera for providing video data for a location; a video data recorder for recording the video data provided by the video camera; a portable control device having: user operable controls for enabling a user to identify in real time an event of interest in the location; a timer for providing timing information; and an event data store for recording event data comprising timing data encoding the timing of the event of interest; and a data processor for receiving and processing the event data from the portable control device, wherein the data processor is physically separate from the portable control device, the data processor and the portable control device being couplable by a physical or wired interface for transferring the event data, and wherein the data processor is arranged to use the event data received from the portable control device to determine the timing of the event of interest and to use the timing to identify the location of the video data for the event of interest on the video data recorder.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the portable control device is a hand-held device.
3. The system of claim 2, wherein the portable control device is battery operated.
4. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the data processor is coupled to a video data store and is arranged to copy the video data for the event of interest from the video data recorder to the video data store.
5. The system of claim 4, wherein the data processor is arranged to use the event data to copy only video data for events of interest.
6. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the data processor and the portable control device do not have a wireless interface for transferring the event data.
7. The system of any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the data processor and the portable control device further comprise a wireless interface for transferring the event data.
8. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the user operable controls of the portable control device further comprise controls for enabling a user to identify in real time the nature of the event of interest, and wherein the event data comprises data encoding the nature of the event of interest.
9. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the user operable controls of the portable control device further comprise controls for enabling a user to identify in real time a person or group of persons associated with the event of interest, and wherein the event data comprises data encoding the person or group of persons associated with the event of interest.
10. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the system comprises a plurality of video cameras for providing video data for different locations, wherein the video data recorder is for recording the video data provided by the plurality of video cameras, wherein the portable control device further comprise a means for identifying a camera or location associated with the event of interest, and wherein the event data comprises data encoding the camera or location associated with the event of interest.
11. The system of claim 10, further comprising a plurality of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) transponders associated with respective ones of the locations, and wherein the means for identifying comprises a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader.
12. The system of claim 10, wherein the means for identifying comprises a S satellite positioning system receiver or a local positioning system receiver arranged to use a triangulation technique to identify the location of the portable control device.
13. The system of any of claims 10 to 12, wherein the system further comprises means for changing the direction of a video camera, and wherein the system is arranged to direct the video camera at an identified location of the portable control device.
14. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the portable control device further comprises a microphone and/or a video camera for providing audio and/or video data and an audio and/or video storage device for storing the audio and/or video data.
15. The system of any preceding claim, wherein the portable control device further comprises a wireless receiver for receiving audio data.
16. A video archival method of recording events of interest for professional development purposes, the method comprising: operating a video camera to provide video data for a location; recording the video data provided by the video camera on a video data recorder; identifying an event of interest using a portable control device, the portable control device having: user operable controls for enabling a user to identify in real time an event of interest in the location; a timer for providing timing information; and an event data store for recording event data comprising timing data encoding the timing of the event of interest; and coupling the portable control device to a data processor by a physical or wired interface, wherein the data processor: receives the event data from the portable control device; uses the event data to determine the timing of the event of interest; and uses the timing to identify the location of the video data for the event of interest on the video data recorder.
17. A system and/or method substantially as hereinbefore described and/or as shown in the drawings.