JP5091966B2 - Surveillance video recording apparatus, surveillance video recording method, and program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a surveillance video recording apparatus, a surveillance video recording method, and a program technique.

The main purpose of the surveillance video recording system is to prevent crimes in shopping streets and stores, etc., when detecting sensor alarms, moving objects in surveillance video, or detecting recorder abnormalities. It is important to record the video imaged by the imaging device (surveillance camera). As such a surveillance video recording system, a motion detection alarm recording is generally performed in which a motion in the video of the surveillance camera is detected and recording is started as a trigger for occurrence of an abnormality (hereinafter referred to as a motion detection alarm). It has been broken.
In addition, in surveillance video recording systems, it is often impossible to predict when an abnormality will occur, so recording will be performed continuously for 24 hours, or the area around the surveillance camera or where an abnormality is likely to occur is predicted in advance. A video recording system, a video recording control method, and an apparatus are disclosed in which recording is started by using an abnormality occurrence signal (hereinafter referred to as a sensor alarm) detected by the sensor as a trigger (see, for example, Patent Document 1). reference).

  Furthermore, with regard to sensor alarm recording / motion detection alarm recording, an image recording apparatus, an image recording system, and an image recording method that can record even a video of a surveillance camera that is not a recording target when a sensor alarm occurs (see, for example, Patent Document 2). In addition, a monitoring video recording apparatus and a monitoring video recording system that record a video at the time of occurrence of a sensor alarm with high quality are disclosed (for example, see Patent Document 3).

  There is also disclosed a monitoring video recording apparatus that uses sensor alarms and motion detection alarms to determine priorities for each monitoring camera and sets recording rates such as bit rate, resolution, and frame rate during recording according to the priorities. (For example, see Patent Document 4)

JP 2001-8167 A JP 2003-348539 A JP 2006-339982 A JP 2008-167101 A

However, as disclosed in Patent Document 2, in a technique for detecting a motion in a video of a monitoring camera that is generally performed and starting recording using the detected motion detection alarm as a trigger, a motion for detecting a motion detection alarm The detection function is realized by software. However, with such a motion detection function, there is a possibility that false detection or omission of detection may occur due to the influence of shooting conditions such as an object moving in the screen due to wind or the like.
In addition, the technique described in Patent Literature 1 has a problem that erroneous detection or detection omission may occur due to contact failure or disconnection in the sensor. As described above, in the conventional method of recording an alarm as a trigger, there is a possibility that a trigger may be generated due to erroneous detection or omission of detection. As a result, monitoring is performed when a real abnormality occurs, which is the main purpose of the surveillance video recording system. There is a possibility of failing to record the camera image. For this reason, there exists a problem that reliability is inadequate.

  As a solution to these problems, there is a method of recording continuously for 24 hours. However, if the video of the surveillance camera is recorded in a high-quality state in a storage device such as a hard disk drive (hereinafter referred to as HDD (Hard Disk Drive)), the recordable period is shortened. Therefore, when recording is performed continuously for 24 hours in this way, there is a problem that the video must be recorded with low quality.

  In the technique of Patent Document 3, only the sensor alarm is used, and in the technique described in Patent Document 4, only the sensor alarm and the motion detection alarm are used as factors for determining the priority for each monitoring camera. Therefore, the problem that other abnormalities such as CPU (Central Processing Unit) abnormality and HDD abnormality are not taken into account, and priority determination is not performed regularly, so the environment to be monitored changes. There is a problem that the optimum recording rate cannot be automatically calculated.

  Furthermore, it is common for a surveillance video recording device (recorder) to have a plurality of surveillance cameras connected. To set the recording rate for all of these surveillance cameras, it is necessary to input many items. Therefore, usability is also difficult.

  In view of such a background, an object of the present invention is to make it possible to adjust the image quality of a video sent from a photographing apparatus according to the state of a surveillance video recording system.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is a surveillance video recording device that records video sent from a photographing device, and counts the frequency of occurrence of abnormality in the surveillance video recording device itself, and when the frequency of occurrence is high, The recording rate of the video is set low, and the recording rate is set high when the occurrence frequency is low.
Other solutions will be described in the embodiments.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to adjust the image quality of the video sent from the imaging device according to the state of the surveillance video recording system.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the monitoring video recording system which concerns on this embodiment. It is a list | wrist which shows the kind of abnormality which becomes the object of a process in this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of a definition of the intensity | strength in various alarms. It is a figure which shows the example of a definition of a failure level. It is a figure which shows the relationship between a failure level, a priority, and a bit rate. It is a figure which shows the relationship between a failure level, a priority, and a frame rate. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of a process of the monitoring video recording device concerning this embodiment. It is a figure which shows the example of the parameter change screen which concerns on this embodiment.

  Next, modes for carrying out the present invention (referred to as “embodiments”) will be described in detail with reference to the drawings as appropriate.

"System configuration"
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration example of a monitoring video recording system according to the present embodiment.
The surveillance video recording system 5 includes a surveillance video recording device (recorder) 1, a plurality of surveillance cameras 2 that are installed in a predetermined location and connected to the surveillance video recording device 1, and a surveillance video recording device. 1 is composed of a video confirmation monitor 4 connected to 1. The video imaged by the surveillance camera 2 is transmitted to the surveillance video recording device 1 in the state of an analog signal. The video of the monitoring camera 2 at the current time and the video stored in the monitoring video recording device 1 can be reproduced and displayed on the monitor 4.

  The surveillance video recording apparatus 1 includes a memory 10, a CPU 30, an A / D (Analog / Digital) converter 20, an encoder 40, a storage device 50 such as an HDD, a decoder 60, and a D / A (Digital / Analog) converter 70. Have.

  The analog signal video input from the plurality of monitoring cameras 2 to the monitoring video recording device 1 is transmitted to the A / D conversion device 20 provided for each monitoring camera 2, and the A / D conversion device 20 is input. An analog video signal is converted into a digital video signal. The converted digital video signal is input to an encoder 40 common to each surveillance camera 2, and the encoder 40 compresses and encodes the input digital video signal, and then stores the digital video signal in the storage device 50. The digital video signal stored in the storage device 50 is decoded by the decoder 60, converted to an analog video signal by the D / A converter 70, and sent to the monitor 4. In addition, a real-time video can be displayed on a monitor by sending a video signal directly from the A / D converter 20 to the D / A converter 70.

  Here, an analog surveillance camera is assumed as the surveillance camera 2, but a digital surveillance camera or the like may be used. In this case, the A / D conversion device 20 becomes unnecessary, and the digital video signal input from the monitoring camera 2 to the monitoring video recording device 1 is input to the encoder 40 as it is.

  In addition, the program stored in the storage device 50 is expanded in a memory 10 such as a RAM (Random Access Memory) and executed by the CPU 30, whereby the control unit 11, the input signal processing unit 12, the motion detection processing unit 13, an abnormality A detection processing unit 14, an integration processing unit 15, a level calculation processing unit 16, and a recording rate processing unit 17 are embodied.

The control unit 11 has a function of performing overall control of the units 12 to 17.
The digital video signal output from the A / D conversion device 20 is input to the motion detection processing unit 13, and the motion detection processing unit 13 determines whether the motion detection alarm is output and the motion detection alarm based on the input video. Is output.

  A terminal for detecting a sensor alarm (hereinafter referred to as a sensor alarm input terminal 3) is installed in the surveillance video recording apparatus 1, the surveillance camera 2, or a room where the surveillance camera 2 is installed. . Two terminal wires (not shown) extend from the sensor alarm input terminal 3, and a sensor alarm signal is output when the terminal wires come into contact with each other. For example, if the sensor alarm input terminal 3 is installed at the door of the room where the surveillance camera 2 is installed, the sensor alarm signal is output when the terminal line of the sensor alarm input terminal 3 is contacted or short-circuited by opening or closing the door. Is done. The sensor alarm signal input to the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 is input to the input signal processing unit 12, and the input signal processing unit 12 determines whether or not the sensor alarm is output and outputs the sensor alarm from the sensor alarm signal.

The abnormality detection processing unit 14 monitors the CPU 30, the storage device 50, the memory 10, a power supply (not shown), a built-in fan, and the like, and determines whether or not an abnormality has occurred in these devices. The abnormality detection processing unit 14 also monitors external devices such as the monitoring camera 2 and a USB (Universal Serial Bus) device, and has a function of detecting an abnormality of these external devices.
When the motion detection processing unit 13, the input signal processing unit 12, or the abnormality detection processing unit 14 detects an abnormality, the result is stored in the storage device 50 as a log together with the time.

The integration processing unit 15 counts the number of occurrences of sensor alarms, motion detection alarms, and device abnormality alarms from logs in a predetermined period stored in the storage device 50.
The level calculation processing unit 16 calculates the priority and failure level of each monitoring camera 2 based on the number of occurrences of sensor alarms, motion detection alarms, and device abnormality alarms counted by the integration processing unit 15. The priority and failure level will be described later.
The recording rate processing unit 17 determines and updates a recording rate such as a bit rate and a frame rate based on the calculated priority and failure level.

<< Types of abnormalities targeted in this embodiment >>
FIG. 2 is a list showing the types of abnormalities to be processed in the present embodiment. Reference is made to FIG. 1 as appropriate.
No. 2 in FIG. The sensor alarm 1 is a signal output by detection when the input signal processing unit 12 is short-circuited or opened at the sensor alarm input terminal 3.
No. The motion detection alarm 2 is a signal that is output when the motion detection processing unit 13 detects a moving object in the input video from the monitoring camera 2.

No. 3-No. A signal 8 is detected by the abnormality detection processing unit 14.
No. The CPU abnormality 3 is an abnormality that occurs when the abnormality detection processing unit 14 detects a state in which the device (the monitoring video recording apparatus 1) does not normally operate due to a software defect of the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 or the like.
No. 4, the abnormality detection processing unit 14 detects a failure of the storage device 50 such as a state in which the storage device 50 is full or a state in which an image cannot be recorded in the storage device 50 due to the life of the storage device 50. Is an abnormality caused by
No. 5 is an abnormality that occurs when the abnormality detection processing unit 14 detects that the power of the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 has been turned off once, such as when a power failure occurs or when the power is manually turned off and on. is there.
No. The internal device abnormality 6 is an abnormality detected when a fan built in the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 fails or when a malfunction occurs in the built-in memory 10 or the like.
No. The external device abnormality No. 7 is an abnormality in which the abnormality detection processing unit 14 detects that there is a problem with the power source of the monitoring camera 2 connected to the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 or the USB device.
No. The camera abnormality No. 8 is an abnormality that occurs when the abnormality detection processing unit 14 detects disconnection of the connection between the monitoring camera 2 and the monitoring video recording apparatus 1.
Other abnormalities that can be detected by the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 may be included.
In addition, No. 3-No. Each abnormality in 7 will be described as an equipment abnormality.

Next, processing of the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment will be described along FIG. 7 with reference to FIGS. 1 and 3 to 6.
FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing a process flow of the monitoring video recording apparatus according to the present embodiment.
First, the control unit 11 determines whether or not the current time is a recording rate update time (S101).
If it is not the update time as a result of step S101 (S101 → No), the control unit 11 returns the process to step S101. The update time may be fixed, or the control unit 11 may change the interval according to the number of occurrences of abnormality. Further, instead of starting the process when the update time comes, the process shown in FIG. 7 may be started in response to a process start instruction input via an input unit (not shown).

If the result of step S101 is the update time (S101 → Yes), the integration processing unit 15 counts how many times each abnormality has occurred within a predetermined time from the log stored in the storage device 50. Calculation processing is performed (S102). What is counted here is the number of sensor alarm inputs, the number of motion detection alarm inputs, the number of camera abnormal inputs, and the number of device abnormal inputs.
In step S102, the sensor alarm, the motion detection alarm, and the camera abnormality in FIG. 2 are abnormal for each monitoring camera 2, and therefore, each monitoring camera 2 is counted, and a device abnormality (No. 3 to No. 7 in FIG. 2) is performed. ) Is an abnormality of the entire monitoring video recording apparatus 1, so that no. 3-No. The number of occurrences of any of 7 is counted. For sensor alarms, motion detection alarms, and camera abnormalities, the number of inputs from the time when the surveillance camera 2 operates or the time when the surveillance video recording system 5 is reset is accumulated, resulting in device abnormality (No. 3 in FIG. 2). No. 7) counts the number of occurrences of abnormality for one hour or one day from the current time.
The input signal processing unit 12, the motion detection processing unit 13, and the abnormality detection processing unit 14 count each time an alarm or abnormality is detected. In step S102, the number of times counted by the integration processing unit 15 is acquired. You can just do it. In addition, in FIG. 3-No. For the abnormality of 7, the integration processing unit 15 may calculate an average value per hour or per day.

Next, the level calculation processing unit 16 performs priority calculation processing for calculating the priority for each monitoring camera 2 using the result of step S102 (S103).
The level calculation processing unit 16 calculates the priority from the following equation (1).

Priority = (Sensor alarm intensity x Sensor alarm input count) + (Motion detection alarm intensity x Motion detection alarm input count) + (Monitoring camera abnormal intensity x Camera abnormal input count)
(1)

  Each intensity used in determining the priority is set in advance as shown in FIG. 3, for example. The intensity may be corrected according to the scene in consideration of the occurrence frequency and importance of the abnormality.

  In step S103, the level calculation processing unit 16 performs grouping, for example, in three stages in order from the monitoring camera 2 with the highest priority based on the calculated priority for each monitoring camera 2. It is classified into degree (high), priority (medium), and priority (low).

Next, the level calculation processing unit 16 obtains the No. of FIG. 3-No. Failure level calculation processing for calculating a failure level based on the number of occurrences of device abnormality in step 7 is performed (S104).
The relationship between the number of device abnormality occurrences and the failure level is set in advance, for example, as shown in FIG.
The failure level is set to reduce the load on the surveillance video recording device 1 by lowering the recording rate of the surveillance video recording device 1 as the failure level becomes higher and to leave the video recording of the surveillance camera 2 that is really necessary. It is what is done.
For example, the failure level “1” in FIG. 4 is a state in which no device abnormality has occurred once a day, and is a state in which the surveillance video recording apparatus 1 is operating normally. On the other hand, the failure level “2” is a state where a device abnormality occurs once a day, and the reliability as the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 is slightly lower than the failure level “1”. As shown in FIG. 5, the failure level increases as the device abnormality occurrence frequency (device abnormality occurrence frequency) increases. Note that the number of occurrences of device abnormality for determining the failure level may be changed according to the environment where the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 is installed.

Next, the recording rate processing unit 17 performs recording rate determination processing for determining a recording rate such as a bit rate and a frame rate from the priority calculated in step S103 and the failure level calculated in step S104 (S105).
The relationship between priority, failure level and bit rate is preset in the form as shown in FIG. 5, for example, and the relationship between priority, failure level and frame rate is preset in the form as shown in FIG. 6, for example. Keep it. Note that the information shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 is information stored in the storage device 50. In FIGS. 5 and 6, a hyphen (“−”) indicates that setting is not performed, that is, the corresponding monitoring camera 2 is stopped.
At this time, the recording rate is set so that the monitoring camera 2 having a low priority and a high failure level has a low bit rate and a low frame rate, and the monitoring camera 2 having a high priority and a low failure level has a higher bit rate. Set the recording rate to a high frame rate.

In other words, the high-priority surveillance camera 2 to which many sensor alarms, motion detection alarms, camera abnormalities, etc. are input has a high possibility of important video being taken. It is set to become. The monitoring camera 2 with few inputs such as a sensor alarm, a motion detection alarm, or a camera abnormality is set to have a low bit rate and a low frame rate because it is unlikely that an important video has been taken.
In addition, in FIG. 3-No. 7 is input with a large number of device abnormalities (high failure level), the bit rate and the frame rate are set to be low for the purpose of reducing the load on the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 as much as possible. In addition, when there are many device anomalies (the failure level is high), there is a high possibility that the video has not been shot correctly, so it seems that there is no problem even at a low bit rate and a low frame rate.

  Each value of the tables shown in FIGS. 4 to 6 may be changed as appropriate depending on the video encoding format used in the surveillance video recording apparatus 1, the capability of the encoder 40, and the like.

  Next, the recording rate processing unit 17 performs recording rate update processing for setting the recording rate determined in step S105 in the encoder 40 (S106), thereby updating the video recording quality of the monitoring camera 2. Specifically, in step S105, the recording rate processing unit 17 associates the recording rate determined for each monitoring camera with a monitoring camera ID for identifying the monitoring camera 2 or the like. Then, the recording rate processing unit 17 sets the encoder 40 to record the recording rate of the video sent from the corresponding monitoring camera 2 based on the monitoring camera ID at the determined recording rate.

  As described above, in this embodiment, even when the monitoring camera 2 has a low priority, when various alarms such as a sensor alarm are input, recording is performed at a temporarily high recording rate.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a parameter change screen according to the present embodiment.
When the monitoring camera number is input to the camera number input window 804 on the parameter change screen 800 and the user selects and inputs the alarm input count reset button 801, the sensor alarm input count and motion detection alarm input count of the corresponding monitoring camera 2 are input. The number of alarm inputs such as can be reset.
Further, when the user selects and inputs the abnormality occurrence count reset button 802, the device abnormality count can be reset.
Such processing is to prevent the low priority or the high failure level from being maintained thereafter unless the respective values are reset when the low priority or the high failure level is calculated.
Furthermore, each table shown in FIGS. 3 to 6 can be edited by the user selecting and inputting the table edit button 803.

<Summary>
According to the present embodiment, by controlling the recording rate according to the failure level of the surveillance video recording apparatus 1, when the failure level is high (the number of occurrences of device abnormality is high), recording such as bit rate and frame rate is performed. By reducing the rate, the load on the monitoring video recording apparatus 1 can be reduced. Further, when the failure level is high, there is a possibility that recording is not possible even if recording is performed at a high recording rate, and therefore the recording rate can be lowered in advance.

Further, in the present embodiment, the priority is calculated based on the image or the abnormality of the monitoring camera 2 itself, such as the number of sensor alarm inputs, the motion detection alarm, or the abnormality of the monitoring camera 2, and based on this priority, Recording is performed for 24 hours by setting the recording rate of the surveillance camera 2 with high priority (considered important) and setting the recording rate of the surveillance camera 2 with low priority (considered relatively unimportant) low. However, the storage device 50 can be used efficiently.
Then, the recording rate is automatically updated periodically, so that the user does not need to adjust the recording rate of a plurality of video apparatuses according to the installation environment, and convenience can be improved.

1. Monitoring video recording device (recorder)
2 Surveillance camera (photographing device)
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 3 Sensor alarm input terminal 4 Monitor 5 Monitoring video recording system 10 Memory 11 Control part 12 Input signal processing part 13 Motion detection processing part 14 Abnormality detection processing part 15 Integration processing part 16 Level calculation processing part 17 Recording rate processing part 20 A / D Conversion device 30 CPU
40 Encoder 50 Storage Device 60 Decoder 70 D / A Conversion Device

Claims (5)

A surveillance video recording device for recording video sent from a photographing device,
An integration processing unit that counts the frequency of occurrence of abnormalities in the monitoring video recording device itself;
As the occurrence frequency increases, a recording rate processing unit that sets the recording rate of the video lower, and sets the recording rate higher as the occurrence frequency decreases;
A surveillance video recording apparatus comprising: Based on the number of sensor alarms input from a sensor alarm input terminal installed outside the surveillance video recording device, the number of times a moving object is detected in the video of the surveillance camera, and the number of occurrences of abnormality of the surveillance camera. In addition, it further has a level calculation processing unit for calculating the priority,
The recording rate processing unit
The monitoring video recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording rate is set higher as the priority becomes higher, and the recording rate is set lower as the priority becomes lower. The surveillance video recording apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the recording rate is a video bit rate and / or a video frame rate. A surveillance video recording method by a surveillance video recording device for recording video sent from an imaging device,
Count the frequency of abnormalities in the surveillance video recording device itself,
A monitoring video recording method, wherein the recording rate of the video is set low as the generation frequency increases, and the recording rate is set high as the generation frequency decreases.   A program for causing a computer to execute the monitoring video recording method according to claim 4.

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