Video Management Software has grown to become an absolutely essential part of all surveillance systems. There are different video management systems that are able to do more or less things, but in general every video management system provides at least the following three things: collecting video from one or more cameras, storing this video to an external device, and presenting an interface that allows viewing what’s happening on real time or accessing recorded video.
Apart from these basic features, some Video Management Software solutions are capable of providing other things in terms of improving a security system. For example, some VMS can, instead of recording data continuously, have a motion detection feature that allows reducing the amount of recording video. VMS with this implementation are able to record video only when they detect motion, saving this way a lot of storage space. Another interesting feature present on many Video Management Software solutions is the possibility of viewing multiple camera feeds at the same time.
If we go further into more advanced technology currently present on some VMS solutions, we will keep finding more and more features, such as License Plate Recognition. This technology allows recording the license plate number of a vehicle, and then compares it to a database. VMS with License Plate Recognition technology are often used worldwide by police departments in order to detect speeding infractions, and are also used by top-notch parking garages.
Another important thing that Video Management Software solutions do is review and analyze the recorded video, and then return useful information. For example, it can be used in stores or supermarkets for tracking customer movements and then improve the location of certain products based on that information.
A more advanced technology that is complementary to VMS is Video Content Analysis. This technology is able to analyze video in real time, in order to detect specific events or situations through certain predefined algorithms, and issue alarms when any of these events occur. This technology is relatively new and has been showing signs of important growth over the last few years.
Among the different tech companies that provide Video Management Software solutions nowadays, we can suggest checking out Qognify, who even offers different kind of VMS with different features so you can decide which one suits best for what you’re looking for. The two most important VMS solutions that they offer are VisionHub, and FAST.