Expectations for the video content analysis (VCA) market have changed over the last twelve months.  Over-selling of the technology’s capabilities, coupled with technical limitations, such as high false alarm rates, have slowed uptake of the technology. The market is still searching for its “killer application” and the markets for VCA software and intelligent video surveillance devices have not progressed as quickly as previously predicted. However, one application that has the potential to drive growth is in business intelligence.

Market analyst at IMS Research, Niall Jenkins commented, “Business intelligence analytics, such as people counting or queue length monitoring, have a number of installation advantages over typical security applications such as perimeter protection. Security applications generally encounter variable lighting conditions and must deal with weather variations from sunshine to rain to snow. They are also required to deal with environmental factors, such as trees moving in the wind, which require a high level of tuning and calibration to reduce the number of false alarms generated. Business intelligence analytics are predominantly operating in a more controlled environment and can therefore be tuned and calibrated much quicker.”

“Another advantage of business intelligence analytics is that systems that are not one hundred percent accurate, still provide value”, continues Jenkins. “In security applications, end-users can not afford to miss a potential security breach; however, business intelligence algorithms can provide reliable trend information despite not always counting every person that enters a retail or commercial location. That being said, there have been relatively few large scale deployments of business intelligence analytics and the long term market potential is somewhat unknown. It is fair to say that in the short to medium term, security applications will remain the bread and butter for VCA vendors.”

IMS Research’s recently completed report, “The World Market for Video Content Analysis – 2009 Edition” addresses this and many other relevant topics in detail.