The Eptascape Eptacam MPEG-7 surveillance camera

A company called Eptascape revealed a new surveillance camera at DEMOfall that obscures people's identities and generates annotations describing the video content according to the emerging MPEG-7 standard (which is just an XML layer of transport data  for moving other MPEG audio/video). Turns out that the combination of MPEG-4 and MPEG-7 specifically enables the efficient streaming of content, content manipulation and indexing — essentially moving us from "pixel-based to content-based video" in one fell swoop. In a typical Eptacam captured frame, metadata annotations describe the visual characteristics of objects which can then be tracked through the scene. These annotations might be applied to inanimate objects such as bags left behind or to people who are trespassing, moving against the flow, or following too closely to someone else. And because identities are masked, operators in the control room can not bias based on age, race, or gender. Should an incident recorded with an Eptacam occcur, authorized personal with the proper "decryption key" can play back the video revealing people's identities. Moreover, the metadata can be indexed making the task of searching the massive amounts of video recorded far easier. Although we normally shudder at any sign of a brave new world, this sounds like a pretty good compromise between security and protection of civil liberties, especially for all those increasingly CCTV happy places.

[Sha66y @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

This will give ugly chicks a shot at porn.
sweet

[Ed @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

Whoa, we're up to MPEG-7 already? I understood the skip over MPEG-3, as it would sound too confusing, but 1,2,4,7? What's the deal?

[Aaron @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

"Whoa, we're up to MPEG-7 already? I understood the skip over MPEG-3, as it would sound too confusing, but 1,2,4,7? What's the deal?"

Actually, MPEG-7 is a relatively old standard (I remember working on products using it at least 3 years ago). MPEG-21 is where it's at these days. ;)

I have no idea about the naming convention though.

[abulafa @ Dec 19th 2005 2:05AM]

MPEG standards are built in draft form, then reviewed (and reviewed and reviewed). MPEG-3 (not what we think of as MP3 which is actually MPEG-1 Layer 3), for instance, was rolled into MPEG-4 as the standards body figured out there were so many overlaps with the developing standard.

There have, in fact, been all the draft standards inside the MPEG body through 21 (and beyond). The ones they release are the ones which get adequate support from the members (composed of delegates from industry, academia, producers, and so on).

Short version: Think of MPEG-x not as a version but as an iterative naming scheme for proto-standards, some of which get rolled together and released when everyone can get on board with them.

For similar technology (with different privacy features) see

www.vistascape.com
www.guardiansolutions.com
www.objectvideo.com