JP2011014997A - Monitoring camera system and video recording and reproducing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To more effectively utilize capacity of a recording medium for storing video images from a monitoring camera, and reproduce and display the stored video images on a video monitor, with clarity.SOLUTION: The video recording/reproducing device 3 includes a frequency dividing section 13 for dividing a video signal from monitoring cameras 1, 2 into a low-frequency region and a high-frequency region; a camera ID embedding section 15 for embedding a camera ID identifying a monitoring camera as a target of inputting the video signals in the low-frequency region of the video signal; and a camera ID checking section 22 for reading the camera ID embedded by the camera ID embedding section 15. When the video monitor 4 displays the video images, by having the camera ID embedded in the video signal to be displayed referred to, a monitoring camera corresponding to the video image to be displayed is verified.

Description

  The present invention relates to a surveillance camera system in which a plurality of surveillance cameras are connected, and images from the cameras are recorded and reproduced on a recording medium and displayed on a monitor, and a video recording and reproduction apparatus used therefor.

  In the surveillance camera system, a plurality of surveillance cameras are connected, video from each camera is recorded on a recording medium, video from a desired camera is reproduced and displayed on a monitor. In that case, it is necessary to always correctly grasp from which camera the video to be recorded / reproduced and the video to be displayed are from. For this purpose, a method of managing a video by adding a camera ID for identifying each camera to a corresponding video signal is used.

  As a method for adding a camera ID to a video signal, Patent Document 1 discloses adding a unique identification number (ID) of a camera corresponding to a specific signal section (a section in which no video appears on a monitor) of the video signal. The Patent Document 2 discloses superimposing an identification code for identifying a captured camera on a video signal from the camera. In addition, a technique for adding a camera ID to the header area of compressed video data such as MPEG is also known.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-23093 JP-A-8-130729

  In the surveillance camera system, it is required that video captured by the camera be stored in a recording medium such as an HDD for a long time, and that the stored video can be clearly reproduced and displayed.

  When a camera ID is added to a specific signal section of a video signal, that is, a section where no video is displayed (video non-display section) as in Patent Document 1, the data including the video non-display section data must be recorded and stored on the recording medium. I must. Incidentally, this video non-display section occupies about 4% of the entire section in the case of a vertical blanking section (VBI). As a result, extra data other than the captured video is recorded on the recording medium, which is disadvantageous from the viewpoint of effective use of the recording medium and long-term recording.

  As in Patent Document 2, the method of superimposing on a video signal can store only a section in which video is displayed (effective video section) in a recording medium. However, since the identification code is superimposed on the original video signal, a part of the video is covered with the identification code and becomes unclear. If it is a video of the incident, there is a risk that valid information (such as the criminal's face) cannot be obtained.

  In the method of adding the camera ID to the header area of the compressed video data, the video data and the camera ID are not always processed integrally. For example, since the header is removed when decompressing the compressed data, the camera ID must be copied to another area after decompression. At this time, a different camera ID may be added to the video data due to a failure in the copy process. If the camera ID of the video to be displayed is incorrect, the monitoring function does not make sense, and it is difficult for the user to know that the camera ID is incorrect.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a surveillance camera system and a video recording / reproducing apparatus that can more effectively use the capacity of a recording medium for storing video from a camera and can clearly reproduce and display the stored video.

  The surveillance camera system of the present invention includes a plurality of surveillance cameras, a video recording / reproducing device for recording and reproducing a video signal input from the surveillance camera, and a video monitor for displaying a video signal reproduced from the video recording / reproducing device, The video recording / reproducing apparatus includes a frequency dividing unit that divides the video signal from the surveillance camera into a low frequency region and a high frequency region, and a camera ID that identifies the surveillance camera that is the input destination of the video signal in the low frequency region of the video signal The camera ID embedding unit includes a camera ID embedding unit and a camera ID check unit that reads the camera ID embedded by the camera ID embedding unit, and refers to the camera ID embedded in the video signal to be displayed when displaying the video on the video monitor. Thus, the configuration is such that the monitoring camera corresponding to the video to be displayed is confirmed.

  The video recording / reproducing apparatus of the present invention connects a plurality of surveillance cameras and a video monitor, records and reproduces video signals input from the surveillance cameras on a recording medium, and displays the reproduced video signals on the video monitor. In addition, a frequency dividing unit that divides the video signal from the surveillance camera into a low frequency region and a high frequency region, and a camera ID embedded in the low frequency region of the video signal to embed a camera ID that identifies the surveillance camera that is the input destination of the video signal And a camera ID check unit that reads the camera ID embedded by the camera ID embedding unit, and the camera ID check unit displays the camera ID by referring to the camera ID embedded in the video signal to be displayed on the video monitor. The monitoring camera corresponding to the video signal is confirmed.

  Here, the frequency dividing unit divides the video signal into a low frequency region and a high frequency region by wavelet transform, and the camera ID embedding unit embeds the camera ID by a pixel replacement digital watermark method.

  According to the present invention, captured images from a plurality of cameras can be stored in a recording medium for a long time, and the stored images can be clearly reproduced and displayed. In addition, it is possible to easily confirm whether or not the displayed video is that of the designated camera.

The block diagram which shows one Example of the surveillance camera system which concerns on this invention. The figure explaining the embedding process of camera ID in a present Example. The figure which shows an example which encoded camera ID by 24 bits.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a surveillance camera system according to the present invention. The surveillance camera system includes a plurality of surveillance cameras (here, two cameras 1 and 2), a video recording / reproducing apparatus 3 that records and reproduces video signals input from the cameras, and a video monitor that displays the reproduced video. It is composed of four. Videos taken by the cameras 1 and 2 are respectively input to the video recording / reproducing apparatus 3 and recorded on a recording medium such as an HDD. When the user designates a desired camera, the video shot by the designated camera is reproduced from the recording medium and displayed on the video monitor 4.

  The configuration and operation in the video recording / reproducing apparatus 3 will be described. The NTSC decoding unit 11 decodes the input video signal (composite video signal) into digital video data. The frame switch unit 12 adjusts the synchronization by buffering the video data of the cameras 1 and 2 and converts the data into one system of time series data. At this time, a camera ID for identifying the camera from which the video portion is added is individually added to an area (for example, a header area) other than the effective video area of each video data in the time series data.

  The frequency dividing unit 13 divides the video data from the frame switch unit 12 into a low frequency region and a high frequency region. The camera ID separation unit 14 separates the camera ID added from the video data. The separated camera ID at this time is managed by the system control unit 23 in association with the separation source video data. The camera ID embedding unit 15 embeds the camera ID separated by the camera ID separating unit 14 in the video data divided for each frequency region by the frequency dividing unit 13. For the ID embedding, for example, a digital watermark method described later is used. Since the camera ID embedded in the video data is then handled as a unit with the video data, the ID information is not lost or changed, and the credibility is high.

  The compression unit 16 omits redundant portions of the video data and compresses the video data by a predetermined method such as MPEG. The HDD control unit 17 records the compressed video data on the HDD 18. At this time, since the camera ID is embedded in the video data, only the effective video area displayed on the monitor is recorded in the data area of the HDD 18. Therefore, the capacity of the recording medium can be used effectively. When recording video data on the HDD 18, a copy of the camera ID is written in the management information area of the HDD 18 in order to facilitate data retrieval. The copy of the camera ID written at this time is the camera ID that the system control unit 23 knows.

  When the user designates the camera and instructs the reproduction display, the HDD control unit 17 reproduces the video data of the designated camera from the HDD 18. For example, when the video of the camera 2 is reproduced, a copy of the camera ID corresponding to the camera 2 is searched from the management information area of the HDD 18 and the video data recorded at the corresponding address is reproduced. The decompression unit 19 decompresses the reproduced video data and adds a copy of the camera ID to the header area of the video data. This camera ID is required to distinguish these images when video from a plurality of cameras is divided and displayed on a monitor. The monitor display control unit 20 refers to the copy of the camera ID added to the header area of the video data, and encodes the video data corresponding to the designated camera into a composite video signal. The encoded composite video signal is sent to the video monitor 4 and displayed.

  Furthermore, in this embodiment, there is a function for confirming whether or not the video displayed on the video monitor 4 is the video of the camera designated by the user. The video to be displayed on the video monitor 4 is selected with reference to the camera ID added to the video data. However, this camera ID is obtained by copying and writing the camera ID ascertained by the system control unit 23 in the HDD control unit 17 or the expansion unit 19 several times. Therefore, there is a possibility that an incorrect camera ID is added due to an unexpected copy processing failure or the like.

  In order to check the camera ID, the camera ID added to the displayed video data (camera ID known by the system control unit 23) is compared with the camera ID embedded in the video data by the camera ID embedding unit 15. To do. The camera ID embedded in the video data by the camera ID embedding unit 15 does not change during the compression / decompression process of the video data and the recording / reproduction process to the HDD 10 and has high credibility. If the added camera ID matches the embedded camera ID, the displayed video is the video of the designated camera, and if they do not match, the video is from a camera different from the designated camera. Become.

  The camera check operation is performed as follows. When the check switch 21 is turned on, the composite video signal displayed on the video monitor 4 is sent to the NTSC decoding unit 11. The NTSC decoding unit 11 converts the composite video signal into digital video data. The camera ID check unit 22 reads the camera ID embedded in the digital video data. The system control unit 23 determines whether or not the read camera ID matches the currently recognized camera ID.

  If the camera IDs do not match as a result of the determination, an abnormality occurrence warning and a system recovery operation are performed. That is, the monitor display control unit 20 displays an error message “camera ID error occurrence” on the video monitor 4, and the system control unit 23 resets the device. If the camera ID mismatch occurs again after the device is restarted, it is determined that a failure has occurred in the device, an error message is displayed again, and the system is stopped. However, if the error is limited to a specific camera (for example, camera 2), “Camera 2 ID error” is displayed. This prompts the user to repair, and if there are normal cameras, use them to continue the operation of the system.

FIG. 2 is a diagram for explaining the camera ID embedding process in this embodiment.
First, the overall processing flow will be described. The digital video data 101 that has passed through the frame switch unit 12 is data in which an effective video area 101a and a camera ID 101b are linked. The frequency division unit 13 divides the video data 101 into a low frequency region and a high frequency region to obtain frequency division data 102. The camera ID separation unit 14 separates the camera ID 101b from the video data 101 and sets it as the camera ID 103. Then, the camera ID embedding unit 15 embeds the separated camera ID 103 in the low frequency area LL of the frequency division data 102 to generate camera ID embedded data 104. The compression unit 16 compresses the camera ID embedded data 104 and deletes redundant data to obtain compressed data 105 having a small data size. The compressed data 105 is recorded on the HDD 18. Thus, since the camera ID is embedded in the video data, the amount of data recorded in the HDD 18 does not increase, and the capacity of the HDD 18 can be used effectively.

  Here, the camera ID 103 embedded by the camera ID embedding unit 15 must not be deleted by the compression processing in the subsequent compression unit 16. There are various compression schemes such as JPEG and MPEG. In recent years, digital watermarking techniques have been proposed that have resistance to them. Here, assuming a case of MPEG4 or JPEG2000 widely used in a monitoring system as a compression method, a method of embedding a camera ID by incorporating a wavelet transform having resistance to this will be shown.

  The frequency dividing unit 13 divides the video data 101 into a plurality of frequency regions using wavelet transform. As the wavelet transform, the frequency division data 102 is generated by using, for example, a Haar function. The frequency division data 102 is divided into four regions: a low frequency component (LL), a high frequency component (LH) in the horizontal direction of the screen, a high frequency component (HL) in the vertical direction of the screen, and a differential waveform (HH) in both the vertical and horizontal directions. Among these, the low frequency component (LL) forms the skeleton of the image and is not deleted by the compression process. Other high-frequency components (LH, HL, HH) are redundant parts and are candidates to be deleted in the compression process.

  The camera ID embedding unit 15 embeds the camera ID 103 sent from the camera ID separation unit 14 only in the low frequency region (LL) of the video data frequency-divided by the frequency dividing unit 13. Thus, by embedding the camera ID 103 in the low frequency region (LL) of the frequency division data 102, the camera ID embedded by the subsequent compression process is not deleted, and the camera ID 103 is highly resistant.

  In the camera ID embedding process, a digital watermark embedding method for still images is applied. As an example, a method called “pixel replacement type” will be described. For example, in a 24-bit color image, color information of three colors of R, G, and B is included in each pixel by 8 bits (0 to 255 gradations). The camera ID is embedded by selecting a pixel at a predetermined position in the screen and replacing the pixel value (tone value of color information). The camera ID is embedded according to the following rules. When the embedded camera ID is “0”, the gradation value of the target pixel is changed to an even number. When the camera ID to be embedded is “1”, the gradation value of the target pixel is changed to an odd number. If the gradation value is already the desired even or odd number, it is left as it is. When changing the gradation value, the gradation value is uniformly increased, but when the gradation value is the maximum value (255), the gradation value is decreased.

  As a specific example, a case where a 1-bit camera ID is embedded will be described. In this case, as the simplest configuration, a 1-bit camera ID may be embedded in a pixel value (gradation value) of one color (for example, G color) of one pixel in the screen. Assume that the G color gradation value of the target pixel is 113 (odd number). When embedding “0” as the camera ID, 1 is added to the gradation value to be 114 (even number). When “1” is embedded as the camera ID, the gradation value 113 (odd number) is left as it is.

  The camera ID check unit 22 easily detects the camera ID from the video data in which the camera ID is embedded as described above by detecting whether the gradation value of the target pixel is an even number or an odd number. Can be read. In addition, since the video data in which the camera ID is embedded is obtained by changing the pixel values of some pixels by the minimum unit (one gradation), even if the video is displayed on the video monitor 4, the visual change And does not degrade the clarity of the video.

  Note that the camera ID of this embodiment may be embedded in any position as long as it is an effective video area. Commonly used digital watermarking methods are mainly intended to prevent illegal copying of content. Therefore, it is necessary to write the watermark information at random on the screen so that the watermark information is not falsified. On the other hand, in this embodiment, there is no fear that the camera ID is falsified, and the position where the camera ID is embedded is not restricted.

  Next, encoding of the camera ID embedded in the video data will be described. In the above embodiment, the number of cameras is two. In order to identify the cameras 1 and 2, a minimum 1-bit camera ID ("0" = camera 1, "1" = camera 2) is assigned. It will be enough. However, in practice, it is desirable to provide redundancy for the code data of the camera ID in order to provide further resistance to compression and expansion.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example in which the camera ID is encoded with 24 bits. Here, the number of cameras can be expanded to 16, and 24-bit information is embedded using 24 pixels in one image.

  The 8 bits at the top of the camera ID are a unique code string indicating the start of the camera ID, and are “10101010” here. The data at the beginning is not limited to this, and any unique data may be used. Thereafter, a camera ID for identifying the camera is encoded with 4 bits, and this is repeated four times. For example, for camera 1, “0000” is described four times.

  Next, when reading the camera ID, the camera ID that is described four times after the first code string “10101010” is read. At that time, the four read IDs do not always match. This is because noise may be added to the camera ID embedded in the compression / decompression process and the ID may change. Therefore, when the same camera ID is read a predetermined number of times or more (for example, three times or more), it is determined that the camera ID is the correct camera ID. In this way, it is possible to prevent the camera ID from being erroneously determined. If the number of repetitions (number of bits) is increased, it is possible to further improve error resistance.

  In the embodiment described above, the camera ID is embedded in the effective video area of the video data, and the video displayed on the monitor is designated by comparing the embedded ID with the camera ID separately grasped by the apparatus. The operation to confirm whether it is the image of the selected camera was described. Furthermore, a desired video can be recorded / reproduced on the HDD and displayed on the monitor by directly using the embedded camera ID. In that case, there is no need to copy the camera ID known to the apparatus to the video data, and the process is simplified.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1, 2 ... Camera 3 ... Video recording / reproducing apparatus 4 ... Video monitor 11 ... NTSC decoding part 12 ... Frame switch part 13 ... Frequency division part 14 ... Camera ID separation part 15 ... Camera ID embedding part 16 ... Compression part 17 ... HDD control Part 18 ... HDD
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 19 ... Expansion part 20 ... Monitor display control part 21 ... Switch for check 22 ... Camera ID check part 23 ... System control part.

Claims (5)

In a surveillance camera system comprising a plurality of surveillance cameras, a video recording / reproducing device for recording and reproducing a video signal input from the surveillance camera, and a video monitor for displaying a video signal reproduced from the video recording / reproducing device,
The video recording / reproducing apparatus identifies a frequency dividing unit that divides a video signal from the monitoring camera into a low-frequency region and a high-frequency region, and a monitoring camera that is an input destination of the video signal in the low-frequency region of the video signal A camera ID embedding unit that embeds a camera ID, and a camera ID check unit that reads out the camera ID embedded by the camera ID embedding unit,
When displaying an image on the video monitor, a monitoring camera system for checking a monitoring camera corresponding to the image to be displayed by referring to a camera ID embedded in the image signal to be displayed. In a video recording / reproducing apparatus for connecting a plurality of surveillance cameras and a video monitor, recording and reproducing a video signal input from the surveillance camera on a recording medium, and displaying the reproduced video signal on the video monitor,
A frequency dividing unit for dividing the video signal from the monitoring camera into a low frequency region and a high frequency region;
A camera ID embedding unit that embeds a camera ID for identifying a monitoring camera that is an input destination of the video signal in a low-frequency region of the video signal;
A camera ID check unit that reads out the camera ID embedded by the camera ID embedding unit;
A video recording / reproducing apparatus, wherein the camera ID check unit refers to a camera ID embedded in a video signal to be displayed on the video monitor, thereby checking a monitoring camera corresponding to the video signal to be displayed. The video recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 2,
A frame switch unit that time-sequences video signals input from the plurality of surveillance cameras;
A compression unit for compressing the time-series video signal;
A recording / reproducing control unit for recording and reproducing the compressed video signal on a recording medium;
A decompression unit for decompressing the reproduced video signal;
A system control unit for grasping the camera ID of the video signal processed by each unit,
The system control unit compares the camera ID read by the camera ID check unit with the camera ID recognized by itself and warns that a camera ID error has occurred in the video monitor when they do not match. A video recording / reproducing apparatus characterized by displaying. The video recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 2,
The frequency dividing unit divides the video signal into a low frequency region and a high frequency region by wavelet transform,
The camera ID embedding unit embeds a camera ID by a pixel replacement digital watermark method. The video recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 2,
The camera ID embedding unit repeatedly embeds a camera ID in the same image a plurality of times,
The video recording / playback apparatus, wherein the camera ID check unit determines that the camera ID is correct when the same camera ID is read a predetermined number of times or more from the same image.

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