A bit about the history of video surveillance
Unlike a dog, a human cannot recognize a million odors, and also loses to felines when it comes to hearing. People rely on vision, and as long as our species is considered the apex of evolution, this approach has proven to be correct. Let’s remember the history — visual signals were used to transmit information for thousands of years, and some of them are still used in the 21st century. Lighthouses still point the way to ships, and smoke signals are applied to attract attention. Both approaches are several thousand years old.
There is a legend that, with the help of a large mirror installed on the Alexandrian lighthouse, the ancient Greeks watched for the sailing ships. And with the advent of the first casino, their security services used a system of reflections to control the game rooms. Mirrors were located along the perimeter of the walls, and the image from them was focused at one point, where the guard could observe what was happening. We can say that it was the prototype of a modern video surveillance system, but its real development began with the appearance of an iconoscope — the electronic device that transmits the image.
Development of television and video surveillance systems
The father of modern video systems is Vladimir Zvorykin, a Russian engineer who graduated with honors from the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, a veteran of the First World War and a member of the White Movement. However, at the time of the invention, he lived in the US, where he emigrated after the victory of the Bolsheviks. At the Institute, he participated in Boris Rosing research. Rosing was another Russian scientist, who constructed a kinescope and managed to transmit the simplest images onto it.
The first point of broadcasting was the Empire State Building, a 103-story skyscraper located in Manhattan (New York). In 1932, the first broadcasts of electronic television began from this place. The signal with the help of a transmitter with a power of 2.5 kW, was transmitted for a distance of up to 100 km and was received by TVs based on the Zvorykin’s kinescope (Radio Corporation of America established the release).
The evolution of CCTV — the chronology of events
The beginning of the era of television is associated with 1932, but it is also related to the development of video surveillance systems. For the first time, a closed broadcast of television (CCTV) was used by German electrical engineer and television pioneer of Germany Walter Bruch in 1941, at the Peenemünde test ground, where the V-2 rocket was tested. The Nazis positioned V-2 as a «weapon of retaliation».
In the post-war years, video surveillance systems were improved during almost every decade:
• Early the 1950s — the emergence of devices that allow transferring images on magnetic tape
• Boundary the 1950–60s — the beginning of the use of video cameras to control roads, objects of special importance and places of mass congestion
• The 1970s — the emergence and the distribution of domestic video recorders and cameras
• The 1990s –the introduction of digital video systems
• The 2000s — the emergence of network video surveillance systems
• The 2010s — the development of cloud cameras that operate without cumbersome peripheral equipment (video analytics servers, recorders, IP-systems)
Technologies continue to develop, and with increasing speed. Now, CCTV systems are already able to recognize faces with high accuracy. Already in 2020, algorithms that also define objects and even events in the video stream may appear. Our team works, in particular, on such technology. It will turn cameras from passive observers into participants in what is happening. They will have the ability to identify non-standard situations and act in accordance with them — to inform the operator, call for help, etc.
