Assignment 6:

Group Project Proposal: Videri

 

by Daniel Kaminski, Daylin Lagares Morel, Christopher Vergez, Mark Thacina

 

Prof. Von Uhl

ENGL 21007 – E2 [29907]

CCNY English Department

 

May 2022

 

Summary:  The Videri device is a creation born out of the need for a better bulk security camera surveillance. The Videri acts as an intermediary between security camera equipment, and the main computer that accesses the footage. The device works by taking a live camera feed, and then compressing the footage from the feed in real time. What compressing the footage does is save storage space for computers, and servers which have to retain days worth of constant footage. For bulk recording to be effective, picture quality has to be greatly diminished in order to save storage space as higher quality footage consumes a lot of data storage. The Videri helps save storage while keeping the picture quality of the footage intact upon uncompression. In addition, our device adds an AI enhanced overlay for resolution upscaling for better, and refined footage.

 

Introduction

The Problem

The use of security footage is important for a multitude of reasons, but the one main issue associated with security footage is the bad quality of the actual footage. The reason why security camera footage is so terrible is that higher quality footage consumes more data storage which leads to more hard drives being needed which means more money has to be spent on retaining footage. Bad footage quality is essentially a necessary evil for security surveillance systems to be cost effective, and often the only choice for small business owners. In the instance something does happen; terrible footage only gives a general overview of the incident taking place, but fails to properly identify figures in the footage. This shortcoming costs policing agencies vital time, and resources in getting proper identification of a suspect. Without proper identification, policing procedures cannot continue, and that is why you still see wanted posters or news anchors asking viewers to help identify a suspect. The situation is cause, and effect; bad quality footage is a result from the limitations of footage surveillance, and retainment technologies. This in turn leads to resources being expended by policing agencies just to establish proper identification of suspects. 

 

The Purpose & Scope of Our Proposal

The purpose of our innovation is to be a cost effective solution for not only business owners, but also multilateral organizations that encompass multiple physical locations. The adoption of this device can set a new standardization within the industry which in turn can eliminate a number of stipulations on the policing side of things. The scope of our proposal goes as far as enhancing existing security systems by introducing a dedicated piece of hardware containing proprietary software. This innovation 

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would compress high quality footage, and add filters to assist an AI resolution upscaling feature. Users can then access segments of compressed footage in its original quality, and utilize an optional AI 

assisted resolution upscaler. These features aim to render past limitations obsolete, and make good surveillance reliable, and cost effective. Our proposal does not cover public privacy concerns, and other controversial topics surrounding the use of AI technologies. We are simply utilizing AI to better the resolution on existing legacy surveillance systems.

 

Technical Description

 

Innovation’s Physical Specifications

The innovation’s exterior specifications look reminiscent of a small form factor desktop computer, or a cable box. The measurements of this innovation are twelve inches in width, ten inches in length, and four inches in height. The exterior casing itself is made of aluminum that is anthracite in color, and has a minimal sheen to its finish. The casing will feature some design markings milled onto the aluminum, and the Videri logo will be featured on the casing as well. As a hybrid NVR device, the back of the device will feature eight Cat5 power over ethernet ports utilizing RJ-45 connectors with an additional two LAN ethernet ports for connection to the router, and a desktop computer. In addition, the back will include four BNC connectors for analog, and legacy camera system set ups. The device will include essential ports as well like HDMI, VGA, RCA composite ports, and a standard c14 inlet socket for power. The side of the case will include two 3.5 inch hard drive bays which uses sata based hard drives as the main mode of footage storage.

 

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Interior Specifications

The interior of the device features a PCB motherboard similar to what you would find in any other computer, or laptop. The motherboard specs features all of the aforementioned ports soldered onto the motherboard; the ports are circuited to the ARM based SOC chip. This SOC chip integrates 

eight gigabytes of error correction code RAM, and eight graphic cores in conjunction with the CPU. A low profile heatsink will keep the SOC chip running at optimal temperatures at all times since this device will be meant to be on for extended periods of time. To power the device; the device contains a five hundred watt power supply to provide sufficient power overhead. For storage of the operating system, and the software; a removable sixty NVMe solid state drive.

 

Innovation Process

Parts, Manufacturing & Cost

The manufacturing process mostly revolves around assembly on parts, and computing components supplied by third party manufacturing partners. These individual parts are obtained by our partners overseas, and shipped to another manufacturing plant for final assembly. Notably our ARM based SOC chip is custom made in Taiwan which is known for producing half of all the world’s microprocessors, and other chip components. The power supply for the Videri is supplied by a company within the United States which produces our AC-DC power supply. Additional Power supply types will also be obtained from overseas to comply with European, and other regional power standards. As for the external casing, the casing itself is a brushed “6061 t6” aluminum colored anthracite after milling. After the manufacturing process is done; the units are sold at a retail price of $399 USD. The Videri will also be sold in other regions at the equivalent currency exchange rate.

 

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Appendices

Quality Assurance

For Quality Assurance, all testing is outsourced to an individual company for testing of the hardware, and the software. Software to hardware optimization will be a huge priority as the AI assisted features will heavily rely on this optimization. The main backbone of the software will run on a custom tailored UNIX based operating system as there are less licensing restrictions on commercial usage as compared to Linux based operating systems. Thus most of the quality insurance will go towards the software side of things to ensure max optimization, and full utilization of the Videri’s hardware.

 

References

Seagate. (2022). “Iron Wolf 20TB Hard Drive”. BhPhoto 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1677247-REG/seagate_st20000ne000_ironwolf_pro_20tb_3_5.html

Seagate. (2022). “Surveillance Storage Calculator”. Seagate 

https://www.seagate.com/video-storage-calculator/

National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2022). “Identifying Faces in Video Images is a Major Chanllenge, NIST Reports”. 

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2017/04/identifying-faces-video-images-major-challenge-nist-report-shows

StorySet. (2022). Some Vector Art Taken From. 

https://storyset.com/illustration/group-discussion/rafiki

John Staughton. (2022). Bad Footage Quality: “Why Are Security Cameras So Low Quality?”. 

https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/why-is-the-quality-of-cctv-footage-still-so-low.html#:~:text=The%20CCTV%20footage%20from%20security,such%20video%20files%2C%20among%20others.