Event surveillance system

A surveillance system, comprising:

• event sensing means for capturing information concerning events;
• an environmental sensor for sensing event conditions and outputting sensor signals indicative of event occurrences;
• a storage device for storing the information captured by the event sensing means;
• and
• a control processor connected to the event sensing means, the environmental sensor and to the storage device, the control processor including a mode control functionality for processing the sensor signals to identify the occurrence of an event of interest and, in response thereto, dynamically select a mode of operation for controlling operation of the event sensing means to emphasize the capture of information concerning the event of interest for storage in the storage device.

A surveillance system, comprising:

• event sensing means for capturing information concerning events;
• a storage device for storing the information captured by the event sensing means;
• and
• a control processor connected to the event sensing means and to the storage device, the control processor including an encryption functionality for encrypting the event information captured by the event sensing means prior to storage in the storage device.

A surveillance system, comprising:

• a plurality of sensing devices for acquiring event information;
• a storage device for storing acquired event information;
• and
• processing means connected to the sensing devices and the storage device including means responsive to the detection of an event of interest for controlling the operation of the sensing devices to acquire information concerning the event of interest and means for managing the storage and subsequent deletion of acquired event information to emphasize the retention in the storage device of event information concerning the detected event of interest.

In a surveillance system operating to acquire frames of event information, a method for managing the storage of the acquired frames of event information in a random access data storage device having a plurality of storage addresses, comprising the steps of:

• initially storing all frames of acquired event information at addresses in the random access data store;
• monitoring for the detection of an event of interest;
• accessing the addresses of those frames of previously acquired and stored event information not relevant to the detected event of interest;
• and
• deleting the accessed frames of event information from storage making the accessed addresses available for the storage of subsequently acquired frames of event information.