System and method for remote control of surveillance devices

In an environment including at least one centralized control site coupled to a private network that enables communication with surveillance cameras at a plurality of geographically distinct client sites and to a public network that enables communication with a client workstation remote from the surveillance camera, a video surveillance and monitoring method, comprising:

• (a) receiving a communication from a client workstation coupled to the public network, said communication including a first camera control command code representative of a surveillance camera control instruction;
• (b) converting said received first camera control command to a first binary-coded command string;
• (c) sending said first binary-coded command string to an identified address on said private network, said identified address being associated with a first identified surveillance camera;
• (d) receiving a communication from a client workstation coupled to the public network, said communication including a second camera control command code representative of a user's desired type of camera control;
• (e) converting said received second camera control command to a second binary-coded command string;
• (f) sending said second binary-coded command string to an identified address on said private network, said identified address being associated with a first identified surveillance camera;
• wherein the first and second identified surveillance cameras are geographically distinct;
• and wherein the client workstation cannot directly access the first and second surveillance cameras without an initialization by the centralized off-site control site.

A video surveillance and monitoring system, the system comprising:

• a plurality of video monitoring devices, each monitoring device generating video monitoring data corresponding to a geographic area, wherein the plurality of video monitoring devices generate live video data and receive control instructions corresponding to a position of the video monitoring device and wherein at least two video monitoring devices of the plurality of video monitoring devices correspond to geographically distinct sites;
• a centralized control site in communication with the plurality of video monitoring devices via a private communication, wherein the centralized control site retrieves live video data from the plurality of video monitoring devices;
• and
• at least one client workstation remote from the plurality of video monitoring devices and in communication with the centralized control site via public communication network, wherein the client workstation requests monitoring device data from at least one geographic area and wherein the client workstation initiates video monitoring control instructions;
• wherein the centralized control site associates at least one of the plurality of video monitoring devices to the client workstation requests and initializes communications between the at least one client workstation and the associated video monitoring device, wherein the client workstation cannot directly access the associated video monitoring device without an initialization by the centralized control site.