Video or information processing method and processing apparatus, and monitoring method and monitoring apparatus using the same

A camera selecting apparatus for selecting a camera which can monitor a specific subject from among images of a plurality of cameras, comprising:

• a storage to store plural pairs of information, with each pair including a name of a subject and information specifying at least one of said plurality of cameras which can monitor said subject;
• a user-interface to input text indicative of the specific subject to be searched for;
• a search unit to search the plural pairs of information for a pair of information which has data corresponding to the text having been inputted;
• a selecting unit to select one of said plurality of cameras specified by the information included in the pair of information found by the search unit;
• a video image searching a display unit to display, when the subject fitting to the search key is specified by the subject searching unit, an output video camera image from a camera designated by the selecting unit.