Abstract: A method of performing a surveillance of a plurality of surveillance zones operable using a computerised system communicably interfaced with a plurality of input devices, each of the plurality of surveillance zones being monitored by at least one of the plurality of input devices, the method including the steps of: (i) the computerised system receiving input data captured by each of the plurality of input devices, the received input data representing characteristics of the surveillance zones under surveillance by the respective input devices; (ii) the computerised system comparing at least one characteristic of each surveillance zone against at least one surveillance ranking parameter; (iii) the computerised system assigning priority rating values to the results of each comparison between the at least one characteristic and the at least one surveillance ranking parameter.

Abstract: A system for capturing and retrieving a collection of video image data captures video image data from a live scene with still cameras and PTZ cameras, and automatically detects an object of interest entering or moving in the live scene. The system automatically controls the PTZ camera to enable close-up real time video capture of the object of interest. The system automatically tracks the object of interest in the captured video image data and analyses features of the object of interest.

Abstract: The present invention is a method of representing video data in a non-linear paradigm. Video data are categorized into semantic content comprising multi-layer structure each denotes semantic reference, such as different cinematic entities. The semantic content is organized in a hierarchical structure where the top layer denotes global information while the lowest layer represents primitive information. The cinematic entities in the top layer are hyper-linked to the entities in the second layer. The entities in the second layer are hyper-linked to the third layer and so forth. Each cinematic entity in the lowest layer is designated to a part of the video content and hyper-linked to the corresponding video data. The semantic content comprises hyper-linked video data in an N-to-N relationship. N-to-N relationship means the data are hyper-video and the video data supports multiple access and multiple presentation. An apparatus for presenting categorized semantic content is also disclosed.