Intelligent video systems or solutions can be defined as video solutions that can make use of technology automatically without any human intervention, and can process, manipulate and/or perform actions based on the information derived from the stored video images or live video. It is a system comprising both hardware and software.

It consists of the necessary hardware and network equipment to capture and transmit the video data. Analytics software runs on the system to make interpretations from the captured videos and help make decisions for carrying out any automated tasks.

Some of the applications of intelligent video are:

• Tracking a moving object
• Searching for an object
• Counting instances of some event or object
• Identifying the location
• Detecting certain events and automatically carrying out activities like triggering an alarm, reporting alerts, closing exits and so on

Intelligent video is mostly used as a surveillance solution and many vendors have implemented their own intelligent video solutions for security. The three fundamental segments of such intelligent video systems are the forensics, reactive and proactive segments.

A forensics-based video solution is used for backing up videos and analyzing them later. This type of solution can make use of analog videos also.

A reactive-based intelligent video system is used to detect particular events from both a live video stream and stored video images. It has added features other than those provided by a forensics video solution and is hence much more advanced. This type of solution can be configured to raise an alarm in case of a particular event being detected.

Proactive video solutions are the most complex intelligent video solutions and they provide a wide range of video analytics and help in the management of real-time events or situation management by integrating with external systems. They are costly and time consuming to implement, but are capable of delivering a wide range of capabilities and fast response times.