Patent ID: 7855729
Filing Date: 2010-12-21
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
1. A video recording control system comprising a plurality of monitor cameras, a plurality of video recording apparatuses, a control apparatus, and a network connecting the monitor cameras, the video recording apparatuses, and the control apparatus; wherein each of the monitor cameras comprises: (a1) image taking means for taking an image of a scene at a prescribed place and generating a video signal representing the taken image; and (a2) video transmitting means for sending the video signal generated by the image taking means to a prescribed video recording apparatus among the video recording apparatuses; wherein each of the video recording apparatuses comprises: (b1) video receiving means for receiving a video signal sent by a prescribed monitor camera among the monitor cameras; (b2) video recording means for recording the video signal received by the video receiving means on a recording medium; and (b3) operating condition transmitting means for periodically transmitting operating condition notice information to the control apparatus or transmitting operating condition notice information to the control apparatus upon detection of a change in an operating condition, the operating condition notice information including at least one of (1) information representing that the related video recording apparatus is operating normally and (2) information representing a usable recording capacity of the recording medium; wherein the control apparatus comprises: (c1) a monitor camera information storage for storing monitor camera information representing a correspondence between the monitor cameras and the video recording apparatuses designated as destinations for recording the video signals generated by the monitor cameras; (c2) a video recording apparatus information storage for storing video recording apparatus information including information representing recording capabilities of the video recording apparatuses and information representing usable recording capacities of the video recording apparatuses; (c3) operation managing means for deciding that at least one of the video recording apparatuses fails to record a video signal in cases where the operating condition notice information from said one of the video recording apparatuses continues to be not received for longer than a prescribed time interval or the usable recording capacity of said one of the video recording apparatuses drops below a prescribed level; (c4) video recording apparatus deciding means for deciding a new video recording apparatus among the video recording apparatuses which should be a new destination for at least one video signal which has been assigned to the failed video recording apparatus decided by the operation managing means in response to the monitor camera information stored in the monitor camera information storage and the video recording apparatus information stored in the video recording apparatus information storage; (c5) commanding means for commanding the new video recording apparatus decided by the video recording apparatus deciding means to record said at least one video signal generated by at least one monitor camera corresponding in destination to the failed video recording apparatus decided by the operation managing means, and commanding said at least one monitor camera corresponding in destination to the failed video recording apparatus to change the destination to the new video recording apparatus; and (c6) information updating means for updating the monitor camera information stored in the monitor camera information storage and the video recording apparatus information stored in the video recording apparatus information storage in response to contents of the decision by the video recording apparatus deciding means.