CuraGen Corp. Digital Surveillance System Looks Good, Even from Far Away New technology transmits high-quality digital images over data networks like the Internet. Advance provides basis for three products, including live surveillance system used at thousands of sites.
Digital surveillance saves customers time and money, averts trouble, and improves confidence.
Codecs condense the large amounts of data in images, making transmission practical over limited-capacity networks, and reconstitute the images at the receiver. Traditional codec research focused on sending images over switched-circuit and broadcast networks with a time delay used to enhance picture quality. The technology would not have been developed without the ATP funding, company officials say. About 100 dealers nationwide are selling the surveillance technology, which can send images from 16 cameras to a PC while simultaneously allowing playback of recorded images stored indefinitely on a hard drive. The system is credited with deterring student misbehavior in Indiana schools and improving on videotape security technology in terms of image quality, ease of access to images, and archiving.