Patent ID: 8723952

Claim:
A surveillance video system, the system comprising: a lens; a CPU connected to a network interface; an image processor connected to the CPU; an image sensor located behind the lens and coupled to the image processor; a solid-state data storage device accessible by the CPU; and a power supply unit, wherein the lens, the CPU, the network interface, the image sensor and the solid-state data storage are integrated into a single assembly, and wherein: the image processor acquires a continuous stream of images from the image sensor; the image processor processes the images and provides the images to the CPU; the CPU receives the images from the image processor and stores the images, together with their timestamps, onto the solid-state data storage, and wherein the CPU receives images via the network interface from peer cameras connected over a network, and stores the images, together with their timestamps, on the solid-state data storage, wherein the CPU sends replicas of the images from the image processor to the peer cameras, such that each peer camera acts simultaneously as a server and as a client, wherein the received images are stored as part of the file system of each camera, wherein the stream of images is recoverable from multiple cameras: wherein the stream of images is split into time segments and each time segment is assigned with a security signature.