Patent ID: 8724970

Claim:
A method of searching for objects of interest within captured video, the method comprising: capturing video of a plurality of scenes using video encoding; storing the video in a plurality of storage elements, wherein video analysis to used to generate metadata during video encoding; receiving a request to retrieve contiguous video of an object of interest that has moved through at least two scenes of the plurality of scenes; in response to the request, searching within a first storage element of the plurality of storage elements to identify a first portion of the video that contains the object of interest within a first scene of the plurality of scenes; processing the first portion of the video to determine a direction of motion of the object of interest; selecting a second storage element of the plurality of storage elements within which to search for the object of interest based on the direction of motion of the object of interest and on historical traffic patterns of other objects moving between the scenes; searching within the second storage element to identify a second portion of the video that contains the object of interest within a second scene of the plurality of scenes; and linking the first portion of the video with the second portion of the video to generate the contiguous video of the object of interest, wherein the metadata contains a history of instances captured by the camera.