Patent ID: 8872940

Claim:
A network camera, comprising: an imaging system configured to capture a field of view and generate video of the field of view, the field of view having a plurality of regions and the imaging system being further configured to capture different regions in the field of view with at least two different quality levels; video analytics connected to the imaging system to receive the video, the video analytics configured to analyze the video to detect objects or events of interest in the video and locations of the objects or the events of interest in the field of view and to generate metadata corresponding to the objects or the events of interest and the locations of the objects or the events of interest; a data storage system connected to the imaging system to receive and store the video from the imaging system and connected to the video analytics to receive and store the metadata from the video analytics; a rules based engine connected to the video analytics to receive the metadata, the rules based engine configured to analyze the metadata and to determine actions to be taken based on rules that associate the metadata with the actions; and a storage management system connected to the rules based engine, the storage management system configured to control the imaging system to set the different quality levels for regions in the field of view in the video at the locations where the objects or events of interest are detected based on the actions determined by the rules based engine, wherein the rules based engine is further configured to determine priorities for the video according to the rules, and the storage management system is further configured to control the data storage system to retain the video for periods of time determined according to the priorities.