Patent ID: 7459661

Claim:
A system comprising: a video camera for providing a single video signal representative of an observation space; an evaluation unit, said evaluation unit having an input and an output, wherein the input receives the video signal from the video camera and the output provides output information relating to luminance and movement of the observation space, wherein the evaluation unit is further operable to process the single video signal to: (i) divide the observation space into various zones; and (ii) weight each zone for luminance and for movement during an evaluation wherein a weight of a zone for luminance is independent of a weight for the zone for movement, and wherein the evaluation unit is operable to disregard at least one of the following information: luminance and movement in at least one zone; wherein the evaluation unit is operable to assign a weight of zero to the disregarded information; and wherein the output information relating to luminance and movement of the observation space provided by the output of the evaluation unit further comprises information relating to luminance and movement of the zones of the observation space; and a control unit for receiving the output information from the evaluation unit and setting a brightness of a plurality of controllable light sources as a function of the output information, wherein each controllable light source illuminates at least one zone, wherein setting a particular one of the controllable light sources comprises controlling the brightness of the particular controllable light source in response to detecting movement in a zone illuminated by the particular light source.