Milestone Systems, known for its open platform video management solutions, collaborates closely with Hanwha Vision to enhance video security technology.
As explained by Sebastian Döllner, Vice President of Technology Partnerships & Open Platform at Milestone, these efforts focus on providing comprehensive, reliable security solutions that cater to diverse customer needs.
The collaboration between Milestone's software and Hanwha's cameras ensures a unified platform for managing video streams and data, irrespective of installation size.
Enhanced Integration and Flexibility
The partnership's strength lies in its seamless integration, offering users a powerful and flexible solution with widespread global distribution. Benefits extend from enterprise-grade experiences in smaller sites to scalable and adaptable solutions for larger organizations.
Quick support for new Hanwha capabilities, such as AI-based video analytics, further boosts the system's effectiveness. This includes leveraging camera object detection data, enhancing investigatory capabilities, and incorporating solutions like the AI Box for advanced analytics.
The Open Platform Advantage
Milestone’s open platform enables quick partner integration for features like analytics, drones, and access controlMilestone's pioneering open platform approach allows users unparalleled freedom in choosing devices, analytics, and systems. This flexibility eradicates the limitations of being confined to a single vendor, facilitating future-proofing while integrating new technologies as they emerge.
With an open platform, Milestone can swiftly collaborate with various partners to introduce new features such as advanced video analytics, drones, and access control technologies.
Sector Potential and Applications
Advanced video technology holds significant promise for sectors reliant on security and situational awareness, like critical infrastructure, government sites, and large public venues. In these environments, comprehensive video analytics can automate routine tasks and enhance responses to security threats.
Technologies like object detection can track vehicles, identify individuals, and even facilitate privacy through features like Hanwha’s Dynamic Privacy Masking, which blurs identifiable information in footage.
Beyond Security: Operational Insights
Video analytics extend benefits beyond security, offering valuable insights for operational planning and efficiency improvement. Techniques such as heatmapping and footfall analysis support planning and enhance visitor experiences in urban centers and event spaces.
Video data can influence staffing schedules, enhance customer service, and optimize marketing efforts.
Can you briefly introduce yourself, your role at Milestone, and what your responsibilities involve?
My name is Sebastian Döllner, I am Vice President of Technology Partnerships & Open Platform at Milestone Systems. A key part of my role is to strengthen and nurture Milestone’s collaborations with our tech partners.
Our long-standing partnership with Hanwha Vision is one of them – and a very important and valuable one.
Tell us about working with Hanwha Vision – where do you add value as a partnership.
Our collaboration with Hanwha Vision is built around a shared goal: delivering a complete, reliable, and secure solution for end users. Hanwha’s cameras and Milestone’s video management software complement each other naturally, allowing joint customers to connect and manage all video streams and data in a unified and dependable environment, no matter their installation size.
Smaller sites benefit from an enterprise-grade experience, with strong performance, advanced functionality, and solid cybersecurity, while larger organizations can rely on the scalability and openness that Milestone is known for.
The depth of integration between Hanwha Vision and Milestone products provides a powerful and flexible solution to the market, with partners who know how to deploy the combined technologies and strong global distribution. Installing a Hanwha Vision and Milestone solution is simplified, with consistent, proven results that help customers maximize the value of their video systems.
Moreover, new Hanwha Vision capabilities are usually supported in Milestone as soon as they launch, for example, the ability to use camera object detection data for smarter investigations or the AI Box solution which brings advanced video analytics to any cameras in a video system.
Milestone Systems is a pioneer of open platform video management technology - what benefits does the open platform approach bring to users?
Taking an open platform approach offers a level of freedom and flexibility that’s increasingly vital in today’s fast-evolving security landscape. Customers aren’t locked into a single vendor or ecosystem. Instead, they can choose the devices, analytics, and complementary systems that best suit their needs.
Futureproofing is improved as devices can be replaced or added as priorities change, without having to rebuild an entire security system. Innovation time is also boosted using an open platform model. Milestone works with a range of specialized technology partners to bring new capabilities to users much faster than a closed system could, for example, access control, advanced video analytics, drones, and so on. This ensures customers have access to the latest innovation.
Overall, the open platform provides choice, speed, and adaptability; three elements that are critical as security technologies advance and become more tightly connected to the rest of the business.
Are there any specific sectors you feel hold great potential for advanced video technology? Are there any particular sectors that would be relevant for the Hanwha-Milestone collab?
Several sectors are set to benefit from advances in video technology, especially industries where security and situational awareness have a direct impact on public safety such as critical infrastructure, government sites, large event spaces, and cities. Such complex environments need comprehensive oversight to avoid events from escalating and to detect threats early.
Advanced video analytics offers significant value by automating tasks (such as opening a car park barrier or detecting a person entering a restricted space) so operators can focus on added-value, higher-level activities. Within a busy city square or stadium, analytics can help operators rapidly detect and respond to people in distress, respond to abnormal crowd movements and overcrowding, and locate missing people.
Object detection has become extremely powerful, thanks to advances in AI, detecting everything from people wearing specific colour clothing or wearing a mask to tracking vehicles of a certain model, make, and colour. Hanwha’s Dynamic Privacy Masking is a standout feature, with personally identifiable information such as people’s faces, clothing, and bodies blurred out in operator footage. If an event were to occur that requires evidence, a supervisor or manager would be able to unlock the redacted video for investigation.
Beyond security, video analytics provides actionable data and insights that can inform planning, scheduling, digital transformation, and more. Analyzing footfall and area occupancy can help prevent bottlenecks and improve the citizen/visitor experience in the future.
Heatmapping can help with promotional and digital signage locations in event spaces, shopping centres and more. Data on peak times and days can inform staffing schedules or how many routes and spaces to open for the public. There are many ways that video can improve organizational effectiveness across operations, sales, customer service, and marketing.
