Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, BriefCam can be deployed within a distributed architecture that is comprised of a local BriefCam system at each site communicating back to a centralized Hub system that aggregates the business intelligence metadata and real-time alerts from all of the sites.

BriefCam is hardware vendor agnostic. Certain server vendors have BriefCam-specific part numbers, however as long as the specifications are met, the manufacturer is irrelevant.

The BriefCam Processing Server requires an NVIDIA GPU to process video. The exact model and amount of GPU cards required will depend on the requirements of the resolution of video to be processed along with the number of hours of video to process per day.

For a system with a large video processing requirement, multiple GPUs can be installed in each processing server, as well as the ability to utilize multiple processing servers simultaneously.

Each GPU installed in the BriefCam server must be assigned to process video in a specific processing mode, either for on-demand processing (REVIEW and RESEARCH modules) or for real-time processing (RESPOND module), a single GPU cannot process video both real-time and on-demand. If you have any questions regarding specific GPU compatibility or support, please reach out to BriefCam to confirm.

The recommended hardware for a specific project will depend on a few variables, the most significant variables that affect the hardware recommendation are based on the resolution of the video to process and the number of hours of video to process per day.

All of the BriefCam platform services can be deployed on multiple servers simultaneously. For some of the services, you will need to use 3rd party monitoring tools to automate the automatic high availability components.

When a new video processing request is submitted, the VIDEO SYNOPSIS® technology Server (VSServer) will query each individual Processing Server (PS) to determine which server has spare bandwidth to process the requested video and will automatically assign the next available PS server to process the request.

NOTE: The capacity of each PS server to process video is based on a few different factors such as the resolution of the requested video to be processed along with the graphical processing unit (GPU) specifications, namely the total memory and TFLOPS (peak single precision FP32 performance).

Yes, BriefCam supports an on-premises architecture.

BriefCam supports the deployment of its software on cloud-hosted machines.

Yes, BriefCam supports a virtual architecture. The architecture is not affected by the deployment on a virtual environment as the components and requirements remain the same as long as the virtualized server has dedicated resources that match those of its physical equivalent. The virtualized server’s dedicated resources must not be shared between other instances or virtual machines as this can create a situation where certain services would not receive the required resources.

The BriefCam has a cloud demo available that is accessed through the Google Chrome browser by visiting https://demo.briefcam.com/. An account can be requested via your Regional Sales Director.

BriefCam currently uses NVIDIA GRID on the cloud demo platform and can confirm that it is supported and working.

BriefCam supports processing .AVI, .MKV, .MPEG4, .MOV, .WMV, .DVR, .ASF, .RT4, .DIVX, .264, .H264, .H265, .GE5, .TS, .3GP, .XBA (single & multi-stream), .MP4, and .FLV video formats.

The minimum resolution that BriefCam natively processes is CIF (352 x 240) and the maximum resolution that BriefCam natively processes is 4K (3840 x 2160). The BriefCam system can process larger camera resolutions but will need to be configured during the installation process.

BriefCam supports processing H.264, H.265/HEVC, MPEG-4, and H.263 video codecs.

The minimum FPS that BriefCam recommends to process is 8 FPS and the maximum FPS that BriefCam recommends to process is 30 FPS. The BriefCam solution can process video lower than 8 FPS and higher than 30 FPS but the performance of the object tracking might be affected.

Yes, BriefCam supports video processing from infrared, thermal, and black and white cameras. BriefCam Class categories (People, Two-Wheeled Vehicles, Other Vehicles, Illumination Changes, and Animals), as well as object behaviors (Speed, Size, Direction, and Dwell) will still be usable and accurate while object Attributes, such as Color, Appearance Similarity, and Face Recognition will have a lower level accuracy depending upon the video quality.

BriefCam’s processing engine currently relies on a static background for accurate object tracking and will be able to process the PTZ camera when the video is stationary and in a preset position for longer than 2 minutes.

BriefCam supports license plate recognition (LPR) through optical character recognition (OCR) technology. Our LPR engine requires that the text on the license plate is at least 10 pixels in height.

Yes, BriefCam can process 360-degree cameras.

Today, the BriefCam object extraction and the VIDEO SYNOPSIS^® technology engines depend on static backgrounds, which rule out processing of body camera or dashboard camera video.

BriefCam is camera agnostic and can process a video feed regardless of the source if the resolution and frames per second (FPS) requirements are met.

Click to see the full list of supported VMS.

Yes, BriefCam supports a federated architecture. When selecting a camera source, the federated camera list is presented within the BriefCam platform allowing users to select the desired cameras.

BriefCam’s Video Integration API (VIA) is a generic HTTP RESTful request-based plug-in that enables third party integration with BriefCam including real-time (RSTP) video ingestion.

Yes, multiple directories and VMS integrations can be installed on a single BriefCam server and different cameras can be activated on each of the connected directories/VMS integrations.

The BriefCam credentials are hashed using a one-way hashing function according to RFC 2898, https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2898.txt, using a standard .NET framework implementation.

The video management system (VMS) and active directory (AD) credentials are stored using the standard symmetric Rijndael encryption implementation, or Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), provided by the .NET framework.

From v5.4.1, BriefCam supports PostgreSQL as the database. PostgreSQL is part of the BriefCam software installation package.

In large scale systems, MongoDB should also be installed for the storing of BLOBs (in addition to PostgreSQL). MongoDB can be installed using BriefCam’s MongoDB installer.

BriefCam can currently be installed on Windows 11, Windows 10 Pro version 1803 or higher, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows Server 2022. Note that Windows 11 and Windows 10 Pro is not supported for the RESEARCH component.

No, Fast Track is not dependent on the engine. Fast Track is based on the geolocation defined in the integrated VMS.

Yes, VMMR is currently only available on the OX6 engine.

No, BriefCam Nexus is not engine dependent and can work with Sites that are OX5 or OX6.

Yes, Custom ClassifID is currently only available on the OX6 engine.

BriefCam offers 4 different product license variations:

BriefCam is licensed according to the specific variant (e.g. Investigator (single user or multi-user), Insights, or Protect). For specific variants, expansion licenses can be purchased to increase the following aspects:

• The amount of concurrent users
• The amount of BriefCam RESEARCH users
• The amount of camera channels
• The amount of BriefCam RESPOND real-time camera channels

BriefCam is licensed according to the specific variant (e.g. Investigator (single user or multi-user), Insights, or Protect). For specific variants, expansion licenses can be purchased to increase the following aspects:

• The amount of concurrent users
• The amount of BriefCam RESEARCH users
• The amount of camera channels
• The amount of BriefCam RESPOND real-time camera channels

The BriefCam license purchase is a one-time cost. Recurring costs are related to annual Maintenance which is required for the 1st year but optional thereafter.

BriefCam is licensed on a per-sensor basis, so for example, if you have a camera with 4 sensors, then you will need 4 camera licenses.

BriefCam will provide a temporary license in order to test the functionality of the system using your own environment with the approval of someone from the Sales organization.

BriefCam has two major releases per year centered around the ISC East and ISC West security trade shows.

BriefCam v4.x reached the end of life (EOL) date on June 30th, 2020.

Definitions

Policies

Note: Versions mentioned above include any update packs that were released for those versions.

Disclaimer

Only customers with BriefCam products that are currently covered by a valid Support and Maintenance contract are entitled to the benefits set forth by the End-of-Life Policy. BriefCam may continue offering Support services beyond the standard EOL date at its sole discretion and reserves the right to charge additional fees for continuing Support services on any EOL products. BriefCam reserves the right to reduce or amend Support services offerings available for renewal under this policy at any time in its sole discretion, with or without notice.

• For a fatal or sever error, where no useful work can be done with the BriefCam platform, the initial response will be made within half of a business day with ongoing assistance during working hours until the issue is resolved.
• For a system with degraded operations, where errors are causing issues with minor functions, the initial response will be made within one business day and a resolution will be provided within 10 business days either in the form of a work-around solution or a software correction that will be included in the next software update.
• For a system with minorly impactful issues, where documentation or a feature request is required, the initial response will be made within one business day and a resolution will be provided within 10 business days either in the form of an answer or a software correction that will be included in the next software update.

An active annual maintenance contract includes software updates, upgrades and enhancements, software patches and bug fixes, and Second level support through either email, telephone, and/or remote connectivity software.

BriefCam is supported with a combined effort between First Level support, which is provided by the Reseller’s trained support personnel to supported end-users, and Second Level support, which is provided by BriefCam support personnel in the form of an online knowledge base and an online ticketing platform.

The BriefCam Open API (BOA) is a unified REST API allowing developers to introduce BriefCam functionality into their own applications. The APIs allow for:

• Returning a list of all VMS cameras available to the currently authenticated user
• Creating, reading, updating and deleting cases
• Retrieving the case objects and metadata
• Exporting case report assets
• Creating, reading, updating and deleting watchlists, watchlist identities, and the identities images
• Matching either objects having a face or a watchlist against existing watchlists
• Acquiring the system’s basic HealthCheck information response
• Initiating video processing by selecting cameras and time ranges, and to query processing status.

BriefCam’s Video Integration API (API) is a generic HTTP RESTful request-based plug-in that enables third party integration with BriefCam solutions, including real-time (RSTP) video ingestion.

The BriefCam Respond Outbound API enables integration of BriefCam alerts into third party alerting infrastructure by issuing a generic RESTful call to the third-party alerting custom endpoint with detailed information on the alerting event, a downloadable thumbnail, and a downloadable video clip.

The BrieCam Hub Outbound API is for customers with multi-site deployments who want to send alerts from the Hub to a third-party system. The Hub Outbound API includes all the data sent in a regular Outbound API (as described in the RESPOND Alerts Outbound API section above) – with some additions: All objects of a multi-object alert (count-based and proximity alerts) are sent and not just a single object (as in the RESPOND Alerts Outbound API). For each object, the alert data (such as the event time) and the thumbnail URL are included. NOTE: This feature requires a dedicated license.

BriefCam’s System Events API can send a message to a webhook provided by the user whenever a new event is registered in the BriefCam Administrator Console. This message includes the severity of the system event, the type of system event, the time that the system event occurred, and a description of the system event including camera name, camera ID, camera external ID, and error.

The BriefCam GUI is accessed through the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Edge web browser by navigating to the server’s hostname or IP address (NOTE: Only the Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft edge web browsers are supported at this time).

The BriefCam GUI can also be embedded within the Genetec Security Center and Milestone XProtect Smart Client video management system (VMS) software platform.

No, biometric information is saved during processing, highlighting our focus on respecting sensitive data.

This version disables real-time rule-making, real-time search, and rule-based alerting that is based on Face Recognition.

Yes, Face Mask Detection utilizes Face Recognition functionality, so if Face Recognition is disabled, then Face Mask Detection is also disabled

No, Face Recognition is determined in the licensing and is removed from the user interface, preventing its activation.

The database for VMMR is updated multiple times throughout the year.

BriefCam uses a variety of various technologies, including IIS, Google Chrome, Visual Studio 2015, C#/C++, .NET, nodeJS, TensorRT, OpenCV, and PostgreSQL.

BriefCam has completed a comprehensive audit of its systems and has reasonably established that its products are not impacted by the critical Apache Log4j vulnerability known as CVE-2021-44228.

The following firewall ports should be available when installing BriefCam. The installer will create the relevant Windows firewall rules for these ports.

RESEARCH (BI) Ports:

External Ports

The following ports should be opened to traffic coming from the end users’ browsers.

Yes, BriefCam supports both the LDAP/LDAPS and the SAML protocol.

For Microsoft Active Directory, the user will need to have read permissions in order to connect and synchronize the desired users/groups/organizational units.

For deployments with less than 300 cameras on site:

• A 1Gbps connection between the BriefCam server and the video management system (VMS) management and archiver servers.
• A 1Gbps connection between the client machine used to access the BriefCam GUI and the BriefCam server.

For larger deployments, consult with your BriefCam representative.

No, BriefCam does not have any issues if the server(s) are joined to a domain.

Video processing is performed locally at each individual Site.

Any BriefCam Insights installation can be configured as a Site, either through our all-in-one BriefCam Compact solution or a custom hardware implementation with BriefCam Insights.

No, there is no limit to how many Sites can be added to BriefCam Nexus.

Yes, within the SITES module, users can filter and sort by Name, Address, City, State, Country, Type, and Status

Yes, the data from each Site is aggregated in dashboards at the Hub. Hub users can filter data to the individual Site level, compare specific Sites, or view all aggregated Site data.

Yes, BriefCam Nexus is a scalable solution, and new sites can be added with the “Register a New Site” button in the BriefCam Hub UI.

BriefCam Nexus has a stay alive functionality, where the Sites ping the Hub. If the Sites stop communicating with the Hub then the status indicator will turn red, indicating that connection has been lost.

For more information on how to convert an standalone location to a Site on the Hub, please Contact Us.

The transmission of data depends on the end-user’s infrastructure and network setup. Typically the data is transmitted on the end-users private network.

The Hub is free of charge for all functionality other than RESEARCH. If RESEARCH data aggregation is required, the Hub has a license cost. For more information, please Contact Us.

BriefCam Nexus has built-in time zone functionality, enabling Hub users to intuitively make sense of alerts from multiple time zones.

BriefCam in a Box can be used at each Site implementation within BriefCam Nexus. BriefCam in a Box can use either the OX5 or OX6 engine.

Yes, the centralized Hub needs its own dedicated hardware.

Yes, existing BriefCam users can upgrade from a standalone implementation to a BriefCam Nexus (Multi-Site) implementation. Please Contact Us for more details.

Yes, the Hub aggregates alerts from all Sites in BriefCam Nexus.

Yes, Hub users are able to review cases at each Site.

BriefCam comes with an extensible library of over a dozen vertical-specific dashboards for quick and easy onboarding out-of-the-box.

BriefCam can create either a Basic Custom Dashboard, which includes up to 6 widgets for video sources only, or can create an Advanced Custom Dashboard, which includes up to 10 widgets for video sources and up to one external source. This service is purchased under a separate product SKU.

You can also use the Chart Suggestions and Insight Advisor to auto-generate and prioritize relevant charts and analytics.

Using the BriefCam RESPOND module, you can easily filter through alerts similarly to the REVIEW module, watch a synopsis of alerts, and create an investigation case when a suspicious alert is received.

BriefCam’s RESPOND module helps you receive Real-Time Alerts, Smart Alerts and People Counting alerts for critical events to increase safety and security with proactive responses.

• Real-Time Alerts, based on face recognition, vehicles, people of interest, count-based, and specific camera viewing area-based, will alert you within 5 seconds of the event occurring.
• Smart Alerts, based on the full suite of BriefCam filtering capabilities, will alert you within 30-60 seconds of the event occurring.
• People Counting Alerts take a snapshot every few minutes of one frame and count the people in the whole frame or in a defined area. These alerts are ideal for queue counting and for counting people in crowds and people that are not moving a lot.

Using a Real-Time Respond Alert, you can be notified within 5 seconds based on Face Recognition Watch List(s).

Depending on which Video Management System (VMS) BriefCam is integrating into, a Respond alert can be immediately sent to the Alarm Manager within the VMS. Otherwise, you will be notified within the BriefCam GUI natively or the Respond Alerts Outbound API can be utilized to send alerts into third party alerting infrastructure.

BriefCam^® invented and owns the worldwide patents for the VIDEO SYNOPSIS  tool, an innovative approach that allows organizations to review hours of video in minutes and sometimes seconds. The VIDEO SYNOPSIS innovation superimposes objects on a stationary background, simultaneously displaying events that have occurred at different times, with the ability to link back to the original video.

• Specific camera sources
• Specific time ranges
• People (Man, Woman, and Child), Two-Wheeled Vehicles (Bicycles and Motorcycles), Other Vehicles (Cars, Pickups, Vans, Trucks, Buses, Trains, Airplanes, and Boats), Illumination Changes (Lights On and Lights Off), and Animals.
  • Specific to People, we can filter on Lower Wear (Long, Short, and specific Colors), Upper Wear (Long Sleeves, Short Sleeves, and specific Colors), Hat or No Hat, Backpack or No Bag, Wearing a Face Mask or Not Wearing a Face Mask, and if there is something being Hand Held.
  • License Plate Recognition
  • Proximity Identification
• Objects matching any combination of brown, red, orange, yellow, green, lime, cyan, purple, pink, white, gray, and black.
• Objects based on their actual (real-life) size from a histogram of sizes relevant to a specific case.
• Objects based on their actual speed from a histogram of speeds relevant to a specific case.
• Objects having dwelled for a user-specified period or longer in a scene.
• Objects having traveled in a specified direction.
• Objects having crossed a demarcation in a pre-defined direction.
• Objects with the same identified classes and attributes (class, size, and color), either for people or vehicles.
• Face recognition

BriefCam uses SSL encrypted pages and regularly performs code reviews but we do not perform any penetration tests as the software is intended to be installed on an internal network which is not exposed to the outside world (except in the case of a connection through a secure VPN).

While BriefCam, the company, does not store personal information on individuals either by itself or through its users, You, the user/customer, are collecting and/or processing personal information on individuals and storing such personal information at your site on one or more servers that include the BriefCam product, in accordance to your own settings and preferences. With that said, BriefCam’s software is a GDPR compliant product that includes tools that can help you in your compliance efforts with GDPR.

BriefCam provides online training and either remote and/or on-site training depending on the requirements. There are separate training modules for different audiences such as End Users, Installers, and System Administrators with a dedicated syllabus outlining the agenda for each module.

For more information regarding our Self-Paced or Instructor-Led training offerings, visit our User Training page or BriefCam’s Training Portal.