Multimedia communication techniques for remote cable-based video-surveillance systems

his paper aims at presenting a study of costs and performance concerning different multimedia communication techniques that can be employed in the context of the implementation of 2/sup nd/ generation remote video-surveillance systems using wired cable TV networks as a communication means. The multimedia information is acquired by video sensors and transmitted through the CATV network to a remote control centre, where a PC-based image processing architecture performs the image processing tasks needed by the implementation of the foreseen system functionalities. The paper will show some possible analogue and digital solutions to the problems concerning the real-time multimedia data transmission in generic cable-based AVS applications. Laboratory simulations of multimedia data transmission over upstream noisy channels have been performed in order to test the performance in terms of quality of the received images provided by the most advanced high-speed commercial cable modem systems.