Should Security Cameras be Used in Online Meetings?

The shift to a more digital work culture that has been emphasized since the start of the pandemic, made video conferencing an integral part of the daily routine for a lot of people.

By now there are very few who are not familiar with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and the countless other video meeting tools available.

The majority of these ‘online meeters’ know how to easily share screens, set up a web camera, and how to look nice on a video stream.

What about adding a security camera to a video conferencing room?

In our increasingly connected world, we are accustomed to staying connected and maintaining communication with colleagues despite physical distance. There is a range of use cases that would benefit greatly from adding security (or IP) cameras to virtual rooms, for instance, security personnel, first responders, city traffic controllers, police, etc.

Why security cameras? Why not just add a normal web camera instead?

Security cameras (aka IP-cameras) usually transmit video via RTSP. Even though this is a widely used protocol, bringing this kind of video stream into an active video meeting can be difficult or even impossible. Another streaming protocol widely used is called RTMP.

Trembit, together with eyeson, developed a unique solution to bring RTSP and RTMP streams from security cameras to online meetings by transcoding them to WebRTC and adding it to an eyeson video conferencing room.

Adding camera streams on the fly to video meetings can unlock a variety of use cases

Both RTMP and RTSP are streaming protocols used for low latency video streaming. RTMP is widely used by broadcasters, whereas RTSP is used for streaming from IP cameras.

Streaming IP cameras into video meetings where all participants see the same feed is essential to achieve transparent processes and trustworthy assessment.

For use cases of this type, integrating security camera streams into the video meetings brings significant added value compared to downloading the footage and uploading it afterward.

In the case of command & control operations, streaming the camera footage directly onto the meeting mitigates the lag issue that impacts the user's attention, information dissemination, and engagement. The difference between live streaming and sharing downloaded video via screen sharing makes a significant difference to the mission’s success.

Video streams can be crucial for police missions, drone operations or surveillance needs enabling participants to join from anywhere securely and share circumstances live: a situation room with participants all over the world can be set quickly up by providing a secret link to it. No setup, no installation, and maximum security.

Besides, prerecorded video footage, maps, and additional information can be shown without the need for screen sharing and without lags.

Review and learn - yet another advantage

In the use cases described above, the possibility of reviewing and learning from what happened is essential. Recording the meeting, and therefore recording what happens, with all participants seeing the same is a big advantage for teams to evolve and train.