Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Koji Wakiyama

Haruo Kogane

Jyoji Wada

Katsumi Yano

Kazutaka Higuchi

Kiyoshi Ota

Yutaka Kamogi

Kazushige Tamura

Noboru Takada

Ken Ikoma

A storage means () formed of a rewritable non-volatile memory for recording the operation history of the surveillance camera is provided within the surveillance camera apparatus. An auto panning operation time, a power supply turn-on time, a temperature within the surveillance camera apparatus, the number of preset operations, the number of changing operations of the filter of the camera or the number of a coordinate system resetting operations is recorded, whereby important information at the time of repairing can be provided.

Monitor camera capable of recording operation history, and method of recording operation history

A magnetic position detecting device for detecting a position of a moving body to a fixed body on the basis of a change of a magnetic flux density that a Hall element on the fixed body senses when the moving body provided with a magnet moves relative to the fixed body. An S-pole and an N-pole of the magnet are juxtaposed along a direction of the movement. When the Hall element passes a boundary between the poles of the magnet, the sensed magnetic flux density is zero, the polarities of the magnetic field are inverted, and therefore the Hall element does not sense any variation of the position. Only when the magnet and the Hall element mutually approach, a detect signal based on the sensed magnetic flux density is compared with a reference signal. By detecting a position where both the signals are equal in level, a reference position is detected.

Magnetic position detecting device

In a monitor camera system capable of understanding a direction, a monitor camera follows, through a picture taken by the monitor camera, the monitor camera makes 360-degree pan rotation and 180-degree tilt rotation, and generates image data in which a character representative of a photographing direction (for example, north) of the monitor camera is superimposed on a picture taken by the monitor camera. Accordingly, the monitor camera provides a picture in which the photographing direction indicating character appears. This enables an operator to easily understand the camera direction through the monitor picture, thus achieving efficient and accurate camera manipulation.

Monitor camera system and method of displaying picture from monitor camera thereof

A preset operation is effected to a video camera which takes an image around it, generates a video signal from the image, processing and outputting the video signal. The video camera includes electrical control unit for controlling the video camera to process the video signal in accordance with preset video signal control data in the preset setting operation in addition to the preset operation by a mechanical control unit of the video camera in accordance with preset position data. A non-volatile memory stores the preset data including the position data and video signal control data in response to a preset data storing command. Time data includes the preset time data and month data or four-seasons data to distinguish between nighttime and daytime. The preset video signal control data immediately provides a clear video image on the monitor display irrespective of nighttime and daytime. The preset data may be inputted from the display monitor site by an operator or obtained from the mechanical control unit such as a pan encoder and a tilt encoder and from the video signal processing circuit.

Video camera apparatus with preset operation and a video camera monitor system including the same

In a monitor camera system comprising a monitor camera making 360-degree panning rotation and more-than 90-degree tilting rotation and a control unit for controlling the monitor camera, for masking a privacy zone in a picture taken by the monitor camera, the control unit sets mask data through the use of a contour parameter of a configuration of a mask zone for covering the privacy zone, while the monitor camera side holds the mask data to mask a portion of the picture with the mask zone defined on the basis of the mask data. According to this monitor camera system, since only a portion of the picture is masked with the mask zone, it is possible to protect the privacy from the picture taken by the monitor camera without impairing the monitoring function. In addition, since the monitor camera side holds the mask data, quick processing becomes feasible.

To provide a security camera system for displaying a picture so as to easily know a place where an abnormal situation occurs. The security camera system includes a security camera having at least more than one rotation axis and a controller for controlling the security camera . The controller is provided with a moving picture detector for detecting a motion from pictures taken by the security camera during an automatic monitoring operation. The controller switches an operation of the security camera from automatic monitoring to still monitoring in the case when the moving picture detector detects a motion from monitored pictures. Therefore, in the case when a suspicious person, fire smoke, or the like is detected in a subject building at night, for example, during an automatic monitoring operation for shooting target monitoring places sequentially, a shooting point of the security camera is fixed there so as to shoot and display an abnormal situation on a monitor screen.

Security camera system and displaying method by security camera

A video camera apparatus effects one of predetermined operations regarding a video camera, generates historic data indicative of one of predetermined operations and stores tie historic data in a non-volatile memory, and reads the historic data from the non-volatile memory and outputs the historic data in response to a data reading request. A counter responsive counts the number of times of the present operations which is also stored as the historic data every predetermined interval. As historic data, an interval of the present operation, accumulates times interval of present operation, the detected trouble data, a count of troubles, the latest trouble, communication data communicating with an external controller, a temperature or a humidity are stored. A video monitoring system includes the video camera.

Video camera apparatus and video monitor system

A monitoring camera apparatus includes: a video camera; a panning mechanism; and a tilting mechanism; and automatic pivoting portion for operating the panning mechanism to pan the video camera by a predetermined pan (tilt) angle or to a predetermined pan (tilt) angle position when the video camera reaches the predetermined vertical (horizontal) position and a tilt command is inputted. The predetermined vertical position may be determined when the video camera directs the downward in the vertical direction. The auto-pivoting function may be started in response to both predetermined pan and tilt positions. During the auto-pivoting, controlling the video signal processing is stopped, pan and tilt speed is set to maximum, the direction of panning may be judged when the predetermined angle position is set. After auto-pivoting, tilt is made upwardly though the tilt command indicates downward and the screen image may be inverted and the pan and tilt positions are held until pan (tilt) command is inputted. The predetermined pan (tilt) angle and auto-pivoting mode set/reset may be set externally.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Koji Wakiyama