The benefits of the Digifort VMS

Digifort is the world's leading, server-based, open-platform video management (VMS) and analytics software for digital surveillance, automation, and access control. Following Digifort’s upgrade in August 2024 of its VMS platform to version 7.4.1, we have taken this opportunity to look at the VMS’s most significant features and their benefits to users in a VMS platform focused on ease of configuration and operational use.

Existing Digifort users can upgrade their systems to version 7.4.1, free of charge, at www.digifort.com.

About Digifort

The Digifort open-platform VMS is proven, unified, trusted, and secure. It is used in many applications across the UK, including power stations, ports, smart motorways, industrial sites, public space, universities, multi-site retail and shopping malls.

The Digifort VMS is future proof, with simple expansion options available for cameras, devices and systems, for wider security and site management capability. Modular options for next-generation neural analytics, edge analytics, LPR, Facial Recognition and Point-of-Sale can be added at any time, to enhance site operation. Digifort is SDK integrated with over 400 camera manufacturer brands and over 10,000 cameras, which covers most of those available in the UK today. It supports server failover in mirrored, ratio and parallel recording, along with cloud streaming and backup. Digifort also allows control of NVRs and DVRs, coordinating a mixed estate of brands into one common platform for live viewing and playback – an option being used extensively in retail.

Digifort’s graphic user interface (GUI) runs on Windows-based Operating Systems, such as Server 2022 and Windows 11 with familiar display screens, functions, menus, help windows and manuals.

License structure – outright purchase or rental.

Digifort has four license structures - Explorer, Standard, Professional and Enterprise, increasing in capability with each level. Explorer has 32 channels, Standard up to 64 channels and Professional up to 128 channels, with Enterprise having unlimited channels. Digifort operates two purchase options; a one-time-buy camera licensing model with no annual maintenance fees and free software upgrades for its users; alternatively, rental versions of the Enterprise license structure, bought on a per camera channel basis. NVR, Edge analytics and Edge LPR channels are also available to rent, along with failover options for each.
The rental option takes Digifort from a Capital Expenditure budget, to a rental model paid from the Operational Expenditure budget. It makes Digifort a more affordable option for many applications, especially retail. The rental option can be operated with cloud VMS processing and storage to provide a high-level, cloud security solution, entirely paid monthly.

The camera density per server is defined by server CPU (processing power) and the storage required, of which Digifort UK offers a wide range of options.

Analytics based on AI

Digifort’s Deep Learning (DL) AI video analytics engine includes metadata searching and processing. The analytics are state-of-the art, optimised to run on NVidia Graphics Processing Units GPUs. Analytics can be used to identify object types and colour content in real-time– such as an intruder in a blue jacket shown here, along with a colour profile.

Metadata allows retrospective searching of the recorded video to look for different objects and events. For example, even if the system was configured to identify intruders with blue jackets, operators can apply new search criteria on the recorded video, such as to identify vans or bikes. Retrieving the new video with different search criteria is highly efficiient, with 30 days of video taking just a few minutes to process, as only metadata matches are retrieved.

The latest analytics options in 7.4.1 include dedicated Edge license structures for facial recognition, third-party neural analytics and Radar systems, whereby these systems use their own servers. This is in addition to, and usually far more powerful than, the many edge analytics or ‘on-camera’ solutions already integrated.
Within its professional analytics options, Digifort has added a new ‘Skeleton Tracker’ for capturing trip and fall behaviours. A new ‘Hand Tracker’ looks at the interaction between hands and objects, identifying aggressive, violent or fighting behaviours. These can also be triggered by ‘hands up’ actions or by the rapid hand movements often associated with theft or even weapon handling.

License Plate Recognition (LPR)

LPR comes as a module within Digifort and there are three different recognition engines for plate capture. These are optimized for different vehicle criteria, such as stationary vehicles at a barrier or in a car park, through to fast-moving vehicles on highways. In a car park type application, Digifort will tag a plate as ‘entry’ or ‘exit’ to give a vehicle’s entry and exit dates, times, length of stay, count, car park occupancy and average occupancy. Gates and barriers can be opened automatically for authorized vehicles, using a centrally managed database. Overstays can be identified for ticketing and short stays or multiple car park entries by the same vehicle can be designated as a suspicious activity for review. In fast-moving vehicle applications, Digifort enables real-time traffic management on highways allowing for multiple traffic lanes, high traffic density, and a wide variety of vehicle types.

A Region of Interest (ROI) can be applied to specific areas within a camera’s field of view to look for plates, ignoring all other areas. This makes plate reading faster and improves server efficiency by processing only the areas a plate will be.

The Digifort LPR Bridge, an additional module, links the LPR captures with an external database to give far more comprehensive vehicle and owner information. Depending on the database, this can simply include staff plates in the users HR directory, through to stolen cars, wrong plate, incorrect vehicle colour and much more, when linked with a DVLA type database.

Events (and alarms)

Events and alarm status are listed within the surveillance client, with customizable features such as colour coding and grouping alarm types; alarm status; days to display alarms before archive; physical alarm mute; and alarm response and processing actions. Alarms can be reviewed, regardless of status, with actions such as pop ups and messages shown.
Operators are informed of new, incoming events and alarms, selecting whether these should take priority over live, operator actions, or not. These new events are presented with a snapshot of their trigger. Alarms can be ‘pushed’ to a specific screen for review in the surveillance clients, video walls, mobile devices (ID) and control rooms, for a real-time response and full audit trail. These include associated information such as video snapshots, selected camera views, maps, analytics, LPR, web pages and much more.
As an example, a stolen car plate could be used to trigger an alarm, sending the plate image and live video to a surveillance client workstation. At the same time, the plate and multiple, relevant camera views could be sent to the video wall on monitor 18 and to operator four in the control room, with just a plate and vehicle image sent to mobile phones of relevant staff. The flexibility is endless!

Surveillance Client and Videowalls

Each Digifort Surveillance Client can control up to eight monitors with multiple camera views and split screens. They can be set up as an operator workstation or joined with others to create a virtual matrix videowall of unlimited numbers of monitors.

Custom screen styles can be configured in the Surveillance Client to build multi-screen camera views from a grid; highlight feature selections; remove on-screen toolbars when not in use; and monitor server status.

Object Linking allows navigation from camera to camera by clicking arrows in the camera view, intuitively tracking people and objects around a site in live, playback, and export mode. Buttons and zones can be added to camera views and maps, allowing the operator to trigger alarms, relays, open doors etc. This is particularly useful for larger sites or where operators are not familiar with camera locations.

Administration Client and system configuration

The Administration Client resides on the system servers, or a PC with administration rights, and is used for system setup and configuration. Camera configurations can be duplicated, edited and applied to new cameras for fast setup. Videowall targeting is configured using a simple event response tool and object linking is setup for each camera.
Maps, including interactive Google Maps, include icons and graphics which appear in the Surveillance Client and Videowall. Cyber security, with password management and One-Time-Password (OTP) support is included and the system audit logging allows user actions to be logged and easily filtered for quick review.

To encourage even more integrations with third party systems, essential in larger projects, the scope of Digifort’s http communications commands extends beyond http GET and PUT, enabling greater exchange of information with third-party systems, without the need for complex software.

Digifort’s extensive failover capability includes failover and failback to an edge device, such as a designated server or camera with edge storage. This also enables self-healing, where streamed video interrupted by a network failure is repaired and back online.

The Digifort open-platform VMS is proven, unified, trusted, and secure. It is successfully used in many different applications, including the most demanding, high-security sites, leading the way in camera integration, failover options, system functionality and ease of use.