Using multiple windows on a monitor screen for CCTV purposes at the same time is ineffective.

Technical progress in the field of security television is evident: ever-increasing resolution of video systems, ever-higher speed of updating visual information, ever-increasing number of images on the monitor screen at the same time. Therefore, the results of using such systems should be pleasing… But why then do we increasingly often see reports in the press about the inefficiency of using security video systems? I asked this question to the forum participants on the security-bridge website, and I would like to share the results of the discussion with everyone.

Seven spans in the forehead?

You can start with a simple experiment. Ask a colleague to turn away from the table, and place a variety of unexpected objects on it (a pen, a knife, a stapler, a pencil, a spoon, a glass, glasses, a figurine, etc.). Ask your colleague to turn to the table for one second and then immediately turn back. After that (!) formulate the task: he must list the objects that he saw on the table. By conducting this experiment many times, you can see that most often people remember no more than 7 objects. This is where all the peoples of the world have proverbs and sayings containing the number 7 as the limit (the seventh wonder of the world, the seventh heaven, measure seven times, seven on benches, seven do not wait for one, seven troubles — one answer, etc.).
Engineering psychology has long established the scientific fact that a person cannot effectively control more than 7 objects at a time, and this fact is widely used everywhere except for CCTV. And in CCTV we force a person to simultaneously control 16 objects, 32 objects, 256 objects… No, not just objects — images containing many, many different objects. If we want to achieve efficiency from a CCTV system, we must first take care of the operator, because he is the decisive link in the entire system, he makes the decision.
And all this despite the fact that in real life we ​​constantly shift our gaze from one object to another, look into the distance so that our eyes can rest. But a video surveillance system operator (there is such a specialty) is deprived of all this: the pupil of his eye, constantly focused on the monitor screen, is essentially something like an eyepiece with a constant focal length for the entire video system. And this constant focal length puts a static load on the operator's eyes — and this contradicts the natural nature of a living organism.

You can't argue with natural selection

There is no creature on Earth that can simultaneously look in at least two different directions — the entire evolution of animals and the crown of nature — man — has led to the fact that all living things at any given moment look in one direction. Natural selection has worked thoroughly: everything unnecessary turned out to be unviable, in living organisms everything is done well, economically and without excesses. Since a person is born to look in one direction, then he can also process visual information only in relation to one side. And what about air traffic controllers? But there is no real situation there, the information is processed in such a way as to match it with the bandwidth of the human visual channel. And in security television? In security television, the fight is going in the opposite direction — to increase the information content, realism and number of images offered. But a person cannot cope with this, can he? He cannot cope.

Many windows are bad

One can rejoice at the abundance of windows on monitor screens – at exhibitions, in press releases (to some this may seem like an advantage of the systems, almost an end in itself). But, by and large, they are precisely the measure of their shortcomings. Because the operator is offered raw information, and in large quantities, thanks to which a person born to solve completely different, human, problems, turns into an appendage of the machine – what is there to rejoice about?

If there is too much information, it is lost

A man dropped his car key, looks at the ground, concentrating on a narrow patch of space. Why? Because it is the most important thing now. What if something happens behind him? It is possible, but we always choose priorities, realizing that the loss of information is inevitable.
A dog is rushing towards a man, barking angrily. At this moment, the details of the decor of the neighboring house are not so important to him — his attention is focused on the dog, he follows its movement, distinguishes it from everything visible. These are examples from real life.
And the operator? They tell him – control everything! (Motion detectors don’t count for now.) But there probably is a certain limit to the flow of visual information that a person is still able to adequately process. Everything else is self-deception.

Security television for the poor

So, we can summarize that we don’t want to take human nature into account, and therefore at the present time we have security television for the poor, since the operator is presented with the maximum of what can be seen.
Why is pre-processing of information used to provide it to air traffic control operators, mission control operators or border guards? Because the price of the issue is high. And if you hire elderly women as operators and force them to stare at the screen for hours (outside of any sanitary standards), then you will get a type of CCTV that is ineffective.

Stop picking raisins out of the market pie

In terms of the number of images on the screen, security television has developed quantitatively: first there were the so-called 2 x 2 quads (operators could handle this), then video multiplexers began to conquer the market, offering a 4 x 4 format, current video systems offer up to 256 windows, and, apparently, this is not the limit.
And what has changed qualitatively? Does anyone know how a person's gaze moves when analyzing at least 16 simultaneously presented images on the screen?..
Developers of video systems do what they can do: they compete with each other to feed the operator with an increasingly informative video stream, but the operator cannot (and does not want to) digest such a quantity of information, he gets indigestion from such a number of windows. Also because all this is just advertising fog, because the creation of a truly effective security television system must begin with the operator, but this is too expensive and difficult a task, and not only for programmers, but also for psychologists, ergonomics specialists, etc. And yet it will have to be done!

PS. It is symptomatic that not a single developer of CCTV systems took part in the discussion of this problem. They probably have a lot of work.

«To be honest, the topic is very far-fetched and has nothing to do with reality. A bare theory. That's why intelligent systems are created, so that a person doesn't sit and stare at the screen until he goes stupid. The operator controls the overall picture, without focusing on specific frames, and when an event occurs, the system itself informs him about what is happening, drawing attention to a specific picture. As a result, the operator takes some prompt action. Of course, all this is possible with proper design and configuration of the entire system.»
Ewgen

«Modern video surveillance is increasingly similar to some kind of perverted form of voyeurism, a kind of PIP show. We are increasing the pixel count, increasing the clarity of the picture, the pictures themselves are more and more. And the operator, looking at all this high-definition television, in color, in all the variety of broadcast channels, is engaged in «
Pavel aka Spiridon

«There were 9 monitors at the facility in compliance with all sanitary standards. As a rule, the operators were stuck on the domes, and if the facility left the dome, there were problems finding it, especially with one universal remote control.»
landsknecht

«1. ONE control monitor (with a diagram of the facility)
2. ONE main video surveillance monitor
3. AS MANY other monitors or multi-screens as you wish.
It is UNREALISTIC to force a person (even a very conscientious one) to look at at least one monitor for a long time and continuously. Because he is a living person.»
V. B.

«If the system has stationary cameras, the picture in them is rather monotonous and attention is lost, but if the video switcher changes cameras, then the operator's attention is better attracted.»
Rustam

«For example, I had to install several cameras in Domodedovo, I was in the control room, but there was nothing you could see or track!!! hundreds of cameras in a small room, the same thing, and at other sites I saw 150 cameras, four or five monitors and a small room, what the hell is the information there?»
kombinator

«It is important that the data comes in sequentially, and not in a parallel heap from all parts of the screen. Sequential thinking is a limitation of the human mind. Any parallelization of it is a deception.»
«A person cannot monitor many things at the same time.»
Alexander

«Algorithms are constantly being developed and improved. Focus on an integral indicator, the increase of which is achieved not by reducing the number of information channels in order to improve the quality of the operator's work in extracting key moments from the channels and analyzing them, but by feeding the operator through a single information channel the maximum flow of key frames that he is able to consistently analyze.»
Mshm