IMS Research notes more vendors now offer VCA-embedded camera solutions and forecasts this trend to continue. The primary advantage of camera-based analytics is bandwidth preservation. By conducting pre-transmission processing, it eliminates the need to transmit all captured video to centralised servers for analysis and can reduce costs on storage. Intelligent cameras can be set to low-resolution transmission until a predefined event of interest occurs, triggering a switch to high-resolution video transmission.

IMS Research predicts that global shipments of VCA embedded network cameras will exceed 2.5 million units by 2012. However, this forecast assumes that over 60 percent of the intelligent cameras will be embedded with only low-end analytics, such as camera tampering detection and system health checks.

Market research analyst at IMS Research, James McManus commented: "Network camera manufacturers are employing the latest technologies, such as H.264 compression, megapixel image sensors and VCA, to add value to their products to fight off commoditisation. Within 5 years, a large number of cameras will enter the market with at least basic VCA functionality."