WatchGuard Video announced today the release of a new server-based digital video evidence management system called Critical Event Server (CES). It’s part of the new WatchGuard DVD Hybrid In-Car Video Solution. The Hybrid Solution combines the efficiency of a direct to DVD video system with the instant access and data management of a server system.

Designed exclusively around the company’s industry leading DVD-video based in-car video system, the WatchGuard DV-1, CES offers the ability for law enforcement agencies to upload video and metadata to a centralized server system providing convenient video search and retrieval, review, data analysis, physical inventory tracking, and report generation.

What makes Critical Event Server different from any other server-based system is that it only automatically uploads the video files from recordings that are considered “critical” based on the event type classification, but uploads all of the metadata from every recording. Routine video events remain stored on the original DVD. As a result, the size and cost of the CES server hardware is a fraction of the size and cost of conventional server approaches, while still providing full featured search and reporting on every recorded event even if the video files were classified as routine and are retained only on the original DVD.

“WatchGuard’s Hybrid Solution records all video events onto playable DVDs in the car, which happens to be the ideal media format for longterm, low-cost data storage”, said Robert Vanman, president and CEO of WatchGuard Video. “Since storing data on server computers is often 15 times more expensive than DVD storage, the Hybrid Solution reserves the expensive media (the server computer) exclusively for the video events that will benefit from dynamic storage. This selective approach is far more cost effective than uploading everything onto huge server computers and later copying data onto DVDs for long term storage. The Hybrid solution is unique to WatchGuard Video and the approach only works when your video recordings originate from a DVD.”

In addition to being the industry’s first Hybrid solution, CES is the first practical server-based solution for large law enforcement agencies. In the past, it has been logistically impractical (and cost prohibitive) to implement a server-based solution to large agencies due to the overwhelming amount of data that must be transported and stored. CES solves this problem by eliminating the need to upload all but critical video files.