Reference20 termsUpdated October 2026
Video monitoring glossary
Twenty terms you will hear when you shop for remote video monitoring, in plain English.
A
- Access profile
- The list of people, vendors and time windows approved for a site. Operators check activity against it.
- Audio talk-down
- A live verbal warning delivered by an operator through speakers on the property.
C
- Cellular-connected
- A camera unit that sends video over the mobile network and needs no wired internet.
E
- Edge intelligence
- Processing that happens inside the camera itself, such as checking object size and loiter time.
- Escalation path
- The order of actions and phone calls an operator follows when an event is verified.
- Event
- Any activity on camera that passes initial thresholds and is evaluated further.
- Event cap
- A monthly limit some providers place on the number of events they will process. VDS has none.
F
- False positive
- An alert caused by something harmless, such as weather or headlights. Also called a nuisance alarm.
- Forensic video search
- Reviewing recorded footage to find and pull the moments relevant to an incident.
H
- Human-verified
- Monitoring in which a trained person reviews an event before a response is made.
- Hybrid monitoring
- A combination of automated filtering and live human operators.
I
- Incident report
- A written record of a security incident and the response to it, supported by video.
- IP camera
- A camera that sends video over a data network instead of analog coax cable.
L
- Loiter time
- How long an object stays in view. Used as a threshold to ignore brief motion.
N
- Nuisance alarm
- An alert triggered by light flicker, weather or other ambient motion.
O
- ONVIF
- An open industry standard that lets IP security devices from different manufacturers work together.
P
- PTZ camera
- A pan, tilt and zoom camera that can be steered remotely.
R
- Rapid deployment unit
- A self-powered, mobile camera system that can be placed quickly on a site with no infrastructure.
S
- Site protocol
- The custom set of rules for a property: who is approved, when, and how the operator responds.
V
- Virtual guard escort
- A live operator following a person on camera as they move through a property after hours.
No terms match that search.
