Extra Eyes
Web-based video surveillance systems have multiple uses in today’s industry.
 
Video security services have been available to quick-service operations for years. Initially, managers could pair the cameras with a clunky VCR to provide a reliable record of what was recorded when no one was watching the monitors. With the advent of digital video recorders (DVR), the process of searching and storing videos became more efficient and faster.

But as restaurant managers realize that the power of the Internet can be combined with video surveillance, cameras in the kitchen and dining room not only become easier to access, but the potential role they play can change dramatically.

In June Chipotle announced that it was partnering with digital video provider Envysion to equip all of its 600-plus stores with the Envysion Video system, which allows managers to access live and recorded video via a hosted Web-based application.

Envysion President and COO Matt Steinfort says Chipotle chose to switch from the previously cutting-edge VCR and DVR system in their stores because they saw new viability in accessing video from the Web.

“Chipotle had video in a large number of stores, some of which were VCR and some DVR, which used to be leading edge. What they found was it didn’t enable them to do what they wanted to do,” he says.

EYESthere, a Dallas-based digital video franchisee, specializes in providing cameras and Web-connected DVRs to regional quick-service and fast-casual restaurants. Vice President of Research and Development Randy Andrews says that the company’s customers saw remote Web access to digital video as a way to multiply its effectiveness.

 Envysion and EYESthere say their customers see a key advantage to Web-based video: instead of using video solely for loss-prevention and security, restaurant managers now use ubiquitous camera access to train and reward employees, assist the marketing department, and monitor basic operations.

Andrews’s customers are using Web-based digital video, as his company name suggests, to see almost everything that is happening in the restaurant when they aren’t around. And managers don’t necessarily use it to punish employees, either.

“We specialize in chain accounts, and we have a chain where there is one manager per eight stores,” Andrews says. “This client doesn’t go to every store every day. Once a week they will go down a checklist and review employees, the state of the facility, traffic patterns—a whole bunch of things. They very often reward employees for doing an excellent job,” he says.

Digital video is now an empowering productivity tool, Andrews adds.

At Envysion, the extensive telecommunications experience “from the chairman on down” helped guide the vision and business plan for providing a secure Web-based system that allows anyone in the restaurant management team to see what is going on in the stores.

Steinfort says it was difficult for the company to manage about 600 video systems and to give relevant company officials access to the system.

Valuable information available in stored digital video concerning a store’s operations and consumers’ behaviors was largely lost, he says, when the video was stored in individual DVRs.

“With most businesses there is one IT person who knows what to do, and you ask them for [the video],” Steinfort adds. “[Companies] struggle through the interface.”

Steinfort provided QSR with a live demo of the Envysion system. The Web-portal window displays video in the center and a section on the left with a pull down menu allows the user to monitor any number of cameras, not unlike browsing file folders in Windows.

Video in the demonstration showed the recorded video of the action behind the POS system at a Chipotle restaurant. With a click, the video switched to what was happening behind the food counter. A fairly simple search tool allowed Steinfort to find recorded video for certain POS actions, like voids or particular menu purchases.

Aside from allowing managers to see if employees are misusing the POS to steal from the restaurant, the search tool can allow marketing professionals to see who is buying new menu items and if employees are making it properly or efficiently.

This Web-only approach differs significantly from how EYESthere operates its digital video service. Andrews says that EYESthere sets up clients with a Web-connected DVR, but does not require clients to access their video via a Web portal. The EYESthere system can access up to 500 DVRs and 96 camera views at once, Andrews says.

“We allow clients to interact directly with their DVR via a Web browser,” Andrews says. “The vast majority just interface with the DVR independent of us.

 “EYESthere also can set up a centralized management system for a chain that is “customizable to the Nth degree based on customer needs,” Andrews says.

Andrews takes issue with the Web-portal-only method. “I think folks who are trying to force people to work through a Web portal and charge them for that ... I think that’s a scary trend, in that when folks really figure out that they can interface directly its going to be difficult for them to explain themselves.”

Harris Douglas, national sales manager for privately owned DVR manufacturer Odyssey Technologies, says that one consideration when using digital video is that it must be encrypted if a restaurant needs to use video in court to prove a crime was committed or to defeat a phony slip-and-fall lawsuit.

His company, which offers the traditional DVR and camera service to mostly quick-service clients, puts a watermark on its videos that proves that the video has not been edited. “We have a secure remote software. If you need to download a clip and save it to a CD, it is court permissible. Video from [Internet Explorer] is not,” he says. “Any college geek can manipulate pictures.”

Steinfort had a mixed response to the question of encrypting video for use in court proceedings. “What we’ve found is that the need for that encryption is not really uniform. Some district attorneys will say that it’s more a chain of evidence that is important, but [encryption] is something we see on our road map,” he says.