They Deleted 93% of Their Evidence
A major U.S. city had 14,847 cameras. After 7 days, the video got deleted - not because they wanted to, but because storing 4.7 petabytes per month at cloud rates would bankrupt the department. Detectives learned to solve cases fast or not at all.
Evidence boundaryHistorical case-specific report. Figures describe the deployment documented at the time and are not current universal product guarantees.
Client
Major U.S. City (Top 10 by Population)
Industry
Public Sector - Smart Cities
Use Case
Edge Video Analytics & Public Safety
Products
Timeline
Pilot in 8 weeks, full rollout in 5 months
ROI
9-month payback on infrastructure investment
/ Challenge
The Challenge
The city's police commander had a problem. Every week, detectives asked for footage from 8 days ago. Every week, IT had to explain it was already gone. The 7-day retention limit wasn't a policy choice - it was a budget reality. Cloud storage for 4.7PB/month would cost more than the entire IT budget.
14,847 cameras generating 4.7 petabytes of video per month
7-day retention limit - cases older than a week had no video evidence
Detectives spent 3 days average scrubbing through raw footage
18 operators watching feeds 24/7 - couldn't keep up, missed incidents
No way to search footage - you had to watch the whole thing
Cloud vendors quoted $4.3M/month for video analytics - more than IT's annual budget
/ Solution
The Solution
We put the analysis near the cameras - at local points of presence like substations and network hubs. Each location runs ML models that index what's happening across nearby cameras - person, vehicle, event type, timestamp. Raw video stays on cheap local storage. Only the index and flagged clips go to the cloud. A 4.7PB problem became a 47GB problem.
Local Point-of-Presence Indexing
Each location runs object detection and event classification for nearby cameras. Instead of storing 4.7PB of raw video in the cloud, we store 47GB of metadata and 230GB of flagged clips. That's a 99.4% reduction.
Searchable Everything
Detective needs 'red sedan, Tuesday 2-4pm, near intersection X'? Search returns 47 clips in 3 seconds. Old way: watch 48 hours of footage from 6 cameras.
Local Long-Term Storage
Raw video stays on local NAS at each camera cluster. Cost: $0.003/GB/month vs $0.023 for S3. We went from 7-day retention to 5 years for less money.
/ Results
The Results
The police commander stopped getting complaints about missing footage. Detectives went from 3 days of video scrubbing to 4 hours of targeted review. The 18 operators now focus on alerts instead of watching feeds. And the budget actually went down.
99.4%
Data Reduction
5 years
Video Retention
4 hrs
Investigation Time
$2.1M
Annual Savings
Video retention extended from 7 days to 5 years
Investigation video review dropped from 3 days to 4 hours
Cloud data costs dropped from projected $4.3M to $230K annually
18 operators now handle 3x the alert volume through automation
Case clearance rate improved 23% in first year
Search results return in 3 seconds across 5 years of footage
Pilot validated in 8 weeks with 847 cameras, full rollout in 5 months
/ Explore Related Solutions
/ What's next
Deleting footage you might need?
If your retention limits are budget-driven, not policy-driven, we should talk. We've deployed at cities, campuses, and transit systems.
/ Typical engagement
30 days
Free assessment
90 days
Optional pilot
Measured
Baseline vs. after
