Remote monitoring system and method

摘要

The present invention concerns a remote monitoring system and method. In the monitoring terminal unit 10, a TV camera 11 pictures a monitoring object and a sensor 18 watches for any abnormality in the monitoring object. The monitoring images from the TV camera 11 is encoded in the resolution set in an encoder 12. The encoded image data is continuously written in an image storage 14 in a cyclic way. In addition, real-time images pictured by the TV camera or stored images are transmitted to the monitoring central unit 20 via connection control unit 132 only when an abnormality is detected. The monitoring central unit 20 displays on the monitor 27 the images thus sent in. In that remote monitoring system, the resolution to give to the image encoder 12 is fixed at a constant value in the normal state and is raised to a higher value than normal in case of abnormality. That permits watching the monitoring object in a high resolution.