Sony Security and Envysion collaborate to offer movie theaters video-based business intelligence

The solution fuses Sony' surveillance cameras and video analytics with Envysion's MVaaS technology

Sony Security Systems Division and Envysion, the leading Managed Video as a Service (MVaaS) provider, are teaming to provide video?based business intelligence services to movie theaters. This joint solution combines Sony's industry-leading lineup of surveillance cameras and video analytics with Envysion's best-in-class MVaaS technology to deliver instant and actionable business insights to a theater's loss prevention, operations, marketing and human resources groups, without straining the IT department or network.

Envysion integrates video from Sony's leading suite of cameras with an organisation's business systems, such as point of sale. This gives theater operators the unfiltered, visual context behind every transaction and customer interaction. Armed with this information, users in every department of a cinema can identify new ways to improve theater-level operating procedures, marketing promotions, employee training, loss prevention investigations and other operating processes, which can in turn lead to profit maximisation. The resulting enterprise solution transforms video surveillance from a niche security application into a strategic management tool that can contribute to improvement of a theater's bottom line.

Sony: Serving Up Solutions

This cinema initiative is the first result of the joint Sony/Envysion effort announced last spring and reflects Sony's focus on delivering end?to?end solutions that leverage Sony's security products for vertical markets.

"The movie theater industry is a perfect fit for this technology application," said Mark Collett General Manager, Sony Security Systems Division. "Our expertise as a pioneer in 4K digital cinema projection technology, combined with our more than 20 years in the video surveillance industry, makes this joint solution with Envysion a natural extension of Sony's digital cinema offerings, and can also be tailored to other applications."

"This solution can help movie theaters leverage powerful video-based intelligence across the entire organisation to gain a complete understanding of theater-level issues impacting the bottom line," added Gary Johns , senior vice president of Sony's Digital Cinema Solutions Group. "As a result, what were once expenditures for security video can become a valuable investment in a strategic business initiative."

Envysion: Turning Security Costs into High Return Investments

"We are excited to announce our first joint solution with Sony," said Matt Steinfort, president and CEO of Envysion. "This initiative will accelerate our ability to help the theater industry achieve demonstrable profit impact similar to that realised by other Envysion customers, such as Cinemark USA and Chipotle Mexican Grill. Our easy-to-use, scalable MVaaS solution makes video a cross functional tool that empowers every user to drive improvements in his or her area of responsibility. Theater managers can increase gross sales by ensuring an accurate mix of full price and discount tickets, loss prevention teams can cut down on the cost of concessions sold by reducing shrink and HR can increase productivity by identifying employees with common traits, including excessive ticket voids or above average transaction times, which indicate the need for additional training. "

Steinfort is confident that that Envysion's MVaaS represents a market disruption that, when fully realised, will fundamentally alter the video surveillance marketplace. He adds that Envysion's software as a service approach enables rapid innovation cycles and the ability to create and deploy impactful video solutions that capitalise on Sony's advanced technologies at a pace that traditional video providers cannot match. As the larger MVaaS industry emerges, video surveillance will be recognised as a truly enterprise tool in which security applications will be seen as one specific component.