METHOD AND APPARATUS TO SELECT THE BEST VIDEO FRAME TO TRANSMIT TO A REMOTE STATION FOR CCTV BASED RESIDENTIAL SECURITY MONITORING

A security monitoring system including: an alarm system having detectors for detection of an alarm in a structure; at least one camera for capturing image data inside and/or outside the structure; a processor for selecting a subset of the image data upon the occurrence of the alarm based on a predetermined criteria; and a modem for transmitting the subset of image data to a remote location. The processor ranks each video frame from the image data according to how well each video frame meets the predetermined criteria and the modem transmits a predetermined number of video frames having the best rank to the remote location.