EXPLANATION
At the most basic level, most video surveillance cameras and recorders
use pixel changes to determine if motion is occurring in the image,
usually by the percentage they change and/or amount of contrast change.
Thermal imaging is a small percentage of use and in most cases it's not
the detection of heat being used, but again the pixel changes in the
image that is used. Video Analytics is an advanced form of motion
detection that not only detects pixel changes, but also analyzes those
shapes to intelligently determine for example if it is a person in the
scene vs. a car, animal or bush swaying in the wind, but comes at a
premium price, usually as a license fee or if embedded in the
camera, then at a premium price attached to the camera, and is not the
prevalent form of video motion detection used since it does not come
free or at a cheap price with systems sold. Passive
infrared (PIR) sensors are common in security, but they have nothing to
do with the image the camera sees. Even with cameras that have built in
PIR sensors, the sensor detects infrared energy but has nothing to do
with analyzing the image.
Video Motion Detection
http://www.cctv-information.co.uk/i/Video_Motion_Detection
Home
Eye on Video: Pixel-based intelligent video
http://www.securityinfowatch.com/article/10547228/eye-on-video-pixel-based-intelligent-video
Video content analysis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_content_analysis
Sony Intelligence Video Analytics - Distributed Enhanced Processing Architecture (DEPA)
http://images.synnex.com/images_ca/images/communities/technology_solutions/images/vendors/documents/...
Patent
US 8571261 B:System and method for motion detection in a surveillance video
US 8571261 B2
https://www.google.com/patents/US8571261
Passive infrared sensor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_infrared_sensor