SIA New Member Profile: TotalMedia

New Security Industry Association (SIA) member TotalMedia is a U.S. company with more than 20 years of experience in video codecs and compression technologies. Headquartered in Milpitas, California, with an East Coast office in Toronto, Canada, the company supports customers across North America from west to east.

SIA spoke with William Wong, general manager at TotalMedia, about the company, the security industry and working with SIA.

Tell us the story of your company.

William Wong: TotalMedia was founded in Silicon Valley with a clear mission: to pioneer advanced video processing, artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing solutions for a data-driven world. As video became the primary source of digital information across industries like professional broadcasting, streaming media and automotive tech, we witnessed organizations facing massive, systemic challenges with bandwidth, storage and latency.

This deep expertise naturally drew TotalMedia into the security industry. As the physical security landscape shifted toward AI-powered cameras, remote monitoring and cloud-based platforms, traditional video transmission became cost-prohibitive—especially over constrained LTE, 5G and satellite networks. We stepped in to solve this exact dilemma, engineering an intelligent edge AI compression platform that drastically reduces network bandwidth without sacrificing the image clarity required for human monitoring or precise AI analytics. Today, we are proud to partner with system integrators, monitoring centers and security solution providers to make remote surveillance scalable, affordable and AI-ready worldwide.

TotalMedia is proudly headquartered in Milpitas, California, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. While our primary executive leadership, engineering and product management teams are rooted in this premier technology hub, our operations are backed by robust global research and development resources, allowing us to continuously pioneer and deliver cutting-edge edge AI and video optimization technologies.

From our Silicon Valley base, we actively collaborate with partners throughout North America while engineering solutions built for global deployment. Our architecture is designed to scale across a diverse range of demanding international environments, supporting system integrators and enterprise security leaders in sectors such as commercial operations, industrial Internet of Things public safety, transportation network monitoring, construction site surveillance, critical infrastructure protection and smart city applications.

What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?

WW: TotalMedia delivers a comprehensive video management as a service (VMaaS) platform built specifically for remote, distributed, and bandwidth-constrained surveillance environments. Our core architecture, TotalMedia Aware, integrates edge intelligence and ultra-efficient processing into three core offerings:  

• Aware Core (AI video compression and detection): Slashes uplink video data load and cellular network costs over LTE, 5G, Starlink and satellite connections by up to 80–90%. It compresses high-resolution streams at the edge while fully preserving image integrity for human verification, and runs real-time edge AI analytics to filter out routine activity and surface critical security threats.  
• Aware Vault (intelligence recording and storage): An edge-based network video recorder solution designed to optimize storage workloads locally, ensuring smooth playback and reliable video recording capture even under heavy site constraints.  
• Aware Control (Centralized VMS): A unified cloud video management system (VMS) layer that simplifies day-to-day operations by providing remote visibility, cross-site live viewing, alert management, and automated device health monitoring across a user’s entire fleet.  

What sets TotalMedia apart is our ability to deliver a rare trifecta to the security market: dramatic cost reduction, enhanced intelligence and infrastructure preservation. While traditional edge upgrades require expensive rip-and-replace hardware deployments or cost-prohibitive data overhauls, our Aware platform integrates seamlessly with existing cameras and network links.

By pushing intelligence to the edge, we turn hardware limitations into operational advantages. We help security providers, system integrators and mobile trailer operators eliminate thousands of false alerts and drastically lower their cellular burdens—allowing them to deploy smarter, highly scalable remote security infrastructure anywhere in the world.    

What is something we might not know about your company—or something new you are doing in security?

WW: What many people don’t know about TotalMedia is that we specialize in solving the toughest network constraints in physical security. While the industry builds increasingly high-resolution cameras, remote sites like mobile surveillance trailers, construction projects and distant infrastructure facilities often struggle to transmit that heavy video data over cellular or satellite links.

To fix this, we’ve introduced advanced perceptual video compression to the edge through our TotalMedia Aware platform. Our software intelligently analyzes video streams in real time, separating routine background pixels from critical target events. It compresses the rest of the stream aggressively while locking in pristine clarity for security-relevant details like faces, human forms and license plates. The result is a game-changer for distributed systems: security leaders no longer have to choose between exorbitant data bills or low-resolution video. We make full-scale, AI-driven remote surveillance economically viable anywhere on the map.

What is your company’s vision, and what are your goals for the security industry?

WW: At TotalMedia, our vision is to establish the industry’s premier intelligent video optimization ecosystem. We believe that network limitations should never compromise safety. Our goal is to empower every surveillance system—no matter how remote or distributed—to transmit pristine, high-resolution video using a fraction of the bandwidth traditionally required.

By breaking down infrastructure and cellular cost barriers, we aim to make high-tier, AI-powered security infrastructure accessible, affordable and highly scalable for the entire SIA community. We are dedicated to providing the essential enablement layer that helps system integrators deploy more competitive remote solutions, allows central monitoring hubs to eliminate costly data overhead and empowers enterprise operations to expand their security footprint without constraint.

What do you think are the biggest opportunities in the security industry right now?

WW: The physical security sector is standing at the intersection of a massive technological shift. The rapid convergence of AI, cloud architecture, edge computing and next-generation connectivity is completely transforming what is possible in remote surveillance.

The biggest opportunity right now lies in bridging the gap between advanced video intelligence and infrastructure limitations. As camera counts continue to grow exponentially, the market is aggressively seeking solutions that reduce staggering data and operational costs without sacrificing situational awareness.

For system integrators, this shift presents an opportunity to deploy high-tier, multi-camera remote arrays that were previously cost-prohibitive. For central monitoring hubs and enterprise operations, technologies like intelligent edge video compression and hybrid cloud architectures unlock the ability to scale their oversight effortlessly over cellular, Starlink and satellite links. The companies that can deliver seamless, infrastructure-preserving edge intelligence are the ones that will define the next decade of physical security.

What are your predictions for the security industry in the short and long term?

WW: We expect a massive acceleration in the adoption of edge AI and cloud-managed surveillance infrastructure. The primary market driver will be operational efficiency: organizations are aggressively demanding faster plug-and-play deployments and lower recurring network overhead.

For system integrators, this means a shift away from complex, on-premises configurations toward agile, edge-heavy architectures. Central monitoring hubs will increasingly rely on edge-filtering technologies to manage the influx of high-resolution data streams without causing bandwidth bottlenecks or skyrocketing cellular bills.

What are the biggest challenges facing your company and/or others in the security industry?

WW: One of the industry’s biggest challenges is managing the explosive growth in video data. Higher camera resolutions and expanding AI applications continue to increase storage, networking and cellular transmission costs.

The industry also faces integration challenges as organizations seek solutions that work seamlessly with their existing cameras, VMS platforms and monitoring centers.

What do you most enjoy about working at your company—and in the security industry?

WW: We enjoy helping customers solve real operational challenges through innovation. Seeing customers reduce costs, improve security operations and successfully deploy AI technologies at scale is extremely rewarding.

Our team is passionate about collaborating with partners across the security ecosystem to develop technologies that make surveillance smarter, more efficient and more accessible.

What does SIA offer that is most important to you/your company, and what do you most hope to get out of your membership with SIA?

WW: SIA provides an exceptional platform for collaboration, education, and innovation across the global security industry. We value the opportunity to engage with manufacturers, system integrators, monitoring providers, consultants and technology leaders who are shaping the future of physical security.

Through our membership, we hope to build strategic partnerships, contribute our expertise in AI video compression and edge AI, participate in industry initiatives, and help advance technologies that improve security while reducing deployment costs.

How does your organization engage with SIA? What are your plans for involvement in the next year?

WW: As a new SIA member, TotalMedia plans to actively participate in SIA’s premier events, education programs and specialized technology committees over the coming year. We are eager to leverage SIA’s extensive research, market intelligence and training resources to ensure our team stays aligned with the latest compliance frameworks and industry best practices.

We look forward to collaborating closely with fellow members to drive innovation in emerging fields like edge AI, perceptual video analytics and secure hybrid cloud surveillance architecture. TotalMedia is highly focused on supporting industry interoperability standards and contributing to the technical advancements that protect distributed networks.

Over the next year, we plan to actively give back to the SIA community by sharing our deep domain expertise. We look forward to contributing thought leadership through technical presentations, joint case studies and educational content designed to help system integrators, monitoring hubs and enterprise security leaders unlock the full operational potential of their remote video networks.

The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association.