1. An image processing system comprising: an infrared camera; one or more memory units; and one or more processing units operable to: receive, from the camera, a video signal comprising data for one or more images; determine a region of interest in a particular image of the one or more images; and transmit, to the camera, a control signal instructing the camera to generate a peripheral region of one or more subsequent images with a reduced information intensity level relative to an information intensity level with which a region of interest of the one or more subsequent images are generated, the region of interest of the one or more subsequent images corresponding to the region of interest of the particular image, the peripheral region comprising portions of the subsequent one or more images other than the region of interest, the peripheral region comprising a plurality of rows, wherein the camera comprises a focal plane array device operable to generate the video signal by scanning light representing the one or more images, the focal plane array device generating the peripheral region of the one or more subsequent images with reduced information intensity level by scanning fewer than all of the rows of the peripheral region of the one or more subsequent images, wherein the one or more processing units comprise an image processor, the image processor being a distributed processor comprising a plurality of processors; wherein a first component of the image processing system is connected to a second component of the image processing system via a network, wherein the network comprises a LAN and is configured to communicate data packets of a kind selected from the group consisting of IP packets, Frame Relay frames, and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) cells, wherein the image processing system further comprises a display connected to the image processor, and wherein the image processing system is configured to selectively turn off the focal plane array device while scanning in the peripheral region.