Scotland Science Center’s Surveillance Transformed By IP Video Technology

  • Sep 03, 2009

The Glasgow Science Center, one of Scotland’s premier visitor attractions, has upgraded its aging analog/VCR CCTV system with IndigoVision’s complete end-to-end IP video solution. The 49 camera system, which was installed by IndigoVision’s local partner SCS Security Design, has transformed the center’s surveillance operation.

“Glasgow Science Center has seen a considerable improvement in operational efficiency since installing IndigoVision's CCTV system,” said Steve Ross, the center’s exhibition and technical services manager. “This has greatly assisted with several security issues that have occurred since the new system was installed.”

At the heart of the Glasgow Science Center is the Science Mall, a gleaming titanium crescent overlooking the River Clyde, which has three floors packed with hundreds of interactive exhibits. Next to the Science Mall is the 127 meter high Glasgow Tower, which is the only building in the world capable of turning 360 degrees into the prevailing wind. The aerodynamic structure allows the entire building to be turned to face the wind, thus reducing wind resistance and enabling its slender design.

The original analog system used VCRs for recording CCTV footage. As with the majority of VCR-based systems it was a major overhead for the security staff to continually rotate tapes and access recorded footage.

IndigoVision’s system now provides the Center with a CCTV solution that provides high-quality video that is recorded onto NVRs. Using ‘Control Center’, IndigoVision’s Security Management Software, operators can view live video and quickly search and analyze recorded footage from the NVRs.

In the event of an incident, evidential quality video clips can be exported for use by the police. Four of IndigoVision’s fault-tolerant stand-alone NVRs, with a total of 6 Terabytes of storage, record all cameras continuously at 25 fps for 31 days.

IndigoVision’s compression technology means that DVD-quality video can be transmitted across standard IP networks with minimum impact on bandwidth. This enabled the Science Center to install the complete IP Video system on their existing LAN, sharing network capacity with other IT services.

The Center is also using a unique feature of IndigoVision’s IP-CCTV system to further reduce bandwidth usage. Activity Controlled Framerate (ACF) is built into IndigoVision’s transmitter modules and controls the amount of video that is transmitted on to the network.

When the camera scene is inactive, the framerate is reduced; as soon as any motion is detected the framerate is instantly set to maximum. Integrated real-time features such as ACF and analytics that operate at the network edge can only be fully realized because IndigoVision’s system is a complete end-to-end solution, with all components designed by IndigoVision. This ensures maximum performance in any environment. The Science Center is investigating the use of analytics functions such as ‘counterflow’ to monitor their queuing system and ‘museum mode’ to detect left luggage and illegal parking.

The distributed nature of the system means that additional components such as cameras and monitoring workstations can easily be added to any point on the network as the system expands. There are currently plans to add an additional 25 cameras to the system.

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