Let the Games Begin

The 2010 Alltech World Equestrian Games will be one of the world’s most technologically advanced security deployments

• By Sherleen Mahoney
• Sep 01, 2010

For the first time in history, the World Equestrian Games leaves Europe and comes to the United States, where, also for the first time, all eight disciplines will be held at one location: the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Ky., a 1,200-acre working horse farm, theme park and equine competition center. This year, the World Equestrian Games has a title sponsor, Alltech, an animal health and nutrition group.

From Sept. 25 to Oct. 10, 2010, more than 900 of the most skilled horses and 800 top riders, representing more than 60 countries, will compete for the world championship in eight equestrian sports: dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, jumping, para dressage, reining and vaulting. The games are held every four years and are governed by the Fédération Equestre Internationale.

The event attracts approximately 500 million television viewers from around the world, and the Kentucky Horse Park will welcome more than a half a million guests.

For such a momentous event, the Fédération Equestre Internationale and the Kentucky Horse Park left nothing to chance. The safety and security of the games were top of mind.

Off to the Races
When the Kentucky Horse Park was selected to host the 2010 games, officials at FEI and the Kentucky Horse Park approached EMC’s John McKenzie, business development manager for EMC Physical Security, for a solution. EMC is the official provider of security solutions for the state of Kentucky. McKenzie met with Kevin Tyo, president and owner of Event Security Consulting and Operations, who was hired by FEI to be in charge of security.

After presenting EMC’s offerings and ideas, Tyo hired the company as the solutions provider for the games. EMC was tasked with providing general surveillance and protection for the attendees, equines and athletes. The security system must provide physical surveillance of the land, crowd control and monitoring at access and moneyexchange points, as well as equine protection at the stables and the warm-up and competition areas.

The solution also will extend to many venues within the park, including a new indoor arena and an outdoor stadium, a covered arena and the Equine Village, an area that will feature equine celebrities, performers and clinicians.

Sophisticated temporary structures will be erected for hospitality services, the media, sponsor showrooms, volunteers, veterinary clinics and special attractions, including the Grooms Village, Trade Show Village, the Alltech Experience and the Kentucky Experience. These structures require monitoring as well.

The Players
EMC chose high-resolution, IP, minidome cameras from Verint, and 3- and 5-megapixel day/night cameras from Arecont.

Several Arecont Vision AV5105DN H.264 5-megapixel day/night IP network surveillance cameras will be installed throughout the park. The cameras maintain full-motion progressive- scan 280x1024 video at 30 fps, 1600x1200 at 24 fps, 2048x1536 at 15 fps and 2592x1944 at 9 fps. With MegaVideo technology, the cameras can output multiple image formats, allowing the simultaneous viewing of the full-resolution field of view and regions of interest for high-definition forensic zooming.

“Arecont Vision frequently works with EMC on many large-scale projects that require megapixel imaging,” said Raul Calderon, vice president of marketing at Arecont Vision. “When EMC asked if we wanted to join them as solutions sponsors for the WEG, we thought it was a great way to showcase our joint-solutions capabilities. Together with EMC, Orion, Theia Technologies and Verint, we at Arecont Vision are proud to be one of the technology sponsors for the games.”

For wide-area coverage, EMC partnered with Theia Technologies for their unique SY125M ultra-wide-angle lenses, which enhance the capability of megapixel cameras by providing a 135-degree field of view, along with digital and horizontal correction, which does away with fisheye distortion.

Twenty SY125M lenses will be outfitted on the Arecont AV5105 DN cameras that will monitor high-security areas. Patented Linear Optical Technology provides real-time distortion correction that eliminates fisheye distortion without the use of software and provides increased resolution at image edges, improving the ability to recognize subjects.

“Theia is proud to team with industry leaders EMC Physical Security, Arecont Vision, Verint and Orion to be a part of the video surveillance solution for the World Equestrian Games,” said Jeff Gohman, president and co-founder of Theia Technologies. “Theia lenses, in conjunction with the other sponsors’ world-class video surveillance products and services, will provide the immediate, undistorted, clear images needed to ensure the security of World Equestrian Games participants and spectators.”

Verint is supplying several Nextiva S2700e cameras, S1816e video encoders and S4300-BR wireless bridges.

The Nextiva S2700e high-resolution, IP mini-dome cameras use a CCD sensor for high-quality images with a horizontal resolution of 540 TV lines. Designed for both color and day-to-night use, the cameras deliver dual-stream, DVD-quality video at 4 CIF/30 fps.

Low 0.4 lux sensitivity produces clear, crisp images, even in poor lighting conditions.

In low lighting conditions, the cameras automatically adjust to blackand- white mode for optimal image clarity. Auto-iris technology automatically adjusts the amount of light that reaches the image sensors, optimizing image quality in a variety of lighting conditions.

The S1816e 16-port video encoders deliver up to 4 CIF/15 fps on every port -- with the bitrate of H.264 video encoding technology, reducing bandwidth and storage utilization up to 50 percent over MPEG-4. The S1816e-SP features onboard motion detection, camera tampering detection and storage on the edge -- a failover mechanism that ensures video is recorded if connection with management software is lost.

The S4300-BR wireless bridges are designed to transfer video images between two LANs when a wired connection is not available, or to transmit video from IP cameras.

The bridges can be deployed in either point-to-point or point-to-multipoint outdoor applications. The devices transmit video over the license-free 2.4 or 5 GHz wireless band or the licensed 4.9 GHz U.S. or Canada public safety band. A built-in, multi-band antenna lets users switch wireless frequencies by reconfiguring the software, rather than replacing the entire unit.

“Covering the 1,224-acre Kentucky Horse Park would have been very difficult without the use of our wireless bridges,” said Courtney Jaret, marketing director of video intelligence solutions for Verint Systems. “Being able to work in the licensed municipal 4.9 GHz frequency bands lets us avoid problems with what will certainly be a busy and unregulated wireless environment during the games.”

A dedicated security network, based on a fiber backbone, was installed to handle access control, intrusion detection and video surveillance. All the video will feed back to IP-based, off-theshelf servers running on the Nextiva video management platform, which allows for extreme flexibility and scalability for camera count, configuration and video management. The video streams are saved, archived and managed on an EMC Clarion storage-area network.

This storage platform provides efficient and quick response for data processing that exceeds the games’ need for video management and security.

“Verint is pleased to partner with Arecont Vision, as well as EMC, Orion and Theia Technologies, at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games,” said Elan Moriah, president of Verint Video Intelligence Solutions and Verint Witness Actionable Solutions. “We’re honored to take part in this historic event, leveraging our world-class networked IP video solutions to enhance awareness, and the security of athletes and attendees.”

Corralling the Team
The entire solution was designed, configured and installed by Orion Systems, the current system integrator for EMC Security Systems for projects throughout the nation.

“Orion Systems Group is pleased to be part of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games Security Solutions Team,” said Paul Garver, president of Orion Systems Group. “Our team will be showcasing the latest best-in-class advancements in technology with Arecont Vision’s megapixel cameras, Theia’s ultra-wide megapixel lenses, EMC storage and Verint’s enterprise IP video management software on an international stage. The venue for the World Equestrian Games is more than 1,200 acres and presents numerous design and deployment challenges that will allow Orion Systems Group to highlight the best practices and technologies that must be leveraged to successfully deploy and operate an enterprise-class surveillance system across a large geographic area -- with little or no existing network infrastructure.”

Orion Systems Group will be onsite during the entire event, along with Verint field engineers, to manage and maintain the integrity of the system.

Last-minute Surprises
As with any high-profile, large-scale project, changes and adjustments are inevitable, and the security solution must be flexible and scalable enough to implement the changes quickly and easily.

As the games draw near, the security providers have been forewarned by FEI to expect last-minute integration requests and adjustments from federal law enforcement.

So far, FEI officials have been extremely pleased by how EMC handles work-order changes. To date, all changes have been completed without buying new equipment. EMC simply advised Orion on what the client needed, and Orion was able to make simple programming changes to achieve the desired result.

“They bring change orders to me and expect me to say, ‘OK, that’s going to cost $10,000 for this equipment’; but I just tell Orion what they need, and they can make programming changes to satisfy the client’s need,” McKenzie said.

Betting on Success
With the historic decision to let the United States host this year’s games, the organizers have entrusted the security providers with ensuring the games’ success and the nation’s reputation. As such, more than $1 million worth of security products will be deployed for the games.

“The contribution EMC is making toward the 2010 Games will not only make the games safe and successful for all visitors, but also has potential to enhance the Kentucky Horse Park as a world-class facility,” said Jamie Link, CEO of the World Games 2010 Foundation.

EMC partners with top vendors to provide best-of-breed solutions. McKenzie said EMC chose Verint for their products’ ease of use and flexibility; Arecont because their price points and performance exceeded their competitors; Theia for their unique lenses; and Orion because they are a trusted partner that understands Kentucky.

“As the second largest event to take place in North America -- other than the Olympics -- we are excited to be the official physical security solutions provider for the World Equestrian Games,” said Dick O’Leary, senior director of EMC’s Global Solutions. “The sheer size and scope of the event highlight the need for organizations to quickly analyze and respond to the vast amounts of captured security data. Working with Arecont Vision, Orion, Theia and Verint, we will provide the World Equestrian Games with the most comprehensive security solution across a wide campus so their security experts can make better and quicker decisions to ensure the safety and protection of all spectators and participants.”

This article originally appeared in the issue of .