London Borough Migrates To IP CCTV Solution
IP video technology has been chosen by the London Borough of Newham, UK to replace its aging VCR recording system and to provide a platform for future migration to a total IP CCTV solution.
Like many other inner city areas Newham Council face a complex security environment, including anti-social behavior, drugs, criminal activity and traffic issues. High-quality CCTV images are fundamental for both the council and the police to manage this environment and to ensure public safety.
Following a competitive analysis of IP video systems, IndigoVision was chosen to provide NVRs to replace the existing VCRs as part of a phased project starting with the 200 camera system in North Woolwich. As budgets become available Newham Council want to replace all of the existing video recording with IndigoVision NVRs for more than 800 cameras.
“The flexibility of configuration, particularly with multi-casting, superior image quality, analytics and compression technology were all reasons why IndigoVision came out ahead in our evaluation of competing systems,” said Garry Hobbs, principal electrical services engineer with Newham Council. “However, it was not just the technology that impressed us but also the company’s commitment to continued technical development and hands-on approach to working with the Council.”
Ten fault-tolerant standalone NVRs were installed by IndigoVision’s Authorized Partner Cartel Security in the main concierge building located at Queensland House. The recorded video can be viewed and analyzed by operators in the Borough’s main CCTV control room at Folkestone Road using ‘Control Center’, IndigoVision’s IP video and alarm management software.
This provides Newham Council with a local virtual matrix that acts as a level 2 resilient control medium for the primary analogue matrix. Should the main control room become inoperative CCTV surveillance can be transferred to the local virtual matrices. This configuration also provides the platform for the eventual migration to a total IP Video solution, replacing the analogue matrices with a more flexible and scalable solution.
The NVRs record each camera continuously at 6.5fps, with spot feeds at 25fps selected by the operators, for 31 days. The image quality of the recorded video is vastly superior compared to the original VCR and ‘Control Center’ provides a range of tools to allow fast search and analysis of the recorded footage. Video clips are frequently exported to the police for evidential purposes.