Airport Upgrades Surveillance With IP Video Technology

  • Dec 06, 2010

Cardiff Airport has replaced its surveillance capability with a new IP video system from IndigoVision. Operated by TBI Abertis Airports, Cardiff Airport is the national airport of Wales with passenger traffic reaching more than 1.6 million in 2009. It is an important business and charter airport offering flights to domestic and European destinations, as well as connecting flights onwards to worldwide destinations.

Choosing IndigoVision’s technology was an easy decision for the airport having had more than eight years experience of reliable operation from a similar system at London Luton Airport, which is also operated by TBI Abertis Airports. The system at London Luton Airport was first installed in 2002 and became what was then one of the largest IP video installations in the UK.

“All surveillance images are streamed as high-quality digital video in real time at 25 frames per second across the network. By using advanced network protocols and IndigoVision’s multicast capabilities it is possible to view live video at multiple locations with no impact on the network bandwidth. Numerous separate viewing locations are able to view the surveillance images simultaneously,” said Steve Tyler, managing director of Touchstone Electronics Limited, IndigoVision’s approved partner and system integrator for the project.

Workstations running ‘Control Center’, IndigoVision’s Security Management Software, are used to monitor live and recorded video from any of the cameras. It is used by the airport's operations and security teams, and also by Government authorities including South Wales Police and the UK Border Agency, who according to Tyler, “are very impressed with the quality of the video as well as the ‘user friendly’ design of the software.” Potential security threats can be identified much faster with IndigoVision’s advanced analytics and search facilities in ‘Control Center’, such as the thumbnail search feature that allows 24 hours of video to be searched in a matter of seconds.

It is IndigoVision’s unique distributed architecture that allows access from different locations around the airport. Any component, including cameras, recorders and viewing stations, can be located at any point on the network, providing a flexible and scalable security platform. Sophisticated Identity Authorization Management (IAM) features in ‘Control Center’ manage all aspects of user accounts and access permissions and create logs to ensure a secure audit trail is produced.

Touchstone Electronics installed 96 of IndigoVision’s latest series 9000 H.264 fixed, dome and PTZ IP cameras and 26 of IndigoVision’s standalone dedicated NVRs. The NVRs are mirrored creating a fully redundant and fault tolerant recording solution. Video from each camera is continuously recorded onto a primary and backup NVR simultaneously. In the event of a NVR failure, no recordings are lost.

In addition the NVRs have dual redundant power and network connections and are fitted with RAID configured, surveillance rated disks. A total of 104 TB of disk storage allows the airport to archive 4SIF 25 fps video from each camera 24/7 for over 30 days. In the event of an incident, evidential quality video can be exported to assist with investigations and for use in court.

Featured

  • Report: 47 Percent of Security Service Providers Are Not Yet Using AI or Automation Tools

    Trackforce, a provider of security workforce management platforms, today announced the launch of its 2025 Physical Security Operations Benchmark Report, an industry-first study that benchmarks both private security service providers and corporate security teams side by side. Based on a survey of over 300 security professionals across the globe, the report provides a comprehensive look at the state of physical security operations. Read Now

    • Guard Services

  • Identity Governance at the Crossroads of Complexity and Scale

    Modern enterprises are grappling with an increasing number of identities, both human and machine, across an ever-growing number of systems. They must also deal with increased operational demands, including faster onboarding, more scalable models, and tighter security enforcement. Navigating these ever-growing challenges with speed and accuracy requires a new approach to identity governance that is built for the future enterprise. Read Now

  • Eagle Eye Networks Launches AI Camera Gun Detection

    Eagle Eye Networks, a provider of cloud video surveillance, recently introduced Eagle Eye Gun Detection, a new layer of protection for schools and businesses that works with existing security cameras and infrastructure. Eagle Eye Networks is the first to build gun detection into its platform. Read Now

  • Report: AI is Supercharging Old-School Cybercriminal Tactics

    AI isn’t just transforming how we work. It’s reshaping how cybercriminals attack, with threat actors exploiting AI to mass produce malicious code loaders, steal browser credentials and accelerate cloud attacks, according to a new report from Elastic. Read Now

  • Pragmatism, Productivity, and the Push for Accountability in 2025-2026

    Every year, the security industry debates whether artificial intelligence is a disruption, an enabler, or a distraction. By 2025, that conversation matured, where AI became a working dimension in physical identity and access management (PIAM) programs. Observations from 2025 highlight this turning point in AI’s role in access control and define how security leaders are being distinguished based on how they apply it. Read Now

Most   Popular

New Products

  • Camden CV-7600 High Security Card Readers

    Camden CV-7600 High Security Card Readers

    Camden Door Controls has relaunched its CV-7600 card readers in response to growing market demand for a more secure alternative to standard proximity credentials that can be easily cloned. CV-7600 readers support MIFARE DESFire EV1 & EV2 encryption technology credentials, making them virtually clone-proof and highly secure.

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.”

  • QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC)

    QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC)

    The latest Qualcomm® Vision Intelligence Platform offers next-generation smart camera IoT solutions to improve safety and security across enterprises, cities and spaces. The Vision Intelligence Platform was expanded in March 2022 with the introduction of the QCS7230 System-on-Chip (SoC), which delivers superior artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing at the edge.