A Wise Investment
The move from analog to digital nets positive results
- By Rich Mellott
- May 01, 2012
Monticello Bank, a 12-branch community bank in Kentucky,
had an outdated analog surveillance system in place that
limited capabilities and required the bank to hire a thirdparty
vendor for analog video installation and maintenance
services. In addition to the high cost of outsourcing, Monticello
Banking Corp. needed to replace its current inflexible, dedicated DVR,
restrictive data storage abilities—limited to DVR hard-drive capacity—and to
increase video quality.
Monticello’s goals for the project included bringing video monitoring operations
in-house for cost and logistics purposes, as well as centralized user management.
Bank officials also wanted to improve system management and quality with a system
that leveraged the flexibility of IP network technology and the clarity of megapixel
cameras while providing flexible and easy-to-expand video storage capacity.
Goals also included the desire to leverage existing servers, bandwidth and IP
infrastructure; avoid costly hardware installation; and invest in a cost-effective system
that bank officials could easily implement, manage and maintain.
Monticello turned to DIGIOP for a video management system and replaced
its analog cameras with megapixel IP cameras. Security officers selected Elements
software and a 2-megapixel outdoor dome camera for installation.
Elements software provided a single integrated dashboard, which offers visibility
to all video; a Web-based portal for centralized management of camera configurations,
user rights and permissions; a video recording platform providing live view, record
and search capabilities; and seamless integration of data from external sources.
The IP cameras provide HDTV image quality at 2-megapixel resolution and compression
technology. They also lower the demands on system bandwidth and storage
and provide a broader viewing area than the bank’s analog cameras.
The new system is fully compatible with all existing infrastructure, including
Monticello’s servers, PCs and IT architecture. This enabled the bank to create a
modern surveillance system while purchasing only what it needed.
“The main thing that we were looking for was something that was easy to install
and maintain and wasn’t too expensive,” said Kelley Rader, Monticello’s IT
manager. “We wanted a PC-based system that would support different types of
storage on our network. This solution fulfilled all of those key requirements.
“In addition, the sales team let us do a trial run in one of the bank offices,
which gave us the opportunity to test system viability and operate the system for
ourselves.”
With all requirements met, the bank’s security team easily installed the system
themselves. Because each megapixel camera captured more area than its analog
counterpart, Monticello decided to incrThe software Monticello incorporated
more than proved itself during the
trial run.
“The software is a lot easier to manage
than what we were using before,”
Rader said. “It’s easy to organize cameras
in the order we want, and to view and
drag and drop video into new screens.”
The software allows the security team
to remotely view and manage Monticello’s
12 sites centrally with a single interface
as a critical capability. The team
also appreciates the speed with which it
can locate, save and store video segments
using the Elements thumbnail, timeline,
replace, zoom and touchscreen features.
The management features allow for an
easy setup and configuration on all new
cameras and set user credentials and
permissions for the entire system from a
central location.
All of the banks’ surveillance sites
have been connected into a central security
office where the software has
enabled easy, consolidated management
of all views performed. Security
officials have been able to leverage the
existing network and server infrastructure,
save on installation and service
fees, and position staff internally to
maintain and monitor security.
“We not only eliminated outsourcing,
but greatly reduced the need for
system service, also from the outside
vendor,” Rader said. “These two factors
have accounted for major cost savings,
not to mention reduced reliance
on others.”
Adding storage to traditional recording
solutions can be costly and
limited, but by using Element software
the bank could expand video storage
cost-effectively and efficiently.
“With our previous system, the fixed
amount of hard-drive storage limited
our ability to use megapixel cameras,
and the vendor charged us way more
than the cost of the hard drive to upgrade,”
Rader said. “Now we are building
our own NVRs, and that allows us a
lot more storage options. We can incorporate
local storage or iSCSI storage to
get the retention times we expect using
high-definition video.”
The bank chose to leverage the wider
viewing capabilities—versus analog
cameras—by using the megapixel dome
cameras to increase its surveillance coverage.
By implementing the megapixel
cameras, a 10-percent savings was realized
in camera count.
“The information security officer,
Melissa Piercy, loves it because she can
blow up the picture and still get a great
quality image,” Rader said.
The Monticello security team was
able to install and configure the software
and cameras because of its compatibility
with the bank’s IP infrastructure
and simple configuration features.
Investment in an IP, high-resolution
digital system has paid off for Monticello
because it has provided an overall
lower-cost solution with central in-house
control over operations, more video
coverage per camera and freedom from
proprietary storage requirements.ease the coverage area for its 12-location
operation while still reducing camera counts by about 10 percent.
This article originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Security Today.