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A hybrid education

A school opts for a UTP hybrid video transmission solution to ensure performance and flexibility.

Opened in late 2008 by the Prime Minister, the newly rebuilt £43 million Wright Robinson College in Manchester has one of the most expensive and technologically advanced network of educational buildings in the country. Forming the backbone of a high-performance and scaleable CCTV solution at the school is a Network Video Technologies (NVT), unshielded twisted pair (UTP) hybrid video CCTV transmission solution.

Initiated due to the age and condition of the original school, the new school structure was built alongside the existing facility, on adjacent school land throughout the 2006/08 academic years. The new educational facilities have been described as 'outstanding' by Ofsted inspectors and feature eight ICT laboratories with an additional learning centre known as the Discovery Zone, all with state-of-the-art computer facilities. There is also a 300-seat auditorium, exhibition area, audiovisual suite, Apple Mac suites, electronic registration and monitoring system, drama studios, and music recital rooms, all forming one of the largest PFI (private finance initiative) funded schools in Europe.

In harmony with the new educational facilities, the school’s management took the opportunity of the new-build to plan an effective security solution, the keystone of which would be a 180-camera CCTV system. The school’s Christine Shaw explains: “Our old building had been, on occasions, targeted by vandals of an evening and sometimes at weekends, so we were keen to get the total security package for our new facilities correct from the outset. We also wanted the CCTV system to play a number of roles in addition to security, such as health and safety, and to act as an effective tool in supporting the daily running and administration of the school.”

The transmission of camera video to multiple control points throughout the school was originally specified over IP. However, the school’s IT contractors were unhappy about the transmission of large bandwidth video over an IT network that carried other vital service information. An alternative solution was found in the application of NVT’s UTP hybrid video transmission, using a dedicated UTP cable installation to provide performance, flexibility and expandability.

Steve Proctor, sales director for NVT continues: “The school found a big difference in the cost of differing video transmission systems. Using IP, they would have been forced down the route of expensive IP cameras that greatly increased the overall cost of the installation beyond their budget, using NVT UTP afforded the use of more economical analog cameras. Also, unlike with IP, realtime video transmission using NVT UTP does not require network switches every 100 m, adding to the total installation cost.”

Installed by Chubb, NVT video transmission allowed rapid installation, critical when working to tight timescales, as Andy Martin, sales consultant at Chubb explains: “With the UTP cable network already installed by building contractors, we were able to easily and quickly connect the CCTV cameras using NVT transmission products. When working onsite, around other contractors, it is important that we can integrate products quickly without any problems, using NVT meant that we could be sure the products worked straight out of the box, and would continue to be reliable, with piece of mind backed by NVT’s lifetime guarantee.”

Harnessing NVT’s power, video, and data (PVD) technology, also negated the need for separate power outlets to be installed at each internal camera point. Instead, low voltage power for each camera was provided via the UTP network and NVT NV-16PS10-PVD 16-channel power supply cable integrator hubs. Located in the equipment room, these units also save time and money via a greatly simplified installation process.

Additionally, using NVT technology, the school can benefit from realtime images from the camera network, and without the control latency associated with fully IP-based camera networks.

Control of the system is available to key staff around the school. The headmaster and administration area house the main control equipment, complete with large LCD monitors. Elsewhere in the building, each head of year has access to their own control facility, allowing them to monitor all areas of the building.

“Thanks to the efforts we made in the planning stage of the school, the camera placement and associated scene coverage has proved very successful.” Shaw concludes: “Thanks to the dedicated UTP network, the one adjustment to camera positioning we made was quick and simple; adding two additional cameras to an area where we required broader coverage.”

Acting on the request from the school, NVT PVD technology allowed Chubb engineers to simply add the cameras to the network, wiring them in to one of the spare UTP pairs in the cable network, and because the camera power was supplied by the NVT power, video and data hubs, this was all possible without the cost of additional fused spurs.

Thanks to coordinated planning from the building-design stage, the CCTV camera network at Wright Robinson College provides staff and pupils with a safe environment in which to work and learn; and due to the specification of NVT PVD transmission, will continue to do so for years to come.

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