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Medical campus ups security

The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s medical campus spreads over 45 acres in Miami, Florida, but it also has a number of remote sites up to 160 km away from the main campus.

This type of wide-area application was too demanding for the existing analogue CCTV system, leading to many operational problems.

IndigoVision (UK), distributed in South Africa by Norbain, won the contract to supply the complete end-to-end IP video solution as part of a campus-wide CCTV upgrade.

As John Loftus, managing director of Norbain comments, "Many South African academic institutions also face similar challenges of managing security over a range of physical locations.

"The University's adoption of IndigoVision's IP video solution allowed many of the operational difficulties to be overcome with the added bonus that much of the original CCTV infrastructure was re-used, including all of the cameras. This is an important benefit for South African institutions where budgetary constraints are an ongoing issue."

The project will eventually encompass all of the Medical School's 300+ CCTV cameras and use Control Center, IndigoVision's video and alarm management software for viewing live and recorded video.

The system uses 15 Control Center workstations, one in the main security control centre, others at satellite security stations around campus and three in security administration offices on campus.

IndigoVision uniquely provides Control Center software as licence-free, allowing the university to deploy workstations around the campus for no more than the cost of a standard PC.

The original VCRs have been replaced with IndigoVision network video recorders (NVRs). Four Windows-based NVRs are installed in the main security control centre and three standalone NVRs at remote locations.

Recorded video from any of these NVRs can be viewed and analysed from any Control Center workstation wherever they are located. Over 38 Terabytes of storage in a campus data centre provides the university with more than 30 days of recordings from all cameras.

The major benefits this IP video technology has provided the university include:

* Viewing of live and recorded video from anywhere on campus.

* Fast analysis and retrieval of recorded footage.

* Complete control over resolution and frame-rates, which allows matching to network resources.

Expansion is straightforward and future plans include incorporating another 150 cameras from the University of Miami Hospital, a 560-bed facility recently acquired by the university.

Commenting on the success of the project, Tony Artrip, executive director of public safety for the campus says, "The CCTV system is a simple, straightforward solution that is easy to use and does exactly what it is designed to do.

"It is great to view any of the cameras on campus or at remote locations miles away, directly from your desktop. Searching for an incident on recorded video could not be easier."

A recent incident demonstrates how the university has used the system to good effect. An item was stolen from a site located 120 kilometres north of the medical campus. The relevant footage from the incident was retrieved almost immediately and sent via e-mail to the local police. "Previously, it would have taken someone hours to reach the remote site and off-load the video to a usable format for the local authorities," comments Artrip.

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