October 26, 2007 -- IP video surveillance systems provider IndigoVision recently announced a pair of European deployments. The company's IP Video platoform is helping global logistics specialist Kühne+Nagel to streamline and secure its distribution network in Austria. Also, CCTV surveillance using the company's IP Video technology is being made available to London's schools via the London Grid for Learning's (LGfL) existing IT network.
In Austria, the company's networked digital CCTV system provides both security surveillance and a video record of truck and parcel movements throughout Kühne+Nagel's five Austrian distribution centers in Vienna, Schwechat Airport, Port Enns, Salzburg and Linz.
In the deployed system, as a truck arrives at a distribution center, an operator tracks its movement with the company's PTZ dome camera, which monitors and records the unloading process together with the truck license plate, the driver's identity and the truck's arrival time. This video record provides an important element in the company's packet tracking system and provides visual evidence in the event of a shipping problem. The CCTV system also provides traditional security surveillance to protect against intruders and possible theft both inside and outside of the warehouse.
The system was designed and installed by IndigoVision's local partner C&C Salzgeber GmbH in Vienna and used both Kühne+Nagel's existing network infrastructure and much of the original analog CCTV system wiring at each of the distribution centers. The analog feed from each CCTV camera is connected to an IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver rack module, which converts the signal to high-quality full framerate digital video for transmission over the IP network. The company's MPEG-4 compression technology ensures DVD-quality video can be transmitted over large distances with minimal impact on network bandwidth. The company's Control Center IP video and alarm management software is used by the Kühne+Nagel operators to view live and recorded video from any of the cameras. Also, up to 30 days of video is recorded using an IndigoVision network video recorder (NVR) located at each site.
"When selecting a video codec it was important to find a solution which guaranteed minimum bandwidth with a high image quality," comments Erich Varga, IT director at Kühne+Nagel. "With this system we can now access video from the headquarters in Vienna, Schwechat Airport, Port Enns, Linz and Salzburg from any of our locations without incurring bandwidth issues on the network."
According to IndigoVision, the main control room in Vienna, some 300 km away from the furthest distribution centre, uses a dedicated Control Center workstation to view video from each site, although video from any camera can be viewed on any workstation wherever it is located on the network. Both live video from any camera and recorded video from any NVR in the system can be viewed and analyzed. Additional workstations are located at each of the distribution centers for local monitoring and control. The company says the software's architecture allows the user to install as many operator workstations as required.
IP video for London's schools
CCTV surveillance using IndigoVision's IP Video technology is being made available to London's schools via the London Grid for Learning's (LGfL) existing IT network. The LGfL was established in June 2000 to provide capital-wide broadband internet services to London's 33 Local Education Authorities (LEA). The network, supplied by Synetrix, went live in 2002 and now covers over 90% of schools in London.
IndigoVision says its IP video technology will allow any participating school to be monitored 24-hours a day, via the central control room for the project which is located in the London Borough of Bromley. The control room uses the IndigoVision Control Center video and alarm management software, which enables the security staff to control and view live and recorded video from any of the cameras at any of the schools. The company has supplied a complete end to end solution which provides for visual verification of alarms over IP and is fully compliant with BS8418. The consultants for the project, Redbridge CCTV Ltd, has setup an additional central control room in London to monitor commercial sites and other schools outside of the LGfL.
A number of pilot schools have been successfully completed, which are monitored centrally at Bromley and locally within each school. School staff use the Control Center software during the day to monitor the buildings. IndigoVision Networked Video Recorders (NVRs) provide the storage for recorded video and being a networked solution the location of any NVR is transparent to the system. Whether the NVRs are installed locally at the school or centrally in the control room, recorded footage on any NVR at any school can be viewed and analyzed centrally at Bromley, as well as by the individual school.
With so many cameras being monitored around the system, IndigoVision says its advanced analytics are used to ensure potential events are quickly brought to the attention of the operators. These include such features as virtual "trip wires," which ignore passing cars outside a school. However, when a person crosses the wire into the school, an alarm is raised and that camera is monitored. An audio warning can be broadcast over the network to an intruder via on-site speakers using the high-quality audio available on every channel alongside the video. The analytics software runs at the camera, providing real time analysis of each scene.
IndigoVision's compression technology allows streaming of the digital video around the network at 12 fps with minimal impact on the bandwidth. Each camera is connected to the IP network via IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver modules, installed locally at the school. The 8000 units convert the analog camera signal to MPEG-4 digital video for transmission over the network and recording on the NVRs.