To keep apace with the development of the area and its increasing population, Torfaen County Borough Council based in Pontypool decided to invest in CCTV monitoring, specifying one that had the flexibility to be easily expandable across the borough’s many rural towns, when and if necessary.
Meeting the challenge
Turning to integration specialists AVA Security Communications (www.ava-cctv.co.uk) for guidance, Torfaen’s specific requirements were met with IP-based CCTV, from Synectics Security Networks. Based on Synectics’ new Virtual Matrix Solution (VMS), at its core is an IP version of the SynergyProTM software control system, at Torfaen Council’s Civic Centre offices. Equipped with dual TFT screens, the Synergy VMS enables an operator to select and control cameras in the conventional manner, with a familiar ‘spot’ image displayed on a TFT screen, and camera images automatically routed to an adjacent display monitor.
From the main control, council operators can view cameras in the town of Blaenavon, a world heritage site considered to be one of the best-preserved 19th century mining towns in the world. Operators can utilise Synergy’s surveillance control capabilities to monitor the town’s streets around the clock. Concentrating their efforts on popular tourist locations such as high street shops and the ‘Big Pit’ industrial museum during the day, and switching their attention to the town’s pubs and restaurant areas at night.
Synectics’ third party interfacing skills have enabled multiple manufacturers’ command protocols to be integrated within a control system, affording Torfaen operators fluid control of PTZ camera functionality, this has facilitated the seamless integration of Vista Power Domes throughout Blaenavon, with further remote towns scheduled to join the network in the coming months.
Network
Encoding of camera signals onto the council’s own high-speed network is achieved by the use of Synectics single channel e100 encoders, at each camera. The e100 has been designed to extend the functionality and inter-operability of fully integrated IP surveillance and video management systems, ensuring migration from analogue camera video to digital networks. Synectics e100 encoders are providing the Torfaen IP CCTV network with video quality and performance up to full broadcast quality (8Mbps), full resolution (D1) and full frame rate (25fps PAL), whilst providing a non-disruptive presence on the council’s ‘mission critical’ IT network.
Richard Beynon, Technical Director of AVA Security Communications, explains the benefits of deploying Synectics’ e100 encoder technology; "Because the e100 is fully customisable, both resolution and frame rate can be adjusted on a ‘channel by channel’ basis, to meet with customers’ specific requirements. This provides Torfaen system managers with the ability to reduce image frame rates and resolutions if more network bandwidth is required, for additional council data transmission or further camera additions to the network."
One of the most important requirements of the Virtual Matrix System is the ability to control networked PTZ cameras without operator detectable latency. The e100 is able to deliver H.264 encoded video to the network in less than 100ms; meaning operators are able to take effective control of the Vista Power Dome and Metal Mickey MIC1 cameras over the IP network, with no detectable control latency.
Flexibility
The storage of valuable camera footage from the network is entrusted to robust and reliable Synectics PSN storage units, again in Pontypool’s Civic Centre. Enabling configuration and management of each individual channel’s frame rates, image resolutions and quality’s, each Synectics PSN delivers flexible and safe storage. Configured for real-time recording, each Synectics PSN can also be configured for time-lapse frame rates, or patented Synectics ‘Time-Lapse Later’ system, allowing a progressive reduction in resolution, the longer the data is stored and the less evidential value it contains. The Synectics VMS also provides further resilience to each of Torfean’s storage servers via its built-in functional diagnostic’s ‘Watchdog’ that operates to component level, in addition to full auto restart capability. This feature protects valuable evidential data in the event of a catastrophic failure, such as power loss.
Should an incident under surveillance result in a prosecution, the VMS ensures every video channel from each of the network’s cameras is authenticated to 128bit using MD5 hashing, guaranteeing the integrity of the data retained and validating it throughout its evidential life. Instantly downloadable to third-party media, such as DVD, the evidential footage can be taken away by investigating officers for further prosecutional investigation off-site and used for evidence.
Technology
Commenting on the Torfaen network, Richard Beynon says: "Torfaen Council now enjoy a system configured exactly for their specific needs, and one which is infinitely expandable across the county, at minimum cost. Specifying a ‘traditional’ CCTV system would have involved laying a complicated cable network; a time consuming and expensive process, and one that would have involved a great amount of infrastructure disruption amongst picturesque and historically important villages. Using the Synergy Virtual Matrix System, managers simply have to mount the cameras and join them to the network." Torfaen plans to take full advantage of this expandability, to roll out the system to multiple towns in the area.
Commenting
On the long term technical partnership with Torfaen Council, Phil Longley, Managing Director of Synectics said: "Deploying our VMS system, Torfaen CCTV managers have an expandable, future-proofed network which will allow them hassle-free access to the latest IP-based security developments, should they want to employ them in the future. The ‘plug-in’ technology can include multiple analytics packages, Power-over-Ethernet, mega-pixel camera technology and the addition of multiple additional cameras, all in all, helping to maximise the IP system’s capital investment."
