As Walsall Academy – a new PFI secondary school – doesn’t have a dedicated monitoring control position, the centre of the CCTV installation is the IT suite.
From there, all the school’s fibre optic network is managed. In the centre sits a series of racks; one hosts the school’s CCTV recording and monitoring equipment. The centrepiece: three Vista Triplex Columbus Digital Video Recorders (VC16Te-160Gb), one for external, one for ground floor and one for first-floor cameras. As the school is contemplating remote monitoring, each of these is connected to one of three Adpro FastScan Series III video transmission units. Six BP2000 fibre optic transmission units from AMG facilitate image transmission across the school’s fibre optic network. An Ultrak matrix and keyboard (JPD100) provides control for the Ultrak external KD6 domes. The monitor used is a 17-inch JVC model. As there is only room on the rack for a single monitor, a Vista real time Quad acts as a monitor selector fed by the three Triplex DVRs and the Ultrak matrix. All CCTV equipment was supplied through distributor Norbain. Installer was Technical Services (Shropshire) Limited of Shrewsbury, whose director John Hirons says: “At first sight the recording facility looks extremely advanced for a school of this size. However the school was keen to build capacity into the system to ensure the initial investment is as future proof as possible. One future option already being explored is to move to overnight recording on a motion detection or event driven basis. Externally this would involve installing Optex Redwall PIR units so that at night the domes and DVRs can be activated to initiate recording whenever movement is sensed. This could then be extended easily so that the system automatically dials-up a remote monitoring station.”
Images are captured at five pictures per second with images retained for eleven days. No more than ten cameras are connected to each DVR although each has a capacity for 16. CAT6 Ethernet cabling, which supports more than twice the speed of CAT5e, is used throughout the system. Access to the system is controlled via the school’s network and is currently restricted to reception staff (to control the entrance barrier), the Finance Director, and the IT Department itself who monitor the cameras using WaveReader software that comes with the Vista Triplex Columbus.
