Enjoy Group has chosen IndigoVision's IP Video system to provide a complete digital CCTV surveillance solution for all nine of its casinos in Chile. The first 500-camera system has been completed at the casino complex in Coquimbo, which will shortly be extended to cover a new hotel and convention centre. Once complete, the entire project will have upgraded over 2,500 cameras to digital IP-CCTV surveillance. Fifteen casinos worldwide have now invested in complete digital CCTV solutions from IndigoVision, firmly establishing the company as the market leader in this demanding industry.
The systems are being installed by IndigoVision's local partner Bitelco Diebold LTDA, with the storage solution supplied by Intransa. IndigoVision was chosen following a rigorous competitive analysis by the casino. This involved the installation of a 30-camera test system that allowed the casino to compare systems from different vendors side-by-side.
The final systems will be installed and operated in full compliance with the Chilean Gaming Board. The flexibility of IndigoVision's IP Video solution will in many cases enable the existing casinos to remain operational while the upgrade takes place and also allow the existing CCTV cameras to be re-used. Once the upgrades are complete Enjoy Group has plans to build a central investigation and monitoring centre that will allow live and recorded video to be viewed and analysed from all of the casinos.
"IndigoVision's system performed very well during our testing of competing systems. We were particularly impressed with the video quality, the video search and analysis features and the efficient use of network bandwidth and storage," said Manuel Abella, Enjoy Group's Projects and Systems Director.
The casino security staff will use ‘Control Center', IndigoVision's IP Video and alarm management software, to view live and recorded video from any camera in the system. ‘Control Center' is license free software allowing the casino to deploy as many workstations as required for no more than the cost of the PCs. Recording is achieved using IndigoVision's Windows Network Video Recorder (NVR) software running on PC servers, which in the case of the Coquimbo is 4 servers with 36 Terabytes of RAID redundant disk.
Many casinos are now finding that their existing analogue/VCR CCTV systems cannot cope with the demands of the complex surveillance environment associated with modern casino operations. Long-term storage and fast retrieval of video from a VCR-based system is a big problem. In order to quickly resolve gaming disputes and track incidents, fast video searching and retrieval is of paramount importance - all of which is provided by the combinations of ‘Control Center' and the NVRs. Another important feature of the IP-CCTV solution is the ability to remotely view recorded video on any ‘Control Center' workstation wherever they are located on the network - this is impossible with the existing analogue/VCR system.
Each of the CCTV cameras will be connected to an IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver which converts the analogue feed to DVD-quality, 4SIF, 30fps digital video for transmission over the IP network. This is achieved without any frames being dropped, whatever the level of motion and activity in the camera scene. This is a fundamental requirement of Gaming Boards and casino operators. Any dropped frames within a video clip could hide fraudulent or criminal activity and make any customer disputes more difficult to resolve.
This project demonstrates that IP Video is a field-proven solution for the demanding CCTV requirements of casino operations, which need high-quality video images and fast retrieval of recorded footage. IP Video provides significant benefits compared with traditional analogue CCTV systems, such as scalability, real-time camera-based analytics and fault tolerant configurations.
