Leading surveillance supplier CBC (Europe), manufacturer of the popular Ganz and Computar range of products, has supplied equipment for Tiger Tiger's nightclub in the city of Portsmouth. As one of a chain of Tiger Tiger outlets around the country, the club required increased CCTV coverage with improved quality pictures as part of revised licensing arrangements.
Situated at Gun Wharf Quays in Portsmouth, the club boasts two dance floors, a restaurant and six bars including a ‘Drink and Dine' terrace offering an al fresco environment, and has a 2am licence.
Accordingly, the local police required more thorough monitoring of areas ranging from the entrance right through to the bars, restaurant, fire exits and connecting corridors.
Installation company Visual Security specified the new CBC systems involved. Director Rob Harris explains that the 2500-capacity venue initially required upgraded recording equipment to replace its analogue tape recorders. Two of CBC's C-MP DVRs were specified for the task. These 16-channel MPEG-4 Pentaplex DVRs combine the latest compression technology with a single user interface and come with a built-in DVD-RW and HDD, providing storage of up to 500Gb - ensuring a minimum of 30 days' recording time.
Phase two of the club's surveillance improvements involved supplementing its existing CCTV cameras with a number of new CBC-supplied units to boost the overall number to a 32-camera system. This includes three indoor C-Domes, installed to monitor the club's bars, dance floor areas and restaurant on the first floor. Mr Harris adds that, in addition, three internal ZC-D3000 high-resolution dome cameras survey the club's sometimes difficult lighting conditions.
"The ZC-D3000 is a popular unit for our work in clubs, pubs and the restaurant trade because it's small, inconspicuous, easy to install, with good picture quality in both low and good lighting conditions," he comments.
Tiger Tiger's Portsmouth club faces familiar city centre challenges including occasional alcohol-related fights, handbag theft incidents and the requirement to observe and record the area in which the door supervisors work to gather pictures for potentially evidential purposes, in the event of any subsequent prosecutions. To achieve this, Visual Security has fitted four static ZC-D3000 vandal resistant, weatherproof domes for this outdoor application.
Meanwhile, CBC engineers are trialling a new addition to the range, using the company's latest ZC-YHW702P camera, which combines wide dynamic functionality with day/night capabilities - minimum illumination of 1.0 lux at F1.2 (colour) or 0.1 lux at F1.2 for mono images. The camera trial involves monitoring of Tiger Tiger's dance floor bars. These areas pose significant lighting challenges, with their combination of dark areas alongside bright dance floor lights. The 702P's wide dynamic range is being deployed to cope with these difficult conditions.
Commenting on the level of service Visual Security receives from CBC, Rob Harris says his firm has used CBC equipment for over five years, mainly for ‘higher-end' applications, because of its standard of manufacturing quality, on-site reliability and low maintenance requirements. "CBC also provides us with good technical back-up, which is very important for this type of security installation work," he remarks.
