In October 2006, the Seoul Metropolitan government announced that it would be spending 28.4 billion won (approximately $29 million) over the coming four years to install CCTV cameras in all 568 elementary schools in Seoul.
The purpose of this policy is to protect students from crime and peer-to-peer violence, and also to monitor traffic. This is the city government's first initiative in improving the city's learning environment. It is a huge project for security installers and CCTV and digital recorder suppliers indeed. Moreover, security directors in school had been trying to sort out who the reliable security product installers were and which products would be the most suitable for school safety when the government announced this plan of action.
All security directors in elementary schools as end users have been seeking a more high performance cost-effective alternative to the limited VCR. The DVR offers a number of highly compelling benefits over analogue recording including image superiority, increased storage space, easy remote access to key information on the network, and highly flexibly recording control.
As a Korean government endorsed supplier in Korea, Rifatron Co., Ltd. has achieved Excellent Product Award (2006~2009) in 2006 to maintain CCTV and DVR, and to provide replacement technology and tender for government projects. By installing its stand-alone DVRs at many schools in Seoul, Rifatron gained its reputation as a reliable stand-alone digital recorder supplier. More than 96 units of Rifatron digital recorders have been installed in many schools in Seoul.
The model iMDVRS-1624 is a high performance digital recorder that records MPEG4 compressed video and audio at 240ips speed and CIF resolution.
The digital recorder manages its storage system of a huge capacity of maximum 10 terabytes. It can install 6 Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drives (HDD) internally and attach additional RAID or JBOD storage devices through its IEEE1394(Firewire) or SCSI ports.
Yunchul Choi, director at iCCTV as an installer for Yeongdeungpo elementary school, explains, "If a minor incident occurs or if the security guards or the police think someone is acting suspiciously, the DVRs can be used to record smaller amounts of information to be taken away for future analysis.
He adds, "The whole Rifatron system including wide dynamic cameras, high speed dome cameras, bullet cameras, digital recorder and keyboard controller that have surpassed our expectations. There's no question that we'd used them for future projects and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them as an installer."