SANYO’s CCTV security system monitors training of sports teachers at Sheffield Hallam University

Six SANYO VCC-9500INCP fully functional speed dome cameras are installed at the University

CCTV is playing an integral role in Sheffield Hallam University's training of sports teachers. Images from SANYO cameras, installed by Universal AV Services Ltd. in the University's gym facilities, are recorded and subsequently analysed by tutors to assess the progress being made by the trainee sports professionals.

Sheffield Hallam University, which is widely respected as a forward thinking modern university, provides higher education each year for approximately 30,000 students, 3,000 of which are international students from more than 120 countries. The University has some of the UK's best and most modern facilities with £81m invested in the last 10 years on teaching and learning tools, equipment and lecture rooms.

"We are committed to providing the finest possible teaching facilities and never hesitate to invest in the latest technology," said Guy Masterman, Head of Sport at Sheffield Hallam University. "It was recognised that having access to high quality video recording of activity in our gym would be a major help in the teaching process and so the installation of a CCTV system was an easy decision to make."

The University called on the help of Universal AV Services, one of the UK's leading suppliers of audio-visual presentation systems within the higher education marketplace, to recommend and subsequently install CCTV equipment which would meet the University's exacting requirements.

Anders Jacobsen of Universal AV Services explains why he chose SANYO to be the single source for all the CCTV equipment. "We had no doubt about our technical team's ability to install and maintain the CCTV system. We wanted however to work with a CCTV manufacturer that had an established reputation for supplying a high level of pre and past sales support which included training on how to get the best out of the system," said Anders Jacobsen. "We also felt there was an advantage in choosing a manufacturer that could supply every element of the CCTV system and not just the cameras. Extensive research led us to a decision to work with SANYO on this project."

Universal AV Services installed six SANYO VCC-9500INCP fully functional speed dome cameras. These are capable of producing very high quality colour images at 520TV lines of resolution and with a 480x power zoom (30x Optical, 16x Digital) and variable speed pan and tilt, they are ideal for monitoring close up detail of any activity. The cameras are controlled by a user-friendly VSP-9000 joystick controller and the live or recorded images can be viewed on a high resolution SANYO VMC-L2017 LCD monitor.

The six cameras collectively cover different areas of the gym where sports activities are in progress with all the captured images simultaneously recorded onto a SANYO DSR-HSB8000 digital video recorder. This utilises MPEG-4+ compression to allow rapid, high quality transmission of the images over a network and provides especially fast-forward and reverse playback facilities.

"The DSR-HSB8000 is particularly well suited for this application as it has a very large on-board storage capacity, but it also allows any authorised user to retrieve the recorded images from any PC workstation on the network," added Anders Jacobsen. "The project has been a great success and as a result the University is in the process of looking at installing similar CCTV systems in other parts of the campus to assist the teaching in other subjects."