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| Vicon protects the Museum of London |
Vicon's reputation for providing complete CCTV solutions has been reinforced by the decision of Museum of London to award the company a contract to fulfil all its camera, digital recording and video control equipment requirements.
"CCTV has always played a major role in protecting our exhibits as well as assisting us in creating a safe environment for our visitors and staff," said Steven Cox, the Museum's Head of Security. "Our previous analogue CCTV system was installed many years ago and clearly needed to be updated to take advantage of the latest digital technology. It made sense to see if we could single source the CCTV hardware to ensure full compatibility of all the component parts."
Steven Cox and his colleagues considered proposals from four CCTV manufacturers. "We were looking for a system that could operate efficiently and reliably across our network as well as offering long term expansion capabilities. The solution proposed by Vicon seemed to best match our requirements and the decision to work with Vicon was confirmed following an exhaustive three month trial, during which we took all the CCTV equipment through its paces."
Museum of London, which has an international reputation as one the world's largest social history museums, welcomes visitors at three separate locations across London.
"CCTV has always played a major role in protecting our exhibits as well as assisting us in creating a safe environment for our visitors and staff" |
One of the key requirements for the CCTV system was that it had to be able to interact with Cortech Developments' system management software. "The trial established that our security personnel could effortlessly control the Vicon equipment via the Cortech graphical user interface," added Steven.
Over 120 Vicon dome cameras, which are a mix of Vicon's VC-600 and Surveyor models, have been installed at the Museum's three sites. The compact and impact resistant VC-600 domes are used internally whilst weatherproof Surveyor domes are tasked to observe any external activity.
Eleven Vicon Kollector Elite DVRs and one Vicon NVR are utilised to record and store high quality video captured by the domes and a Vicon Virtual Matrix adds to the effectiveness of the system by combining functionality of a traditional matrix switching system with the advantages of digital video management.
During opening hours, security personnel at each of the museum's buildings can monitor live video and are able, if necessary, to retrieve recorded evidence stored on any of the DVRs on the network. At night, control room operators based in the City of London building take over responsibility for monitoring activity at all three locations.
"The key to the success of this project has been its flexibility," said Steven Cox. "The networkability of the Vicon system has put us in total control of what we want to do with the CCTV system."
