The challenge
Dragão Stadium is the newly-built "home" of Porto Football club in Portugal. With a capacity of 52,000 seats, it successfully hosted the 2004 European Football Championships. In a venue of this kind, security is a very important issue and needs the support of reliable technologies.
The solution
Porto Estadio, the company responsible for building the stadium had been thinking of investing in a traditional analogue CCTV system. Following discussions with Sony and its partners, the Club instead chose to equip its stadium with a modern security solution that connects cameras over an IP network and which are easily controlled using a PC. The IP cameras are connected to a Local Area Network (LAN) consisting of Cisco equipment. Alcatel took care of the supply and installation of a surveillance system to monitor the stadium and parking areas and partnered with Sony to advise the customer on the best possible technological solution for their specific requirements.
After a successful demonstration of the Sony Real-Shot Manager (RSM) software, Sony was selected to supply 139 IP cameras, appropriate all-weather housings for the cameras, the controlling RSM software, six servers/data storage units, and associated displays. Due to the scale of the project, a number of new functions were introduced such as a joystick to control the cameras and a dedicated network server.
The complete solution covers three areas. The first is the Central Equipment Room which houses six Sony 
servers/data storage units, a computer with a 42-inch plasma screen for watching images from all the cameras, the control keyboard and the Cisco routing/switching equipment for the LAN, to which the servers are connected. The second area is the Game Control Room, which is the main operational area and where stadium security staff monitor activity in the football ground and the various public areas within the building. It is equipped with three computers and three Sony video projectors to display fully customised surveillance layouts. The third room is used to monitor the car parking areas within and around the stadium. It has just one computer with a 21-inch monitor.
Benefits delivered
The system is extremely easy to use and ensures surveillance throughout the Dragão Stadium and parking area. The Sony IP cameras provide high image quality and such a large zoom range that one camera is powerful enough to read a newspaper situated at the other end of the stadium. The housing for the cameras are robust and flexible, allowing them to withstand acts of vandalism. The Sony IP Surveillance Solution is technologically reliable in the long term and can be easily upgraded with added functionalities and specifications. Given that communication between the control centre and the cameras is done by a digital signal, the system is free from the usual problems of noise interference that affects traditional CCTV systems.
Why Sony?
"The decision taken by Porto Estadio was considerably influenced by the capacity of Sony and Alcatel to provide a complete solution including all the necessary services such as technical consulting, software customisation, installation, tuning 
and training," said Luis Rafael Silva, Stadium Manager and Dragão Stadium Venue Manager for Euro 2004.
Martin Diependaal, Sony Professional Services: "The project benefited from very close co-operation between all the partners: Alcatel Portugal, Cisco, Sony Portugal and Sony Professional Services who provided the technical expertise and configured the RSM software on site to meet the customer requirements. Our experience in project management helped in tying all the elements together, managing the schedules and budget, and finally delivering user training on site."
To watch a video clip about the project, click here.
