IndigoVision IP-CCTV solution helps Polish city reduce crime

Pleszew City has deployed an IndigoVision IP Video Surveillance System

The Polish city of Pleszew has seen a dramatic drop in crime since upgrading its analogue CCTV with a complete IP Video surveillance solution from IndigoVision. The new system now gives the local police extended coverage, excellent evidential quality video and the ability to improve their incident response.

Speaking to a regional newspaper on the installation of the new surveillance system, Pleszew City Council spokesman, Marcin Konieczny said, "The new system fully meets the Council's high expectations and the crime rate has dropped significantly since the moment it was installed. The City Council is now planning to expand the system with additional cameras by the end of the year."

The challenge for the Council was to increase the coverage of the City's surveillance, while at the same time improve the video quality. This was not possible with the original analogue system. The evidential quality video delivered by IndigoVision's system has enabled the police to identify people involved in criminal activity and parking infringements and has shortened the prosecution process, saving the authorities time and money. The Police have also noticed a dramatic drop in acts of vandalism and graffiti in the monitored areas.

Police officers use a dual monitor workstation running ‘Control Center', IndigoVision's Security Management Software

The equipment and technical support for the project was supplied by IndigoVision's Authorised Partner, MIWI-URMET Sp. z o.o., who used local systems integrator ABM Alarm for the installation. Twelve cameras were installed across the city on a dedicated fibre network. The cameras were mainly external PTZ models, with 4 cameras being used from the original system. IndigoVision's advanced video compression ensures that minimum bandwidth is required to stream high-quality video across the network. This also means that latency is very low, allowing the PTZ cameras to be smoothly operated - even when controlling the furthest cameras, which are located 5 km from the Police Station control room.

Police officers use a dual monitor workstation running ‘Control Center', IndigoVision's Security Management Software, to monitor the cameras and to view and analyse recorded video, which is archived on an IndigoVision Windows-based Network Video Recorder (NVR). The NVR has 2TB of storage providing the Police with 30 days of recordings.

The analogue cameras are connected to the network using IndigoVision's transmitter/receiver modules, which also incorporate hardware inputs that can monitor external equipment. In an innovative use of this feature, local peripherals such as network devices and power supplies are monitored for failure, through the digital input at each camera. In the event of a failure an alarm is raised in ‘Control Center' that automatically drives the nearest PTZ to a preset position to view the equipment. This allows operators to check that the failure is not being caused through vandalism.