I was at your Dallas training October 20 -21, 1998. It helped me a great deal. Any way I have a problem, just want your thoughts. We have 64 security officers. All are full time senior XXX Police officers and they have a lot of input to our system. We have 32 pan/tilt zoom cameras (all outside) good quality, BURLE 301 series. We hope to upgrade to color soon. My problem is not the cameras, it how to set up the monitors. Currently I have 2 BURLE "allplex" multiplexers with 4 25" monitors. I get complaints about sequencing or the 16 small screens. So to the side of the office I set up the old system (8 quads, 8 monitors). Now they complain that there are too many pictures and they are lost when they look for something. What do you think the most effective set up would be.
Sign me, Too Many Pics in the West
Dear Pics,
I really didn't forget your question. Just wanted to wait until I had enough
time to answer it intelligently (I hope). Read on.
This is a really difficult question to answer without a whole lot of extra
input. To be honest, I can't answer based upon the context of the question. I
would recommend that we set up an overall review and consulting arrangement and
I come in, study the situation, and work with you to come to grips. In absence
of that however, I can at least give you some ideas that may or may not be in
place.
First, you need to look at the application. Having a lot of cameras to cover
various areas is OK, if they are organized in such a way as to be useful. There
is no way that any one or ten people can competently watch as many images as you
currently have. Consequently, you need to organize your images by area,
priority, action, and response.
If you have a camera in a hallway, and that camera is for general observation
of activity in the hallway, you first determine if the need is; while something
is happening; or if the need is for "after-the-fact" review and data.
If it is for after the fact, this camera can be recorded without the being on
the screen full time. Through some proper interface with various video tools,
you can protect the camera from being cut off without someone watching it. Video
tools such as signal or video lose detection. This is done at the control center
through simple, "black box" technology and may even be available as a
If on the other hand, the hallway that this camera is installed in, is supposed to be empty during certain hours and you need to know when there is activity in the area, you may want to incorporate tools such as: video motion detection, door contacts, PIR, et cetera. When motion is detected in the area, under the time or area constraints that you have applied, the image would come onto your master work screen and your recorder would be kicked up to a higher recording rate. At all other times, the image is available for viewing, but is not on a screen.
As a second step to interface organization, you can utilize tools such as salvo switching. Salvo switching gives us the ability to program the system in such a way as to switch related groups of cameras simultaneously. The hallway camera is called up by an operator or it goes into alarm. As it appears on the master monitor, the adjoining cameras in the back hall, front exit, and side exit also become active in either side windows on the master screen or on additional smaller monitors. At the same time, doors lock, video or digital storage units run in the record mode, lights come on, and personnel respond according to a predetermined plan of action.
Pan/Tilt (P/T) systems should be set up with "Preposition" response where ever possible. This is a programmable feature of many matrix and controlling systems. With it, you have the ability to set multiple points of observation for the camera(s) on P/Ts in conjunction with alarm inputs. A door is opened and camera one automatically swings around and views the door area. Additionally, camera two, from a different vantage point becomes active, pans, tilts, zooms, and focuses on the sidewalk area outside of the alarmed door. This being automated, allows the operator to start from a single point with all corresponding cameras. Instead of having to fish around for the best view and setting up a whole bunch of scenes during an active response, the operator, can quickly review the images in front of them and tweak and tune the best image in a matter of seconds.
At the end of the day, the major idea of utilizing the various tools of the video system is to organize, minimize, and automate the cameras system to such an extent that the personnel responsible for viewing are reduced to single step operation of multiple points. Additionally, the objective is to minimize the amount of visual information that the observer is bombarded with, without compromising the importance of the structured event. In the end, you should spend the majority of time designing the response and reaction perspective of your system on paper. Once a full plan is designed in theory, you can then apply equipment to meet or match your needs. This will also establish exactly how many and how large of monitors that you need in your work area. Remember... keep it to a minimum. The average IQ person can only watch, up to, a maximum of four scenes simultaneously with any comprehension. Therefore, whatever you can do to cut that number of images down to one or two master images with support views off to the side, the better off you will be.
Like I said before, there are so many unknowns to your question that I cannot properly give you advise. I hope however, that the above, at least, leads you to seeing that there are a lot of alternatives to how you view, operate, and respond to video. Remember the key is to Keep It Stupid Simple (KISS), and work from there.
Good luck. If I or my staff can be of any additional service to your CCTV needs, please feel free to holler. We are in your service.
