This CCTV system is to try and eliminate anti social and criminal activities in a deprived area of Sunderland, with the aim to breathe new life into the area and provide a more pleasant living environment for the residents.

In this project, IP was chosen as it gives the customer the easiest option to achieve a successful project. IP transmission when coupled with radio transmission provides a cost effective, rapid installation and high quality system that relieves all of the hassles of civil ground works associated with the laying of ducting and associated fiber optic cabling. With IP infrastructure, it means great scalability for the future expansion.

The use of digital recording also gives the customer a real-time high resolution recording essential to gaining a higher number of prosecutions. The project required that a total of 29 camera poles to be placed in and around the Hendon area of Sunderland of which at any time 10 poles will have the cameras attached to them and be viewed and recorded. The decision on which poles to place the cameras is determined by trouble spots in the area at any one time. They also have one rapid deployment camera that can be placed on any lamp post in the area which can be operational within half an hour should the requirement be there.

There are 29 of ACTi video servers, SED-2120, and 11 units of ACTi video transcoder, SED-3300 installed in this project. ACTi provides IP video transmission that achieves high resolution live images at low bandwidths. There is little or no movement from the bandwidth that the transmission rate is set to on the codec. This is imperative when used with an IP radio transmission system as bandwidth is limited opposed to using cabled LAN environment.