The casinos will be able to run a more secure and efficient business having deployed the latest digital surveillance technology. The IP video systems will be designed and installed by Indigovision’s Authorised Partner, Ippi GmbH.

The nine casinos are owned by the Bavarian State government. A governmental team fully evaluated IP video systems from all of the major manufacturers, using extensive testing and live trials, before choosing Indigovision.

“Upgrading our surveillance operation was very important as our existing analogue/DVR equipment was becoming increasingly unreliable and expensive to maintain, and lacked the performance and flexibility of modern digital systems,” said Michael Mueller, Chief Organisation Manager. “Indigovision’s guarantee of no dropped frames under any circumstances combined with excellent video compression and image quality was the main reason they were chosen – no other vendor in our trials could match that combination.”

Several new Indigovision fixed cameras and PTZ IP domes will be installed in addition to reusing the analogue cameras from the original nine casinos. The cameras will be used to provide close-up detail on the gaming tables, allowing operators to clearly identify chip values and card faces, as well as monitoring the public and back office areas.

This project will be a good example of the flexible upgrade path that IP video offers, with all of the original cameras being reused and the conversion to the new digital system resulting in minimum downtime for the casino. New cabling is reduced through the flexibility of the IP network and the use of Power-Over-Ethernet (PoE) with the IP cameras.

“Data security and redundancy is also a very important consideration of the casinos,” added Michael Mueller. “We will be using dual power supplies and network connections on the switches and deploying a fully redundant recording solution.”

As a rule, a casino will use two Indigovision Windows network video recorder (NVR) servers with a Raid6 SAN system in a dual redundant configuration. One Windows NVR server will record all of the camera video streams, and in the event of a Windows NVR failure the other Windows NVR server will take over. The other advantage of Indigovision’s advanced H.264 compression technology is that much less storage is required than comparable systems. Consequently, in the first casino installation the number of cabinets will be reduced from six to two, requiring less space, less cooling plant and less power.

Indigovision’s ‘Control Center’ security management software will be used by the casino surveillance teams to view live video and review recorded footage following an incident or dispute. The usability of the software will be very important for the casino and using the advanced motion search tools, operators will be able to quickly find recorded events.

Through its open architecture IndigoVision offers extensive integration capability, allowing third-party systems to be tightly integrated with the surveillance system and the alarm management facilities in ‘Control Center’. The casinos will use this capability to interface to panic alarms and the casino control systems. Alarms or events from either of these systems will create a bookmark in the recorded video from the nearest cameras to the incident.

Over 30 casinos in eight countries across the world now use an end-to-end Indigovision solution that’s fully digital - meaning no analogue matrix, no VCR, no DVR - with 100% of the video system on an IP network. IP is the future for ultra-scalable, high-resilience video management systems, including high definition.