Rangitoto College is a state co-educational high school based on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. It is the country’s largest high school with over 3000 students. However, due to the size of the school they are unable to accommodate all of the students in the main hall at the same time. So an innovative solution was developed to use a High Definition (HD) IP Camera to monitor the opening ceremony and web-cast live video and synchronised audio to over 600 computers around the school’s network, allowing every student to watch proceedings. This was all achieved with one week’s notice and without any network modification. Also no new software or expensive user licenses were required on the 600+ viewing PCs. It proved so successful the school now regularly uses the technology to broadcast whole-school assemblies.

With the combination of Indigo Vision’s class-leading compression and multicast network technology, the school is able to stream high-quality video and audio to all of the school’s 600+ PC’s with a maximum network load of 4Mbps at any location. Viewing in a web browser avoided the need to install and configure any software on each PC.

The broadcasts are recorded using Indigo Vision’s Windows Network Video Recorder (NVR) software onto a PC hard disk. A typical 1 hour assembly creates a 570Mb file, which can be exported in standard MP4 format for editing and web publishing or archiving. A PC running ‘Control Center’, Indigo Vision’s security management software, allows the staff to control the HD IP Camera through a third-party PTZ and configure the transmission and recording of the broadcast.

The school now has an ideal platform on which to add IP Video security surveillance in the future. High-quality CCTV cameras can be rapidly installed across the school’s multiple buildings, with minimal load on the network bandwidth.