When the Charlotte Department of Transportation (CDOT) needed to facilitate traffic during street construction, they set up a camera monitoring system which linked to a small router in the CDOT’s headquarters.
Later, when the Charlotte police department wanted to monitor city incidents, CDOT shared its network and helped create a police observation center. Then, with the advent of Homeland Security projects, the network had yet another use – but it needed a larger router to handle the increased capacity.
Enter Sierra Video Systems’ Sequoia Router. “We could become one large center, but we needed a router with a higher frame rate to prevent picture break-down during transmission. We were looking for a broadcast quality unit, as opposed to a security-quality unit,” said Art Stegall, ITS (Intelligent Transportation System) Program Coordinator for CDOT.
Clark Powell, the local professional audio/video installer, recommended the Sequoia Router not only for its high quality switching capabilities, but also because of the Sierra Video Systems Trade-In & Trade-Up program. The exclusive program allows a system credit based on the age and price of the original Sierra Video system. The program was designed to insure that customers could grow with their product investments.
The system currently includes 96 cameras throughout the city, connected by fiber optic cables to the Sequoia router in the control center. Video signals are sent to various displays for monitoring, including 10 flat screen displays at the police control center, various displays at police headquarters and in dispatch areas, and video monitors and a projector screen at the CDOT control center. The system also has storage capacity for up to 64 cameras so that police videos can be searched and archived.
“The Sequoia is the glue for all three city projects,” said Marty Meredith, who heads Business Development for Broadcast and Production Systems at ClarkPowell. “The system is based on an open architecture made up of routing, displays, distribution and storage. There’s lots of room for vertical growth, and many opportunities for other agencies to get on board.”
