A department of University of Oxford, Oxford University Press (OUP) aims to further the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Publishing volumes on a variety of subjects, the business produces literature in hard copy print and digital media, and spanning more than 40 languages.
With offices in 50 countries, OUP is the largest university press in the world, whilst its historic headquarters remain in the UK.
Situated in Walton Street in the picturesque centre of Oxford, the listed building is secured with a comprehensive CCTV system.
OUP management approached security solutions provider ISD-Tech to look at ways of improving the current CCTV installation, by increasing its quality of images from all areas of the site.
Patrick Sheldon-Battle, facilities manager at OUP, said: “Our existing cameras, supplied by a number of different manufacturers, transmit their video images back to our control room via traditional coax cable.
“Although the cameras are quality items, and their locations covered the scenes we needed, they weren’t delivering the quality of picture detail we required for both monitoring and recording.”
NVT technology
Nicky Stokes, managing director of ISD-Tech, said: “After a thorough survey of the site and comprehensive technical evaluation of OUP management’s requirements, to ensure signal quality, we suggested the use of an existing Cat5 UTP cable network in combination with NVT UTP Hybrid Video Transmission products.”
Sheldon-Battle said: “Changing the video transmission method of the system has resulted in all-round better quality images, without the problematic electrical interference we were continually experiencing from our site electrical services.
“The upgrade to NVT has allowed us to maximise our camera investment and performance at this historic site, guaranteeing all visual information is delivered for effective monitoring and archiving.”
UTP advantage
NVT claims “the fast set-up of NVT products coupled with the intrinsic characteristics of UTP cable helped to minimise engineering time on site, disruption to the daily operation of OUP and overall project duration. It also yielded cost saving and project management benefits”.
The use of the CAT5 UTP network also allowed a more sympathetic installation within the historical building’s listed infrastructure and decor.
The unusual layout of the building meant camera transmission runs vary from a few metres to 1,000 metres.
Utilising two NVT NV-1613S Compact 16-Channel Passive Transceiver Hubs in the control room and NVT NV-214A-M Passive Transceivers at each of the existing cameras, ISD-Tech completed the system whilst working around the daily activities of the business.
With images from all internal aspects of the site, the car park, courtyard area, loading bay and entrance and exit points, Sheldon-Battle and the team now operate a system that can provide an instant overview of the site at the touch of a button.
He said: “Helping us to deal with daily activities far more effectively, the images are used for both security and site management purposes. Thanks to the increased image quality and reliability of the NVT transmitted images, we can now identify vehicles and persons all around the site.”
NVT says using UTP video transmission technology “also means that OUP now have a simple built-in upgrade path to system expansion, should extra cameras be needed to cover additional areas of the site in the future”.
