Installation: CCTV at Huddersfield Technical College

Huddersfield Technical College is using an advanced CCTV solution to deliver protection for its 22,000 full and part-time students studying a wide range of courses, from GCSE to degree level.

The geographically dispersed college has four key sites, all of which are now covered by the new digital CCTV solution. These include its main campus at New North Road on the edge of the town centre; its Highfields centre, also on New North Road, specialising in art, design and performing arts; Brunel House, home to the School of Construction and Transport Studies, on the A62 Leeds Road corridor out of Huddersfield; and the Taylor Hill campus on the south side of the town, where the focus is on environmental care and animal studies.

The new CCTV system was installed by Oracle Vision. It is comprised of two DS2 DVRs from Dedicated Micros, both of which are installed in the main control room at New North Road, plus three SD Range systems situated at the College’s other sites. These are linked back over the network to the control room for centralised monitoring and review via DM’s NetVu ObserVer video management software.

Getting changed

Chris Lakin, technical director at Oracle Vision, says: “The previous set-up at Huddersfield was very basic. Essentially there was a matrix and multiplexers with VCR capability. It was clear from our initial discussions with the College that they were keen to move away from this outdated analogue, tape-based approach and instead adopt a digital video over IP solution which would allow them to utilise their IT network to send and receive images and manage their CCTV.”

The Facilities Manager at Huddersfield Technical College, David Hardcastle, was a leading advocate for the College going down the digital CCTV route: “We had an antiquated analogue system that was rapidly failing and the safety and security of our students and staff is of paramount importance. In terms of the brief to Oracle Vision I told them that we wanted a future proof solution that was easy to manage and maintain. At the back of my mind there was also the thought that it would have to be flexible enough to satisfy the demands of a new building which is being planned for the College, as I sit on the group looking at our longer-term security and IT requirements.”

According to Lakin, Oracle Vision’s search for the right CCTV system to build the solution around brought them to the latest generation Digital Sprite 2 DVR from Dedicated Micros, which went in at the beginning of 2007: “One of the things which drew us to the DS2 is the way that it is possible to interact and manage the CCTV intuitively through the supplied NetVu ObserVer Graphic User Interface software and the fact that being NetVu Connected, the solution could be scaled-up to cope with future demands.”

The next phase of the project saw the selection of SD units, also from Dedicated Micros, when it was decided to expand the digital CCTV coverage to three additional sites. These were installed in September 2007.

Future considerations

“We wanted to be able to provide a capable and cost effective answer which was able to take account of possible future development, for instance, if the DVRs had to be moved to a different location,” says Lakin.

“We had seen a demonstration of an SD system soon after its launch, which we took David Hardcastle to, and it appeared to meet all of the requirements in terms of the College’s budget and performance. It offered the potential, through a common system architecture, to operate with the existing DS2s, and to be fully functional with all of the CCTV cameras at each campus. In addition, we knew that the picture quality was pretty good and using MPEG-4 it would be network friendly – always an important consideration.” The ability to configure the units from a central point over the College’s network was particularly attractive, Lakin says: “This is certainly advantageous in terms of setting the system up and also from a maintenance point of view, as our engineers can log in remotely to the Huddersfield site to deal with any problems in a proactive way – minimising downtime – rather than always having to send someone to site.

“Another beneficial feature is the fact that there are no buttons on the front which could be pressed to change settings after they have been configured, so keeping access to the system secure.”

Since the units were installed Lakin has been extremely impressed with their reliability: “Despite being a brand new product where you might expect some hiccups the operation has been really smooth – there have been no issues at all. It has been very impressive to see and has certainly rewarded our decision to recommend the SD for Huddersfield.”

Hardcastle agrees: “I am absolutely delighted with the kit from Dedicated Micros and the support from Oracle Vision. I know the same goes for our security team. As a lay person when it comes to security technology it is vital to have equipment and an installer you can rely on, and we certainly have both of these provided by Oracle Vision.”

Effective control

Philip Whitehead, the College’s security coordinator, is based in the control room at the New North Road campus, where he is responsible for a team of five – three on days and two on nights.

Whitehead believes that the new 24-hour monitoring solution is a vast improvement over what he had to work with before: “Now we can review images in seconds while still recording whereas in the past we had to literally turn off half of the old system to view a single analogue tape. It is also possible to search under specific parameters, such as time, allowing us to go straight to the images required without the laborious process of searching through tapes. Because it is so intuitive the time required to train operators is much less than what was required for the older, more cumbersome, analogue equipment.

“In essence the whole process of working with our CCTV is much better, especially, given the fact that the three remote sites are now all linked-in via the SD units, allowing their images to be managed and reviewed centrally via the same NetVu ObserVer software as used with the DS2s”, says Whitehead.

As a keyholder Whitehead needs to be able to respond to out-of-hours incidents and, in this respect, sees the new CCTV solution as a major advance: “I now have the NetVu ObserVer software running on my PC at home so I can readily dial into the CCTV system when I am off site. Basically this means that should there be a call out from the security officer on duty at three o’clock in the morning I don’t necessarily have to spend 20 minutes travelling in to assess the situation. Instead I can simply log on to the computer and view the images and then make a judgement as to whether my presence is really required or it is something which can be dealt with in the morning.”

Whitehead says the student reaction has been positive: “Most of the students I speak to think that it is a great idea, obviously there will be the odd one or two where the hoods come up and they try to sneak out of the way of the cameras, but given the widespread coverage we have it is quite easy for us to pick them up if they are up to no good.”

Catching criminals

He says CCTV has acted as a good deterrent, and the College is generally trouble-free.

“Of course from time to time we need to deal with issues that are prevalent in all areas of society. We are linked into the town centre radio scheme, which the Police subscribe to as well, so if there is an incident emerging on the periphery of the town we will be informed, and CCTV evidence we have amassed has been used in court to secure convictions.

“About a month ago we had an incident involving theft. We had already received one report of theft. We located on CCTV a person acting suspiciously. We were able to detain the suspect and call the police. When they arrived, with the capabilities of the new digital system, we were able to let the police view the incident in a matter of seconds and provide them with a CD as evidence.”

Hardcastle says the system has “tremendous potential” for income generation: “This is really only the beginning for us. We now have a CCTV infrastructure which can evolve with us and will not have to be ripped out and replaced in two years. This gives us the confidence to be able to offer a monitoring service to other schools and colleges in the area helping to provide a long term return on our initial investment and helping to improve security in the surrounding community.”