Oregon’s Canby School District, which supports approximately five thousand students, has installed an IP-based video surveillance network to monitor its facilities. Among the cameras the district has set up, are a variety of high-performance JVC products which include; VN-C215V4U fixed mini-dome, VN-V26U brick-style models, as well as four powerful JVC VR-N1600U 16-channel Network Video Recorders (NVRs).
Canby High School, the district’s only public high school, has installed thirty two cameras for strategic monitoring of interior and exterior areas including entrances, car parks, hallways and the cafeteria. The campus, which is comprised from five buildings, includes centres for fine arts, physical education and career development. The JVC cameras, which have been set up to trigger off built-in motion detectors, record onto two of the 16-channel VR-N1600U NVRs and can record high-quality Motion JPEG or MPEG-4 images.
Also in Oregon’s Canby School District, Ackerman Middle School has set up eight cameras which record to a VRN1600U on site. The fourth NVR is located at the District Office and records eight JVC cameras which monitor six elementary schools and a business office.
“We chose the JVC cameras based upon their great picture quality and reputation for reliable operation, especially in low-light and extreme weather conditions,” reveals Joe Morelock, IT director for the Canby School District. “Other compelling features included Web-based setup and access, and a JVC application which enables monitoring on an Apple iPhone.”
The remaining ports on the NVR at the District Office are populated by eight legacy analogue cameras which are being modified with IP devices. As a result, these will be monitored by Xprotect IP camera management software from Milestone Systems, which JVC has embedded within its VR-N1600U.
“We like Milestone because we are able to manage the view/access rights to all of the cameras from one central server, allowing only one point of entry with multiple access security roles,” Morelock states.
The district has a virtual local area network (VLAN) supported by a fibre optic backbone, which allows authorized personnel to view video data without interfering with regular enterprise data traffic. Technocom, a systems integrator based in Wilsonville, Ore., designed and installed the Canby School District’s camera surveillance system, which came online in time for September classes. The project included installing Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches over existing Category 5e/6 cabling, which provides the power source for the cameras and the transmission vehicle for video data across the network.
While the video cameras can be viewed in real time and monitored 24/7, Canby School administrators prefer to review the recordings to investigate suspicious incidents that have taken place, such as thefts or unruly student behaviour. School officials may be granted access to monitor all the cameras - or just an individual camera or select portion of the network - using any Web-enabled device. Also, law enforcement agencies can also monitor school cameras remotely from their squad cars by tapping into the school district’s IP-based Wi-Fi network. The adoption of camera surveillance was seen as a positive move by the community.
“School security has become an extremely important issue and trend,” Morelock explains. “The closed-circuit security system was funded as part of a bond issue that voters approved for the construction and renovation of Canby’s public schools. The mere presence of these cameras acts as a deterrent as well as an investigative tool that is already serving to keep our schools safer.”
Like JVC’s law enforcement and government customers have already discovered, the education sector is beginning to realise the low cost of JVC IP video surveillance solutions, which include no hidden fees and an open architecture for integration with a wide variety of third-party applications, from Apple iPhone and BlackBerry wireless phones to video analytics and access control systems.
