CCTV system to Iziko Museums

The vision was to supply the Iziko Museum a next-generation, standards-based IP video with video, audio and data. Each of the six main buildings has its own control room that allows for onsite viewing and recording with video wall capability for onscreen viewing of the images. These buildings included the SA Museum, the SA National Gallery, the Slave Lodge, the Castle of Good Hope, the Social History Centre and the Old Town House.

A further requirement was that all of the remote sites are to be viewed at the Main Control Centre. This was achieved by installing a dedicated fibre optic cable network linking the buildings. IP connectivity was achieved by installing Ethernet switches. Existing analogue cameras were converted to an IP stream using Teleste encoders. At each of the other buildings, an IP camera was used. At each of the sites a Teleste Video Management System was installed to ensure redundancy. In the main Control Room, a system is installed to allow connectivity between the sites. User stations with video wall capability are used by the operators for viewing of the alarms, video feeds and control of the PTZ cameras.

Teleste VMX was chosen as the Video Management Platform solution for Iziko Museums in 2008. The initial installation proved very efficient and 11 remote sites have been added to the main system since. The video is monitored and reviewed both locally at the SA Museum and at the remote sites. One of the main benefits of the Teleste VMX is the ease that it can be upgraded.

– Tim Goosen, Manager, Fibre Based Integrations, Cape Town.

Customer need

• To protect and secure treasures within the museum.
• To provide a safe environment for the visitors.
• To interlink all remote sites to the main control centre.
• To get an open protocol standards-based VMS system with on site recording.
• The capability of remote site viewing of live and recorded images.
• To provide 3rd party integration of analogue and standards-based IP cameras and IO modules.

Solution to customer’s need

• The system is based on a fully secured and redundant optical GE IP network.
  • Geographical Information System (GIS).
  • GIS mapping is used to identify camera locations across all of the sites.
• The museums are located in Cape Town and the cameras are controlled from several CCTV control rooms. Each control room can view and control any camera on the system.
• A fully redundant system. Main and multiple back-up servers allow the system to continue functioning even in the case of a multiple server failure. Redundant Networked Video recorders are also in use which provide back-up recording for all cameras.
• The Teleste field hardened video encoders are used to encode the analogue camera inputs to IP, the MPEG-4 video streams is then recorded on the Teleste Networked Video recorders in the control rooms.
• Teleste also provided the video wall software to display the incoming video streams onto large LCD monitors.
• Teleste have designed the CCTV installation to be redundant using the least number of components that reduce the spares requirement.