Security

Bosch Sicherheitssysteme: a capability overview of CCTV surveillance solutions for casinos

12.09.2012 - Bosch Sicherheitssysteme: a capability overview of CCTV surveillance solutions for casinos. The primary task of CCTV surveillance in a casino is to protect its visitors, employees ...

Bosch Sicherheitssysteme: a capability overview of CCTV surveillance solutions for casinos. The primary task of CCTV surveillance in a casino is to protect its visitors, employees and assets; most establishments spare no expense in installing the most sophisticated CCTV systems available. This article reviews the specialized surveillance requirements of casinos and looks at the solutions that Bosch Security Systems has to offer.

Compared with other buildings and complexes, casinos have unique security requirements. The combination of large crowds, huge amounts of cash on site and the threat of cheating and theft leads to a potentially volatile environment. Whether to prevent petty cheating, theft or organized crime by visitors or staff, the need for thorough and effective surveillance is a primary requirement.

Surveillance acts first as a deterrent and secondly as a means of detection, apprehension and, ultimately, prosecution. Security staff have an important dual role here – but without CCTV surveillance, their task would be almost impossible. In the UK a recent report by KPMG shows that spending on gambling will be more than 3.75 billion by 2009. It’s clear then, why casino owners are willing to spend substantial amounts of money to protect their investments with state-of-the-art CCTV surveillance.

Detection and Capacity

The CCTV chain begins with the camera. Bosch offers a range of fixed, dome and pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) models suitable for casinos. Especially applicable for low-light conditions often found in a casino, the company’s Dinion cameras feature XF-Dynamic, which uses 15-bit digital signal processing (DSP) technology to capture the entire dynamic range of a scene.

This means that activities in areas of bright lights or in dark shadows are captured effectively. Other features, many enabled by digital technology, further enhance basic camera functionality such as miniaturization, motion detection, day/night operation, backlight compensation, dynamic noise reduction plus remote and automatic lens control.

As there can be thousands of cameras in a large casino, the key word is capacity. The DiBos Digital Video Recorder and Transmission System employs new compression techniques based on the MPEG-4 standard and with hard disk drive capacities of up to 600 gigabytes, enough capacity for up to ten weeks of continuous recording. The system also provides tamper-proof storage that answers the legal need for preventing image editing without being detected, and the provision of video evidence in a court of law.

IP-Based Surveillance

The industry trend of basing CCTV surveillance systems on Internet protocol (IP) is certainly extending to casinos. In many cases the building’s existing local area network (LAN), internet or intranet can be used, adding surveillance capability for minimal cost. The benefits are many. At the camera level, the scalability of an IP-based system grows from a single camera to thousands in single unit increments, compared with 16-camera/channel steps for DVR.

Moreover, IP allows ‘intelligent’ functionality of cameras, such as motion detection, sensor input, relay output and alarm triggering; faster systems integration allowing one network that controls audio, video and data; remote accessibility of live or stored video streams from any location, and increased reliability through real-time management software.

IP-based security systems employ a Networked Video Recorder (NVR) rather than a DVR. The NVR is an intelligent video server that feeds the data streams of all digital video sources or analog cameras into the network and stores the content on a hard disk.

In addition to video, an NVR also records audio and from any camera in the system and plays back to any monitor. The company’s Vidos-NVR supports up to 64 video streams simultaneously over a single PC server.

A most important feature of this NVR is the company’s Automatic Network Replenishment (ANR), patent- pending technology that ensures seamless and gapless video recording even in the event of network failure.

Contact:

Erika Görge
Bosch Sicherheitssysteme GmbH,
Ottobrunn, Germany
Tel.: +49 89 6290 1647
Fax: +49 89 6290 1193
emea.securitysystems@bosch.com
www.boschsecurity.com