We'd like to assemble a directory of surveillance video wall manufacturers.
IP video walls are often able to be produced inside of VMSes, but does anyone have experience with 'specialty' vendors like Jupiter or Matrox or Mitsubishi?
Please include any you have used and any general feedback about them, and we'll put together a post. Thanks!
Brian,
At my last employer we installed a 10 Security monitors using 46" Samsung thin bezel monitors and Jupiter networks video wall controller.
This was a purpose built video wall in a SOC environment. Not simple a giant wall watching surveillance cameras.
We did of course when needed display surveillance cameras, however typically had SolarWinds network monitoring application, NC4 Situational Awareness application displayed and a Weather application.
When I looked for video wall manufacturers I came across Orion Images as well. However my Integrator at the time recommend Jupiter Networks platform.
So we went with it. I am looking forward to this thread. I will be looking to deploy a new video wall and would like to know what's out there and any ratings on them.
GVision they have the mounts, custom if necessary, they have the ultra small bezel or large video wall monitors for less money. They also have the multi viewer to spread various inputs across the video wall. Reliable and great service as well as stock in California.
We just finished up a Gvision video wall which turned out very well.
NEC Hiperwall, RGB Spectrum, Barco, Christie
Agreed with Christie Digital Phoenix, Barco, RGB OWS & Galileo. I have not tried NEC yet. I like the Phoenix system for the RTSP, Onvif, RDP capture as well as the Milestone integration
The best one I have seen -- by a long shot, including lots of custom setups from Crestron and others -- is CineMassive.
Can someone explain what problem video walls solves? Wouldn't analytics to detect events be a better use than relying on bored operators to detect something? Operators might find a window to see outdoors more stimulating.
Robert,
A video wall does not by itself solve any problem. It is merely a tool just like any other tool. Video analytics is just a tool.
Years ago (11 years) I installed some dedicated purpose built license plate cameras. They worked great for capturing LP's in the dark, fog, or when a normal camera would be blinded by headlights. However the VMS at the time could not interpret the data. So the images were simple images on a hard drive. No way to search the database for just those images.
Anyway a video wall does have a purpose if properly deployed. If it is simple installed to put 200 cameras on a large monitor wall it is useless. An operator cannot look at that many cameras and notice anything.
This is no different than putting in a PTZ. Programming it to be on a guard tour and then claiming you have 360 degree 100% camera coverage. The camera is not going to put up most of what happens and when it does pick up anything it will be almost entirely useless content because the camera is constantly moving. Unless there is an operator who can override the tour to provide the video you need.
Robert,
One more item. AS for the window to provide stimulation. Any good operations center will not have windows. An operations center requires proper lighting levels to be effective. Windows offer lots of natural light that unfortunately will impact operators ability to look at their PC monitors.
The last operations center I built and managed for 5 years had no windows and adjustable lighting. The operators often would reduce the lights to the lowest level prior to off (25% lights) to help them work better.
I also worked for a few years in the military in a job field that is close to an air traffic controller. We operated in a dark room with no windows and often under lights that were covered in red or blue sleeves to produce red or blue light. We never used white lights. This helped facilitate starring at radar screens and computer screens.
Hi Damon, still fuzzy on the problem video walls solves. Thought perhaps this is the approach for monitoring areas where the people traffic is too high for analytics to be helpful. Where high crime, in public areas (pick pockets, prostitution, drug trafficing) coordinated with foot patrol - are video walls used for this application? Or something else better?
Robert, I had the same question myself not that long ago and this web site I found was a good description of what it does. See: What does a VideoWall do?
Robert,
Again a video wall is merely a tool. If you are merely wanting a wall full of monitors full of surveillance camera images, then yes a video wall serves absolutely no purpose other than spending the organizations money.
However a video wall or even better term a display or data wall is a better term is extremely useful in an operations center. Not in a security office or simple control room.
But in a true GSOC or EOC environment they are useful. As i stated in my original post, we would normally not put surveillance camera images on the wall. We would went something occurred that we wanted to review or check out. And when i say check out. It was not my operators. It was myself as the Director of the SOC and we were showing the VP of Security and or others what happened.
A typical display had a web based situational awareness or alerting tool displayed that would show us on a graphical display incidents and their relationship to one of our facilities. We also had another portion dedicated to displaying a weather display. This way we could quickly look up on the display and see if there was any significant weather impacting our facilities.
Another item we displayed was a network monitoring solution. This allowed for us in real time to see the status of an entire city and or facilities in the facility. If we began to receive notifications of cameras, NVR's, alarm systems, and card access off line at a location or in a city needed to investigate why these devices went off line. WE used the network monitoring system to quickly at a glance to see if the issue was on our end or within the IT infrastructure itself. The system we utilized was also in use by our IT group. It listed all facilities and within each city. It was real simple to use the display. Red meant down. Green meant up and running network. If the network was red for a facility we knew the issue was on the IT side and we did not need to do anything. If the system showed a facility all green we knew the issue was on our end.
The other thing we had on our data board was a display from our computer aided dispatching software. I used this as a way for me to quickly glance up at the board and see the open calls for service we had going within the security department. Every call or incident we handled was logged into the CAD software platform. The display allowed me to see at any given time the open, pending, or closed calls. without this i would have to either disrupt a dispatcher to ask how many calls there were or to log into the system myself. I could do so. However as the Director i had other things I did each and every day.
However we did not put surveillance images up on the data wall in a live mode just simple to watch cameras. Way to many cameras. Way to many facilities. Not enough operators to do that. So no you would not use a video wall or data wall to watch live camera images in the hopes to look for pick pockets, drug deals or prostitution.
I can tell you however some police departments do have surveillance cameras up in high crime areas and in major attraction areas. They will monitor cameras during special events, like parades, protests, carnivals, festivals, etc. But again this is limited to these special events. Not full time, 24/7/365. Simple not enough manpower to do so all the time.
Collaborative environments where multiple people need to look at the same things and many things. We just did one that will have up to 50 seats, people sharing different sources from their workstations. People moving around.
No, they aren't going to be staring at the wall trying to watch 8 different things and 100 different cameras, but attention can quickly be directed to something as needed. They can have one thing stretched against a giant wallspace or many things sharing. Flexibility is key.
I wish I had unlimited video wallspace when I am doing my designs...
Robert I have worked on private estates with proprietary guard force, where the video is the eyes for a guard to have overall awareness of activity on the property.
alerts are always important, and alarms can trigger specific cameras or banks of cameras to be displayed for assessment.
however, just to give you a rough idea, for every day activity the clients or main support staff want to be able to have the guard monitor outside contractors, deliveries or visitors to the property, screen access/entry from the gates, know where to find a particular employee, etc, or be able if needed to coordinate and direct emergency response, all of which the guard has a much better ability to handle with adequate overall camera coverage.
Typically these are busy clients and busy properties, and no shortage of things happening that would not be possible to keep track of looking out any one window.
Damon- I recall seeing an Illumination Engineering Society spec for ambient lighting to be at 60% of the screen luminance, probably at the time that was for video or TV production setups, and I have spec'd lighting for control centers with dimmers that can adjust to that.
Doug,
I think I may have seen a study once upon a time as well.
Maybe someone in this group has seen it as well and could post a link in here.
Thanks for sharing.
Just got an email today that UNV is getting in the game:
A member from Seneca Data emailed me to add their offering to this list: VWC-Plus Controllers, with the comment:
We partner with a couple of the industry software ISVs like Matrox and Datapath.
Brian Seneca's Video walls are just them reselling LG they really throw no support behind these products.
A 'Wall' needs the displays and the controller.
We design and manufacture the Video Wall Controller hardware and preinstall the desired ISV.
We do not force a particular display vendor but LG ones are frequently part of a bundle when requested by the integrator. You could say we work with the integrator to help them on the project.
Examples of where our VWC-Plus controller hardware is installed are:
• T- Mobile Arena
• Times Square: Marriot Marquis
• 30 Rockefeller Center
• Cosmopolitan Casino (Las Vegas)
Barco Transform (with CMS and Opspace)
Christie Phoenix
We use Mitsubishi Narrow bazel 55 inch LCD in 12X3 configurtion with Barco NGS-D320 Pro network encoder and ECU200 video wall processor or Decoder .
Seneca by Arrow builds video wall controllers and video viewing workstations for video surveillance and digital media (think signage) projects.
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