video surveillance tough enough for busy casinos

Case Study : A state-of-the art video system for a state-of-the-art surveillance room

Angel of the Winds Casino in Washington needed to replace its video surveillance system, which consisted of banks of industrial VCRs, matrix switches and underperforming big-name brand digital recording equipment.

The system Airship is building for this casino will use 24-channel, 4CIF hybrid DVRs with H.264 compression, managed by the Airship Enterprise Management Server and DVR Manager software.

The technology integrates directly with the casino's American Dynamics matrix. A virtual matrix will be custom-integrated for the video wall in the Surveillance Suite. Point-of-sale data will be integrated using the Airship POS client. Video to be retained for long-term storage will be managed by the Airship Automatic Archive Video Manager which integrates closely with the Incident Reporting system.

Multi-view workstations provide operators with an adaptable, high-resolution viewing experience featuring real–time, multi-image video display of both live and recorded images.

Angel ofthe Winds had looked at a great many competing systems over three years, trying to find a replacement for their VCR recording system.Airship’s products met their criteria for performance, features and adaptability. Decision-makers at the casino determined that Airship's was the most competitve solution available to them based on the following differentiations:

1. Airship is using the most up-to-date codec available for compressing analog video
   
   
2. Airship systems integrate with today’s IP cameras, and additional integrations are continually being added to the system. The casino was impressed that additional modules they wanted to integrate were already part of the system, integrated into the same workstations the operators used for all other functions. The fact that Airship had the stability and experience necessary to partner on all future projects was also important.
   
   
3. Airship ’s ability to provide custom integration was very appealing. Airship was willing to offer its POS system (which integrates real-time video to all register transactions) integrated to the register system of the casino’s choice. Airship is able to integrate analog, serial, or digital data systems that are known today and others that are yet to come.
   
   Because Airship designs and compiles the code for their systems in-house, it is a partner able to to provide rapid fixes and feature enhancements. Airship customers don’t have to delay critical component changes, waiting for new software releases from third-party developers.
   
   The casino also expected to need other custom integrations to fit the way their internal systems work. The casino and didn’t want to have to purchase ill-fitting software to meet those needs. This was another differentiating factor for Airship’s system.
   
   
4. The casino felt confident they would be able to receive a high level of support and training from Airship now and into the future. They liked that Airship's systems are backed by a 3-year warranty through one of the largest computer builders in the industry; Airship offers much better and quicker warranty support than many competitors.
   
   
5. Airship addressed the casino staff’s concern that any video system they would purchase today would soon become yesterday’s technology. They feel assured that the up-to-date system Airship provides today will allow them to integrate the technologies of tomorrow as they become available and the casino decides to adopt them.
   
   The assurance that Airship is a company heavy on developers actively developing new technologies according to a strategic product development road map — not resting or bringing old and dated technology to the market — helped to allay fears of spending millions of dollars today just to have to make a similar expenditure in a few years.

Conclusion

Angel of the Wind Casino in Washington chose Airship’s video surveillance products because they offer unprecedented performance and value: Superior video with comprehensive enterprise management capabilities on a future-proof open platform at a competitive price.