Background
The Casino Kursaal Oostende is the largest of the eight casinos owned by the Belgian government. The 26,520 square foot casino features 20 table games, 54 slots and three restaurants on the property. The building in which the casino is located is classified as a monument and is owned by the City of Oostende.
Business challenges
Belgian casinos are administered closely by the government and are legally required to have video surveillance with real-time recording at 25 frames per second (PAL), a minimum of one month of storage, and all recorded information must be transferable to another medium, such as a DVD disk. Cameras installed in the first phase had to record 14 hours a day. In the second phase, approximately 50 cameras were added and all cameras were required to be fully compatible with the existing Pelco matrix keyboards. To make matters more interesting, any up-grade to the security system faced numerous cost and installation obstacles due to the building's monument status and an ongoing renovation, which ensured that an entire new cabling infra-structure was required.
The highlights
Monitoring events real-time in the casino or using the NVMS's advanced review capabilities, security personnel are able to solve problems on the spot, including something as difficult as verifying the position of money or chips on a gaming table in the event of a dispute.
The system's Virtual Matrix ensured integration for all cameras with the legacy Pelco keyboard, while also offering compatibility with all the biggest CCTV players on the market.
All camera data is recorded to a storage device selected by the casino, a RAID-5 HD with 3.5 terabyte capacity, so as to easily accommodate the 14-hour a day recording and one month storage requirements.
All existing and future cameras will be on the casino's network, so DVTEL's Virtual Matrix technology enables security personnel to call up any camera on any monitor at any time, from any workstation with access rights using the keyboard or a mouse.
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| NVMS's review capabilities help security personnel to solve problems on the spot |
The solution
Oostende Casino selected DVTEL’s Latitude Network Video Management System (NVMS) for a number of reasons, including the system's unique flexibility and low cost in terms of cabling requirements. Working with DVTEL's integrator, Creco, a specialist in systems integration, the casino implemented the NVMS to meet the strict CCTV recording requirements for its gaming and entertainment operations. The NVMS is a completely network-based system that utilises off-the-shelf computer and networking hard-ware. Upon full implementation, all cameras performed at the same rigorous recording specifications and were configured to record to redundant hard drive storage to eliminate any loss of video information. Two analogue monitoring stations provide realtime display via the networked decoders for 16 cameras simultaneously displayed on both monitors and on PC screens.
For casinos, space is money. The DVTEL system resides on a network and this allowed the casino to install the system in a location away from the main gaming floor, without the requirement to run back in excess of 100 individual coax cables to a single point.
