American Dynamics video solutions installed at baseball stadiums in Panama

Video solutions from American Dynamics would enable stadiums to record and manage IP video

In late 2011, the Baseball World Cup was one of just two sanctioned major world championship events by the International Baseball Federation. As the governing body for bat-and-ball sports, it is the only organisation that can present the title of "World Champion" to any baseball team delegated to represent a nation.

Hosted by Panama, the tournament draws 16 participating teams from around the globe, with representation from countries such as Germany, Italy, the United States of America, Panama, Japan, Greece and Cuba, just to name a few. Before the tournament could commence, officials in Panama invested over $10 million (U.S.) mainly on the improvement of baseball fields, stadiums and accommodations for the 16 participating teams. The remodelled stadiums were: Rod Carew, in Panama City; Rico Cedeño, in Chitre; Omar Torrijos, in Santiago de Veraguas; and Remon Cantera, in Aguadulce.

While officials in Panama invested heavily in baseball field and stadium improvements, they also recognised the need to improve surveillance at the four stadiums that would be used for the tournament to ensure the overall safety of players and spectators alike.

Officials sought to install newer IP cameras, significantly increasing the number of surveillance cameras located at each facility and install a new video recording system and integrated management system. In addition, the security upgrades made at each stadium needed to be suitable for other sporting and public events that would be held at each stadium in the future.

To spearhead this project, the organisational committee for the tournament turned to local systems integrator Advanced Systems Supply of Panama City in Panama, to design and install the surveillance system at the stadiums. Advanced Systems Supply has been working for over 14 years in the security industry with vast experience in many applications including casinos as well as several major supermarket chains in Panama.

The Solution

According to Jorge Murillo, Installation and Design director and project lead for Advanced Systems Supply, the main objective was to implement a solution that would be used by each venue for the Baseball World Cup, but at the same time have these systems available for future sporting events.

The previous systems installed at the stadiums were fairly limited. In the case of Rod Carew Stadium, there were fewer than 20 cameras to cover the entire complex. It was imperative to install a more modern and effective solution.

For Advanced Systems Supply, this was their largest project to date involving IP cameras, and they were presented with a challenge to perform the installation within a short period of time.

The systems integrator chose several video solutions from American Dynamics including the VideoEdge NVR coupled with the victor unified client. Together, these systems would enable stadiums to record and manage IP video.

Murillo explained that the installation had to be done in only two weeks, which made the project more complicated. "We had worked with VideoEdge and victor previously, but this project was bigger than other projects that we had done," he said. "Because of the number of locations, the project was a little bit more difficult but we obtained the desired result, which is customer satisfaction."

The scope of the system, with more than 100 cameras in place, is what made this project stand out, according to Murillo. Already Intellex customer, the stadium wanted a solution that allowed them to leverage their past analogue investments with the ability implement IP-based solutions.

Overall the project used 85 Illustra bullet cameras, 60 SpeedDome Ultra 8 cameras, and 20 VideoEdge IP SpeedDomes, 5 Intellex Ultra DVRs with 1 terabyte of storage and 30 Intellex Digital Video Management Systems with 250 gigabytes of storage. VideoEdge network video recorders were used for the storage of surveillance video. The video management system includes 32TB of combined onboard and external storage and 10TB of backup storage.

The monitoring of video was accomplished through the victor unified video management solution. Advanced Systems Supply installed domes to reach different areas with greater effectiveness.

"The objective was to maintain control without any incident. If something happened, the plan was to be able to quickly search within the recording and identify the problems," Murillo explained.

Gil Fábrega, the Manager of Rod Carew stadium in Panama City, expressed his overall satisfaction with the video solution that was deployed. "The definition and resolution is very good, even at very close-up. And, the customer service has been excellent after the purchase," he said. "At the beginning, like in every system, we asked for minor adjustments to adapt the solution to our needs and they responded in fewer than 24 hours."

Since each stadium is managed autonomously, the surveillance and control of each stadium is managed at the local level with a monitoring station adapted for each location.

"During the baseball tournament, we were able to monitor all of the events and quickly perform searches as needed," said Murillo. "victor is extremely intuitive and allows stadium administrators to view video and manage the data from each camera."

Powerful Doesn't Have to Mean Difficult

While the security solution provided to the baseball stadiums in Panama was certainly powerful, it was also very user-friendly – a perfect combination.

Each stadium administrator worked closely with the systems integrator, Advanced Systems Supply, to efficiently manage the thousands of people who attended the baseball tournament, while supporting and coordinating the video surveillance. "Our role was to manage the video surveillance so that they could control public safety," said Murillo. "If there was an incident, we could immediately provide the video for them to review."

Fábrega, from the Rod Carew Stadium, said that the new surveillance system has proved positive all around for his facility.

"The system has us provide more public safety support," he said. "Having two dedicated people in the control room who can view the entire stadium from a single location helps us move police units more quickly in case of an emergency."