Many organisations, including the Oxford Collection, are investing in new IP based security camera solutions with video analytics to provide real-time situational awareness, enhance security, and offer insights that enable them to better manage business operations.
The amount of information companies can get from raw video streams is small. It’s the analytics that bring the value, and new cameras with up to 4K resolution are allowing video surveillance providers to integrate analytics capabilities into their video management software, says Mike Jude, research director at ‘IDC for video surveillance and vision applications.
“Traditionally, the CCTV market was driven by hardware with better cameras,” he says. “In the future, this will be driven by better software.”
Today, a company with a manufacturing plant can leverage video analytics software to monitor quality assurance, track inventory and ensure worker safety, he says. For example, analytics software can alert management when manufacturing supplies are low or identify employees who aren’t wearing personal protective equipment on the factory floor.
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How Intelligent CCTV Can Improve Security and Operations
The IT department at the Oxford Collection headquarters in Bend, Oregon, has piloted several IP-based video surveillance systems, but has standardized on Verkada for several reasons. Its high-quality cameras, video analytics capabilities, and cloud-based storage and management software will enable the hotel chain to create a unified camera system and easily manage and support video surveillance in its hotels. .
“It was the best solution for us in terms of quality, searchability of images, storage and archiving,” says Hagan.
The Oxford collection has not yet standardized on a video platform. It uses seven different camera systems that store video on-site using digital video recorders (DVRs) and network video recorders (NVRs).
Today, investigations require on-site personnel to manually sift through video to find footage. They then need to save the video files to a USB flash drive or burn a disc to make it available to business executives. In contrast, Verkada, with its cloud-based storage and management software, will provide remote access to hotel leadership for the first time. The company can also email a link to the police, providing law enforcement access with a customizable expiration date.
The company typically stores video footage for 30 days, but can archive footage for long-term storage if needed.
“The scalability and flexibility is unmatched with anything we’ve had before,” says Hagan. “If an incident arises that has a potential legal involvement with a guest or employee, it’s easy to search and go straight to that exact moment.”
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The company, which plans to upgrade camera systems at its properties over the next five years, has started at the Oxford Hotel Bend, its flagship site, and will fully upgrade its Oxford Suites Redding hotel in California with 30 new cameras. high definition and 4K. This year.
So far, IT staff have installed 20 cameras, located in the Bend Hotel’s new Roam restaurant across from the hotel, as well as in the valet parking lot and an alley. The team will add eight more cameras this year in an adjacent parking lot.
The company uses Verkada’s license plate recognition technology to aid police investigations. It also uses cameras and analytics to improve customer service and better manage operations. Hotel managers check the restaurant’s dining room in real time, and if it’s busy, they can augment the restaurant staff with hotel staff, Hagan says.
The Verkada cameras, which operate on Power over Ethernet, are easy to install and manage, says Oxford system analyst Matthew Miller. IT staff only needed to install Category 6 cabling.
“It’s pretty much set it and forget it,” Miller says. “When we need it, it’s there, and it’s cloud-based, so we don’t have to worry about on-premises storage.”
