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IP Olympic Success for IP Video
The magnificent opening ceremony in the main Athens Olympic Stadium was just one of the many events and venues covered by the IP Video CCTV system
Over 700 IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver modules were used to transmit MPEG-4 quality digital video, audio and control data over the IP network
Oliver Vellacott, CEO of IndigoVision, outlines the important role IP Video played in the success of the security system at the recent Athens Olympics.
By any measure, the 2004 Athens Olympics was a great success, not least because of the design and implementation of the security management system which ensured the safety of both competitors and spectators. IndigoVision’s technology provided a digital transmission backbone that formed the basis of one of the largest ever IP Video CCTV infrastructure projects implemented anywhere in the world.
The requirements for the CCTV system were incredibly demanding. There were 63 command centers with 1250 operators, monitoring 47 venues spread out over an area of 250 square kilometres. It was clear from the beginning that traditional CCTV systems would not meet all the requirements of the organisers. Digital IP Video systems have become the standard for large-scale CCTV solutions because of their flexibility, accessibility and scalability.
IndigoVision’s tried and tested technology, installed by Mer Industries of Israel, was chosen as the principal CCTV component. The result was one of the most comprehensive and integrated CCTV systems ever produced with over 700 IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver modules being used to transmit MPEG-4 quality digital video, audio and control data over the IP network.
To understand why an IP network solution was necessary, one only needs to look at the requirements of the system:
Operators
Operators worked for many different Agencies each with their own interest in the CCTV video feeds. Law enforcement, emergency services, military, traffic management, coastguard and local security all required, to some degree, access to all or part of the system and so every operator had to be given unique access rights to particular components. For example, while local users may only have access to local cameras, higher authorities required access to the whole system. What was critical, though, was that any user could, if permissions allowed, have access to any camera or any recording from anywhere in the entire system. This provided a high degree of redundancy, ensuring control could be transferred to any of the other centers should any command center become inoperative.
Locations
A wide range of different venues had to be monitored including sea ports and terminals
The system covered a number of different types of venue; sports venues, hotels, seaports, town surveillance and other sites such as the Olympic village. Every location offered a different challenge, particularly those at the most remote locations because the video had to be transmitted throughout the Olympic region. To facilitate this, Siemens installed an ATM data network backbone with Ethernet devices at the edge. It was to these Ethernet devices that the IndigoVision 8000 transmitter/receiver units were connected. This meant that at any one time hundreds of video images could be streamed from any point on the system to any other point simultaneously. This crucial feature ensured that a major requirement was satisfied, namely that local operators could immediately pass over security control to regional or even national command centers.
CCTV Cameras
MPEG-4 is an ISO/IEC standard developed by the Moving
Picture Experts Group (MPEG), the group that also
developed the standards MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. These
standards have made applications such as CD-ROM
interactive video and digital TV possible. MPEG-4,
otherwise known as ISO/IEC 14496, became an
International Standard in 1999.
MPEG-4 Video is a video codec (compressor and
decompressor) standard. A video codec is designed to
compress and uncompress digital video in order to reduce
the amount of bandwidth required to transmit and store the
video. This is needed as the raw data rate of
uncompressed CCIR601 active digital video is in excess of
158Mbps – over 300 times the capacity a 512kbps ADSL
connection and only just over one hour recording on an
80GB hard disk.
Simply scaling the video, to SIF resolution, and
compressing with standard utilities such as WinZip or gzip
could achieve 10:1 compression. However, at least 300:1
compression is needed to stream live video over an ADSL
connection and to achieve 300 hours recording on an
80GB hard disk. This level of compression can be
achieved with MPEG-4.
It is important to note that MPEG-4 Is a decoding standard
i.e. there are many different ways to encode the video, as
long as it is delivered in a format that can be understood by
a compliant MPEG-4 decoder. Consequently, there is a
great deal of variation in the quality of MPEG-4 transmitters
on the market.
The latest MPEG-4 codec units such as IndigoVision’s
8000 transmitter/receiver units are capable of transmitting
DVD quality digital video at 25/30 fps with minimal
bandwidth impact on the IP-Network. This level of video
quality is indistinguishable from the best analog camera feeds.
Each camera had to stream video at 25 images per second. In addition, every camera was to be equipped with a loud speaker (in order to direct crowds) and microphones (to allow the command centers to gather information and to help those in distress). The audio quality had to be excellent due to the inherent noisy environments in which the cameras were installed. As well as the video decoder, IndigoVision’s 8000 unit contains an MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Codec (AAC), which met the high quality audio requirements. The 8000 also transmits control data providing full PTZ control of the CCTV camera, as well as capture of alarms, from any remote location.
Digital Transmission
The requirements for video transmission were that the latest technology must be used and that the video quality was paramount. Using IndigoVision’s 8000 transmitters, video was compressed at source, using the MPEG-4 standard, and transmitted throughout the network to all the operators who requested it. In many cases, the operators also needed remote access to PTZ telemetry via these transmitters. It is vital in these cases that the video be compressed in real-time. Delays in compression (latency) mean that the PTZ camera control becomes awkward to use. It was important that the final result - in terms of CCTV camera video quality, latency and control - appeared to the operator as it would for a traditional analog camera connection.
Digital Video Recording
Live video was not the only requirement. Video had to be recorded at
25 images per second, 24 hours per day, for the entire duration of the
Olympics. Digital video was streamed to IndigoVision’s Network
Video Recorders (NVRs), located throughout the IP network. These
dedicated standalone video recorders could then provide archived
video to any user, anywhere on the system. The recorded video could
be streamed to local operators on PCs and operators in command
centers could convert the video back to analog and view it on video
monitors and video walls.
IndigoVision’s dedicated standalone Network Video Recorders (NVRs) provided video recording at 25 fps for 24 hours per day,
throughout the Olympics.
Integration
Mer Industries Secure-M Command and Control system integrated all aspects of the security and surveillance. IndigoVision’s SDK 8000 Development Software Tools were used to integrate the IP Video network into the Secure-M system. SDK 8000 allows system integrators to easily implement VideoBridge solutions and to access the many benefits of the IP Video technology. The Command and Control system integrated CCTV surveillance, video motion detection, access control, traffic management, automatic number plate recognition, perimeter security and provided management control and data.
Obviously a project the size of the Olympics required bespoke software to be developed, but for smaller less complex systems IndigoVision’s off-the-shelf ‘Control Center’ software application provides all the necessary control functions. ‘Control Center’ is a professional digital CCTV application that provides control, administration, recording, viewing and playback of live video and audio over IP networks - no software development is required to implement a fully featured IP-based CCTV system.
In many of the localities, the video was first transmitted using traditional analog cabling and viewed locally using standard analog matrices and monitors. There was a need, therefore, to integrate this existing equipment with the IP network.
Conclusion
The size of the Olympics CCTV surveillance system, in terms of number of cameras and geographic coverage, could have only been implemented using IP Video technology. An analog system could not have delivered video from 47 venues to 63 command centers as was achieved with IndigoVision’s system. The sheer scale of the project means it is probably the largest ever IP Video infrastructure project ever installed in the world.
In today’s security conscious world, being able to implement a reliable mission critical surveillance system with the highest video and audio fidelity was fundamental to the success of the Athens 2004 Olympics.
As well as providing security for the Olympics, the system had to be in use long after the Olympic flame had been extinguished. By choosing an IP solution, the Athens authorities can be confident that the system will remain in service long after the 2012 Olympics.
