Following the success of the 2002 Commonwealth Games, Manchester
City Football Club (MCFC) moved to the new all-seated City of
Manchester Stadium in 2003, ready for their Premiership challenge.
Since taking over the lease, the club has enjoyed average
attendances of almost 45,000 people at home games.
With big name acts such as Oasis, U2 and James Brown also
headlining to audiences of up to 60,000 and the ongoing heightened
threat of terrorism, upgrading the club s security procedures
became a major priority and has resulted in the adoption of the
latest NetVu Connected Digital Sprite 2 (DS2) DVRs (Digital Video
Recorders) from Dedicated Micros for a new sophisticated CCTV
solution delivered by G4S Security Systems (UK) Ltd.
With cameras covering virtually all public areas in the stadium,
undoubtedly CCTV is a vital element of match day safety.
Peter Fletcher, MCFC s Stadium and Safety Manager, explains the
importance of a flexible system: Each match day presents a new
series of challenges. For example, even if an evening match hasn t
sold out, if it s good weather, the chances are we ll still have a
good crowd turn up to see the game. In this case, we d focus
attention in the early stages on the ticket office.
Pre-match intelligence also contributes to how we use the CCTV
system. We work very closely with the police. If we get a tip off
about potential trouble, we need to be ready to monitor the
situation, rapidly inform stewards and police and record everything
in case evidence is required.
An inherited system of 59 CCTV cameras linked to analogue
multiplexers and video recorders was beginning to show the strain.
The existing analogue installation allowed principally for
recording match days and events at the time onto video tape. On non
match or event days, recording still took place, but with limited
staff availability and the isolated basement location of the
security control room, it was difficult to record 24 hours a day.
With the Club needing to retain footage of certain events for up to
five years, sadly the incumbent system was generating unsustainable
and time intensive levels of archived data. Poor picture quality
due to low record rates, combined with ongoing tape degradation and
replacement, was creating a major headache for the club.
Peter Fletcher, summarised the problem: We may have been a
state-of-the-art stadium with superb visitor facilities but our
CCTV system was clearly behind the times, still operating on
outdated analogue videotape technology and unable even to record
24/7 a key requirement for us.
Out with the old
Stepping in to help the club to upgrade, G4S recommended an
advanced digital solution based on six of the latest NetVu
Connected Dedicated Micros Digital Sprite 2 (DS2) DVRs
incorporating 6Tb of hard disk capacity.
The plug and play increase in storage capacity has allowed the club
s security team to enhance the record rate on the DVRs, add cameras
without the worry of reaching maximum capacity and reduce the
frequency of off-line archiving.
Neil Barnes, Business Development Manager for G4S takes up the
story.
We had successfully held a manned guarding contract for a number of
years at the stadium, so we were already very familiar with the
club s security needs. We obviously needed to upgrade the club to
digital but we wanted to keep to products which were still easy to
use. The DM range was recommended because the products are so
intuitive - they replicate the type of functions end users will be
used to. As they are embedded products, designed specifically to do
a job, I ve always found them to be much more reliable than
PC-based systems, which can struggle to cope with the demands of a
security system alongside all the other tasks.
Installation was very straightforward and gave us a good
opportunity to reduce the amount of cabling required. By using DS2s
we were able to take out the existing multiplexers and recorders
and replace them with just one unit, reducing the amount of
equipment in the rack, Neil added.
By splitting the hard disk storage capacity associated with the
DS2s into everyday and match/event day recording, the new solution
has delivered the increase in flexibility and quality that was
required.
The record rate has increased by six times more than the previous
analogue system, giving much better quality event coverage. When
one of the disks reaches capacity, images are now archived to DVD
rather than videotape, solving the club s storage problems.
Peter Fletcher explains the difference this made to the day to day
running of security:
We re obliged to keep footage for a long time which generates
considerable storage requirements. At one stage, an entire store
room was completely full of tapes. Now I can keep CCTV footage from
five football seasons on DVD on the shelves in the control room.
Flexibility First
The new digital set-up gives the club much more flexibi
