Planning the solution

The decision to install a Dallmeier solution was driven by SKYCITY Darwin consultant Craig Graham of Radford Consulting and the casino’s surveillance manager, Greg Bretag. The system Craig and Greg selected combined the Dallmeier SeMSy security management system with Dallmeier’s DIS-2 MPEG2/MPEG4 dual streaming encoders with onboard RAID-1 storage.

This was an interesting choice and an astute one. A system with this structure not only gives a great deal of functionality, it’s also loaded with layers of redundancy at multiple levels. According to C.R. Kennedy’s Vlado Damjanovski, failure of one of the two drives in each encoder will not compromise the integrity of the recording.

“Each DIS-2 is hot-swappable and each subrack hosting 10 DIS-2 encoders runs on dual redundant power supplies with dual UPS support,” Vlado explains. “Even the Cisco network switchers are designed with redundancy in mind so that system uptime at SKYCITY Darwin is projected to hit the same numbers as Dallmeier’s Macau Casino-proven uptime with “six nines” at 99.99994 per cent – that’s higher than the best servers in the world.”

Vlado says that SKYCITY Darwin chose broadcast quality MPEG2 rather than the more common MPEG4. This compression protocol offered picture quality no different from the live image coming from the camera, irrespective if this was live of playback.

What’s important in this decision is the fact the architecture of the Dallmeier solution allowed the end user to choose a compression protocol dedicated to image quality, not optioned for streaming through skinny network pipes.

Integral to the installation and its commissioning was Steve Maynard, general manager of C.R. Kennedy’s CCTV Division. Steve and Vlado were heavily involved from start to finish with this job.

“When we won the job at the end of last year the first thing Vlado and I did was to come up to Darwin with an analyzer and made a record of the signals on every piece of surveillance cable in the casino,” explains Steve.

“We audited the system completely and ultimately that was the right approach. Surveillance in a casino is vital to the operation of tables so this analysis was central to ensuring the casino would always have the coverage it needed to legally operate during throughout the upgrade.”

According to Maynard, most the work conducted by C.R. Kennedy and ACE Cabling took place behind the patch panel into which all the system’s cameras are directed on their way to the server room.

“Cameras in the field come back by RG-59 to the patch panel and then go onto thin coax to the server room and into the encoders,” Steve says. “There are 360 inputs at the patch panel and 360 inputs with expansion space for an additional 180 inputs down in the server room.”

“The server room is the heart of the SKYCITY Darwin installation and a stunning piece it is. Along with the fundamental cleverness of Dallmeier’s system design and a sweet general layout incorporating under-floor cabling, dual air conditioning units and integrated fire detection, the stand-out feature of the server room is the high quality of the cabling and looming. It’s simply beautiful work”

“Signals go from the encoders to the hard drives within the DIS-2 itself and they can then be accessed from anywhere on the network, with incidents stored to the archive server’s RAID-5 storage system if they are to be retained long term.”

“Live footage can be called up directly from the DIS-2 encoders from the control room when required but multiple live streams are not supplied there unless they are called for,” explains Steve. “The control room’s access to image streams is via a standard Fast Ethernet network. It’s a dedicated surveillance network and not connected to the casino’s data network at all.”

“From a network design point of view the system is relatively simple,” Steve says. “It’s a dedicated Fast Ethernet LAN that runs from the server room to the control room with no external ports – a fairly typical configuration for high security CCTV LANs.”

“There’s an access layer controlled by core servers,” Steve says. “These are all Cisco switchers – 2960 Series access switchers for the access layer and 3560 series core switchers handling the core.”

“Each of these core switchers is connected to each access layer switch. There are 8 access layer switches, each 48 port, with the core switches being 24 port,” Steve explains. “With this installation you can lose a whole core switch and still have plenty of workstations operational.”

“The idea is that no matter what happens up here the guys have is something that’s fully redundant and very robust – under all circumstances the system will keep delivering,” Steve explains. 

“From a technical standpoint something that’s really important is that the architecture of this system is specifically designed so the surveillance network runs on layer 2 with SNOOP and without the need for a gigabit LAN,” Steve explains.

And Steve says the Dallmeier system has multicasting to reduce data traffic when multiple operators select the same live view.

“With many other digital surveillance solutions the encoders transfer all the data from the cameras onto the network all the time but in this system, the data is encoded to HDDs within the DIS-2 and does not go directly onto the network unless it’s requested,” he explains.

“So the big difference here is that all the bandwidth heavy work is being done off the network. If video was being transferred directly onto the network then you’d need Layer 3 support – and at Layer 3 the cost in network infrastructure becomes enormous.”

“Very important is that this overall system configuration as installed at SKYCITY Darwin allows you to build very large digital solutions – the largest digital system in the world uses Dallmeier’s system architecture with more than 3500 cameras,” explains Steve.

Operational capability

No account of this solution is complete without recognition of the capability of Dallmeier’s SeMSy video management software. The control platform is extremely hard to disassociate from the Dallmeier’s digital matrix and in some ways it’s best think of them as a single entity.

The digital matrix delivers full frame resolution and real time storage for every channel, with images able to be recorded from any camera and simultaneously switched to a linked monitor using SeMSy. Operators use SeMSy to view images in live and playback mode, while recording continues simultaneously.

“From an operational point of view the reason this Dallmeier system uses MPEG-2 as opposed to MPEG-4 is that MPEG-2 offers better quality,” says Steve. “MPEG-2 is also a broadcast standard and able to be played on almost any device.”

“In a casino you simply have to see fine detail – a ball falling into a hole, a card, a dice,” he explains. “MPEG-4 won’t give you the clarity that means such a lot to a casino.”

All the cameras are being recorded in full frame MPEG2 at 25 frames per second and the SKYCITY Darwin guys have chosen 3 megabits/s per channel.

“Regardless of this, Ethernet requirements are still minimal because the cameras are being recorded off the network – that’s very important,” Steve explains.

“The workstations only need 100Base but a camera still has the potential to be viewed 9 x 4 x 6 x 3 times, plus whatever multiscreens are being deployed.”

Allowing the operators to display multiple screens in 9 or 16-way spilts on large screen formats, Dallmeier Vario-Decoders at SKYCITY Darwin utilise a Gigabit portion of the CCTV LAN.

“The Vario-Decoders handle multiscreen decoding in full frame MPEG2 real time for 4-way, 9-way splits, and do 16-way splits in nearly real time.

“This is in addition to the 6 operators operator each one having three true composite monitors in real time” Steve says. “These big configurations allows all operators to keep an eye on key areas and call up incidents and review playbacks on their own workstations or system keyboards.”

Another interesting characteristic of this solution is the fact there are some CRT monitors in the control room along with the plasma screens and LCD screens.

“It was felt in the selection process that good quality CRT gave superior viewing quality compared to LCD at these full frame MPEG2 resolutions, simple as that,” says Bill. “Overall picture quality was just better and CRT has better reliability.”

Meanwhile, supporting mouse operation of the GUI is an external keyboard with tons of onboard processing power that’s able to switch the matrix, review, archive, control PTZs and activate specific functions. A jog/shuttle is integral part of the Dallmeier VMC keyboard and it offers preset keys to switch between live and playback instantly. Keyboard functions include one button to search, another to archive, one button to burn to DVD – then there’s jog shuttle, frame by frame search and easy manipulation.

According to Steve the system keyboard has a lot of program capability and this makes it ideal for casinos.

“The system can operate differently using keyboards with onboard processing that take shortcuts to give operators faster reaction time, or it can be done via graphical interfaces on workstations using a mouse,” Steve explains.

“There are maps, there’s a lot of feedback to the operator and there’s a warning system integrated into the system that allows it to report things like HDD failure.” 

“All the maps are original AutoCAD maps and can be one touch loaded to the server and then downloaded from there to the workstations,” he says. “You can select a camera directly from a map same as one touch selection on the keyboard. Maps will follow the camera selection.  You can edit maps, add cameras and numbers directly into the AutoCAD drawing and the system will recognize these automatically. This has never been done in CCTV before.”

Bill agrees the Dallmeier system with its SeMSy video management system is extremely easy for staff to operate.

“It’s simple to operate as well as having all the bells and whistles you could possibly ever want,” Bill says. “It allows surveillance staff much greater access to the video footage, allowing them to not only monitor an area more effectively but to better support security staff on the floor. ”

“That’s what you get with digital. We can track a wide range of situations across the casino floor, we can have point of sale interfacing allowing us to track data from that source as well. There are all sorts of analytical tools available. The Dallmeier system is great.” 

Bill says that from his operational point of view, the archive management system is the best element of the SyMSy video management solution.

“In the old days if an incident occurred you’d have dig out the log books and locate the tapes then some one would have to sit down and view the tapes. With this system you can search by date by time, by location by name, by whatever – there’s a drop down menu and the system will find the video for you,” Bill says.

“And because the system is designed to be redundant at multiple levels I know there’s no possibility of losing the coverage.” Some of the operators were nervous making the change from analog and thought they might have trouble operating the system but it’s so easy they’ve adapted.”

Bill says that while the decision to go with Dalmeier was made before he came on board, it was based on the fact this solution was being used in major casinos around the world.

“Importantly, with the Dallmeier system we could send people to see the same system working perfectly in applications much larger than our own like the large casinos in Macau.” Bill explains. “We were obviously interested in latency but we found it was very minimal operationally.”

Steve says latency is the big question that arises with digital solutions but he says latency with the Dallmeier solution is a non issue.

“The system is very user friendly in that regard and obviously that was one of the key performance criteria with the SKYCITY Darwin system,” he says. “With viewing of single cameras from single encoders there’s virtually no latency – maybe a hundred milliseconds.”

“The latency and the control issues were question marks and they have been well and truly answered,” Steve explains. “And the quality of this system versus the hybrid solutions available made this a much better option.”

“I think a lot of people have a false sense of security in relation to their analog hardware – it’s a big primary piece of gear to go down – you lose a switcher and that’s the end of that,” Steve says. “The matrix switcher at SKYCITY Darwin was 12 years old and becoming hard to maintain – the level of redundancy is greater now, and at all levels.”

Steve says other strengths of the Dallmeier system include the fact digital has a lot a capability for integration including support for things like Micros cash management systems, as well as facial recognition and numberplate recognition.

“Another great strength of this solution is a mobile disaster recovery module that can be handled at a single workstation via a laptop,” he says. “It’s possible for the casino to retain control of the system under the most adverse and unlikely conditions. Mind you, recording never stops irrespective of how you control the system.”

“I can’t imagine a normal situation this solution is not equipped to handle with ease,” Steve says. “But if anything comes up, the control room will still be in charge of surveillance.”

According to Bill Page, while digital has a higher up front cost than analog solutions he says the maintenance is significantly less and the functionality vastly greater.

“From an operational point of view the key thing about this Dallmeier system is the user friendly and powerful archive management – it’s perfect for operators viewing and recalling incidents,” Page says.

“There are the bells and whistles but that’s the heart of the system for me. You could save a tape for 5 years and then view it again and possibly have a VCR eat the tape. When an incident occurred you had to save the original tape then you had to make a copy of the incident, then you had to put it all on a master tape so there were 3 VHS tapes for each incident. In the event of an incident you quadrupled the number of tapes you had to manage.”

Bill says the modularity of the system makes easy to maintain, flexible, easy to expand and easy to upgrade, too. 

“The system has the potential to integrate with software analytics that look at card counting and so on. We’ve got no plans for this yet but it’s nice to know the system is capable of supporting that software in the future. It is also capable of integration with the access control system.”

 Steve agrees.

“The access system here is Concept and Inner Range people have made a great interface with Dallmeier so it would be very easy to integrate Insight with this solution at some point in the future,” he explains.

There are a bunch of casinos in Australia using Dallmeier products – some have done so for more than a decade with most adding digital components to their existing analogue matrices. Such casinos include Burswood in Perth, Crown in Melbourne, Reef in Cairns, Lasseters in Alice Springs. But this new solution at SKYCITY Darwin takes Dallmeier’s engineering to a new level.