To make campus life safer for its nearly 50,000 students, LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City, N.Y., is upgrading its campus-wide security system with Sony’s SNC-DF85N and SNC-DF80N intelligent mini-dome cameras. The rugged cameras are mounted across campus to aid in the patrol of building corridors, streets and parking lots.
The campus police department consulted with David Gonzalez, area specialist for Northern Video Systems, who collaborated with Tom McGuire, vice president of business development for Electronic Interface Associates (EIA), the system integrator, to improve the existing system’s reliability and image quality. The upgrade includes replacing most of the campus’s 200 analog cameras with a mix of Sony IP network SNC-DF85N and SNC-DF80N models.
“The wide dynamic range of Sony’s IP network cameras is ideal for shooting dark corridors,” Gonzalez said. “By replacing infrared cut filters with clear filters, they seamlessly switch from day (color) to night (black and white) mode with virtually zero loss of image quality.”
Captured images can be viewed in real time by security personnel from anywhere on campus 24/7. The transmitted images are also recorded for potential use as forensic evidence by network video recorders.
The DF85N and DF80N offer DynaView technology which improves dynamic range when compared to conventional cameras. The result is clear image reproduction, even in high-contrast environments. Dynamic Frame Integration reproduces clear images that contain both still and moving objects.
LaGuardia Community College Police Chief Ed Sisco said the campus recognized the immense value of surveillance cameras several years ago when they provided evidence that helped solve an after-hours on-campus assault. Positive identification through video images led to the assailant’s subsequent capture.
“The campus and student population continue to grow with operating hours extending to early mornings and weekends,” said Sisco. “We need our system to be durable and ready for future planned upgrades, such as facial recognition and building access control. The Sony cameras are highly compatible with devices made by other manufacturers and will help bring us into the new age of technology.”
Additional features that appealed to Sisco include the cameras’ heavy-duty aluminum die-cast enclosures and impact-resistant polycarbonate domes, which make them vandal resistant.
The weather-resistant design of the SNC-DF85N and SNC-DF80N models guards against damage from dust and water in outdoor applications. The cameras incorporate advanced compression technologies to transmit image data in three different formats: JPEG, MPEG and H.264, so users can choose the best compression format depending on their applications.
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Sony August 2009 press release.
