With powerful video processing technology, the National Police of Colombia can view and share critical information in their new triple-video wall control room
The police serve a fundamental role in society in all parts of the world, helping to keep citizens safe and communities secure. Operating in all of the country’s municipalities, the National Police of Colombia relies on proven control room technology tools to help its teams collaborate and make quick, informed decisions on resource deployment and actions.
Colombia’s National Police is an armed police service that is civilian in nature, with a hierarchical structure, similar to that of the Military Forces of Colombia. Because data and visual information are critical to decision-making, the control room technology must operate flawlessly and be easy to use.
For the control room in the National Police of Colombia headquarters, Cosmos Sistemas Integrados (CSI), a renowned AV integrator, designed a unique three video-wall system. The solution offers versatility, rock-solid reliability, crisp audio, and vivid images displayed from multiple sources and video feeds.
“The client required flexibility, stability, quickness, and practicality when using the three video walls inside the control room,” said Jose Castañeda Zuñiga, Area Manager, Central America and Andean Region / Pre-Sales Sound Engineer, Footprint Latin America. “They needed to be able to display the same signal multiple times on different screens, so critical information could be seen by different people located in different points of the room.”
Additionally, all signals travel from different locations, and they need to be managed for signal integrity as well as their embedded audio streams.
With the three different configurations of the video walls, across a total of 28 screens, the client has the possibility to display the same information or visuals from different sources on each screen.
To drive this unique mission-critical video wall system, CSI needed an extremely flexibility and intuitive control solution.
CSI integrated a three-wall system that is built for 24/7 operation and powered by Datapath’s VSN wall control line. This project represents the largest VSN installation in Colombia, and it includes Datapath’s VSN1172 and VSN1100X expansion chassis.
The three video walls are controlled simultaneously (one video wall consists of a 4×3 screen configuration and two are 4×2), with 20 inputs, and Datapath’s intuitive WallControl 10 (WC10) software.
UK-based video processing specialists Datapath was selected for this important project in Colombia because of the uniquely capable VSN wall controller solution. Their VSN offers the capacity to process 28 video channels simultaneously without additional peripherals, at an excellent FHD @ 60 Hz resolution per channel on the three video walls. It delivers this robust flexibility all while offering to the client the required performance, scalability, and redundancy they needed. VSN’s switched fabric technology provides high-bandwidth Gen3 PCIe slots. Each slot is capable of delivering high-resolution bandwidth from a range of capture cards to multiple outputs. In essence – maximum picture quality is retained on all displays, essential for identifying image details.
The control room is managed by nine people, all with specific roles and duties. The nine operators have access to the video wall control platform – Datapath’s WallControl 10 – to display or create layouts with the system’s 12 FHD video inputs. This lets operators closely analyze all the critical information in real time. In some cases, the feeds are received from third-party solutions, such as streaming or real-time video conferencing platforms, which necessitates the capture of audio signals from up to 24 people in the room. The challenge was then to properly manage the microphone mix, acoustic echo cancellation, feedback, and any other sound quality issues that could cause a possible communication disruption.
Along with the video wall’s flexible design, any visuals or information created at the operator workstations can be presented individually or together. Because time is of the essence in control room applications, the team can change the setup easily and instantly, if and when the need arises.
Another challenge for the integration team was “the short amount of time to execute the project,” said Castañeda Zuñiga. The physical infrastructure -floor, ceiling, walls, and some furniture – already existed, but the team had to implement new cabling for electric power, video signals, structured cabling, audio and control signals. “We had to comply with all the designs and implementations without any issues.”
We exceeded expectations and met all required designs of the solution, following the client requests,” added Zuñiga. “The end-user quickly accepted and adopted the technology, which is somewhat unusual.” The immediate adoption of the video wall and control technology is a testament to the technology used.
On completion, the solution entered into full operation instantly, with Colombia National Police praising the the project in terms of finishing, performance, usefulness, and ease of use.
Images courtesy of Cosmos Sistemas Integrados & Footprint Latin America
