Chris de Burgh crowd protected by unmanned camera

18 Sep 09

Salford City Council organised the event, with the IMC monitoring an area the size of 14 football pitches to look out for potential incidents, by itself, without human intervention.

The camera is completely automated and not controlled by a person, Viseum said.

The IMC was only specified on the Tuesday prior to the concert.

After recently watching one of their new IMCs perform while protecting another part of Salford, the council expressed a desire to have a further one to protect their event, so Viseum immediately provided a solution for use at the BBC Proms in the Park.

A statement from Viseum said: “The costs for conventional CCTV coverage of this event would have been astronomical. It would have taken around 130 traditional CCTV cameras to provide similar coverage, and they still would not have provided the same amount of close up evidence as a single innovative IMC camera.”

Danny Hoy, facilities manager for Salford City Council, said: “The IMC’s six fixed lenses with pan, tilt and zoom functions make it ideal for covering large scale events. Traditional cameras can only look at a fraction of a space at any one time, unlike the Viseum model which constantly protects the entire area. It also works without the need for an operator, which saves both time and money.”

Viseum is the owner of the patent protecting its IMC products in the marketplace, and is responsible for the advanced algorithms that drive these products. The Viseum technology was developed to support resource-stretched security organisations.

Stuart Thompson, managing director of Viseum, said: “I am obviously delighted that it’s finding a wide variety of uses, and CCTV is now no longer just an option for large corporates with big security budgets.”

The camera can be pre-programmed to monitor certain activities in particular areas, but it will still look out for incidents in the many areas where random crimes could occur. At the Proms concert the camera was scheduled to look for any type of “crowd surge or kerfuffle”.

Group 4, the main show contractors, said: “This system is extremely easy to use and significantly adds to crowd protection. Having any type of CCTV at these types of event is rare. This may now have changed with the introduction of this technology.”

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