Infraserv Höchst is a leading site operator and service provider for the chemical, pharmaceutical and related process industries and operates one of Europe’s largest production and research sites: Industriepark Höchst in Frankfurt/Main. With solutions provided by the CCTV specialist Dallmeier from Regensburg and the system integrator PSS GmbH&Co KG from Mörfelden-Walldorf, a video surveillance and security management system was implemented that provides for the reliable protection of the whole area and still allows the integration of different sub-systems.

The Industriepark Höchst is a state-of-the-art chemical and pharmaceutical business park whose full range of services is without peer in the market. With 22,000 employees, the site boasts an optimum infrastructure for more than 80 companies – from multinational corporations to innovative service providers. Being centrally located in Europe’s heartland, near the financial centre of Frankfurt, it provides ideal access to international monetary and material flows.

The Industriepark Höchst was built on the foundations of the Hoechst AG parent plant. Infraserv GmbH & Co. Höchst KG was established in 1998, when Hoechst AG’s individual operations were transferred to independent companies. With its proven know-how and maximum reliability, Infraserv enables its customers to focus on their core business. Infraserv Höchst Group employs about 3,000 people and had a turnover of 812 million Euros in 2005. As a leading site operator, the company offers its customers everything they need to make their business successful: from fitting laboratories to providing extensive logistics services to disposing of waste – and of course the corresponding security system.

Central control station
At a specially created control station with 5 workstations that are staffed 24/7, alarms come in from the whole area. An analogue video system has been used there for years but is now out of date. Therefore it was decided to update the system as necessary and migrate step by step to a fully digital solution.

Complex requirements
The demands on the surveillance system at the Industriepark Höchst are very complex and can be compared with conditions in a city where many different areas overlap. As well as the outer limits, access areas, and individual manufacturing and storage buildings, traffic and parking areas are also controlled. Additionally, the site is separated by the River Main and therefore the waterside has to be controlled accordingly. As the interesting location attracts new companies the system has to be flexible for future extensions. Furthermore, the effortless integration of existing systems must be possible.

During a visit to Dallmeier’s manufacturing plant in Regensburg the final choice was made to use solutions from the experienced market leader. Central to the decision, according to Thomas Krüger from Infraserv Höchst, Head of the industrial park’s control station, was not only Dallmeier’s convincing technology but also the open system concept of the Dallmeier solution. Although Dallmeier can deliver all the components for a perfectly coordinated surveillance system, communication with other suppliers’ products as well as the integration in superior management systems or external systems, e.g. fire detection system, intrusion detection system or access control system, is possible without any problems. Especially from a financial point of view this is a main advantage for Infraserv as the new SeMSy^® management system can be integrated effortlessly into an existing infrastructure and extended when necessary.

System Design
For the Industriepark Höchst the Digital Matrix with decentralised recording is the best solution. It includes a built-in full frame resolution matrix with real-time storage for each channel. All channels are modular so that each can process a video and an audio signal as input (camera, microphone) and/or output (monitor, loudspeaker).

Each camera that is linked to the system can be recorded and simultaneously switched to any linked monitor (composite or Y/C) via the integrated and preinstalled management system SeMSy^®.

Switching can be in live and playback mode. Recording continues uninterrupted while a recording is being replayed. The operator station can be completed by an external keyboard that can switch the matrix, control PTZ cameras or call up special functions. The jog shuttle integrated is ideal for playback control since this reduces the search time to a few seconds.

The decentral recording achieves the best data security and availability as well as cost effectiveness. Compared to central solutions a decentral recording solution offers considerable savings in relation to peripherals and network components, and offered economic and secure archiving. Comparing the decentralised with the centralised recording system solutions, the cost advantage is about 3:1 because of the significantly higher resources required for storage, network and failsafe reliability within a centralised recording solution.

Complete digital solution
The digital video streams are directly streamed and scaled to a high-resolution multi screen display. Therefore, the previous need to convert the signal to analogue for conventional FBAS or Y/C monitors is no longer required. The Dallmeier software PView directly processes the video streams at the workstations and displays them in quad split on a VGA monitor. As network cameras have been installed, there is now no analogue signal in the system. Everything, from the camera to the display, is digital.

Amongst the devices 140 encoders are used, namely the DIS-2/M (1-channel MPEG-2/-4 real-time streamer and recorder), a multi screen display from Eyevis as well as the Dallmeier decoding software PView. All resulting in a high-resolution quad image display on the five main work stations. 

For the encoder the system uses 115 DIS-2/M (1-channel MPEG-2/-4 real-time streamer and recorder) and 32 DIS-1 (1-channel MPEG-2 video streaming server) are used as decoders.

The DIS-1 is specially designed for use with security transmission, video and audio recording systems. Compressed to MPEG-2 standard, the data can be transmitted over the built-in network interface and simultaneously recorded on an internal hard disk. In parallel at the same time, another data stream can be received from the network and displayed on a locally connected monitor. The picture and sound quality meets the highest requirements, and depending on the configuration, can match DVD quality. Network transmission complies with international standards and supports unicasting as well as multicasting.

The DIS-2/M is a modular audio/video recording and transmission system in a 19" rack construction with slide-in units. Its flexible construction makes it the ideal solution for monitoring critical areas where compact high-quality recording and real-time transmission are required (broadcast quality). The system consists of up to 10 modules, each based on the Linux secure operating system. In each module the connection to one video and one audio signal is possible. The modular construction of the system and the hot-plug function of the individual modules, that the redundant power supply units of the rack also possess, ensure a great availability of the whole system.

The systems record directly to the integrated memory and thus ensure maximum availability of the recorded data, even in cases where the network experiences problems or fails.

Furthermore, the requirements to the network (e.g. the bandwidth) are minimised through this decentralised memory concept. It is possible to simultaneously record, transmit live video signals and replay recorded sequences in an unrestricted manner.

Eyevis’ multi-projection screen consists of six cubes which are combined to form one large screen. Each cube achieves a SXGA+ resolution of 1400 X 1050 pixels. Two illuminants are built into each cube and in the case that one of them fails, the other one is moved into operating position and activated. The automatic brightness and colour correction compensates age-related deviations and therefore guarantees a detailed and true colour image display at all times.

Low-delay camera control
Another special feature is Dallmeier's newly developed SeMSy Pro II video management software. Apart from the interesting design of the user interface, which offers the most important functions (such as camera selection via tree structure or direct number entry, group display, PTZ control, direct switch to recording, quick picture search, control of monitor wall and much more), the operation of the S/N cameras can be optimised. Using the new Low Delay function, delay times can be dramatically reduced so that it now mirrors the functionality produced from the previous analogue control. This is a very important new feature because it enables a precise, manual control of the S/N-cameras in digital systems.

Automatic alarm management
If either the Air or Aimetis software issue alarm messages, the affected area is immediately displayed on the Eyevis multi-projector screen. The operator who receives and processes the alarm message, is automatically supplied with all relevant information. The work station is equipped with the high-resolution PView display software, which shows the operator the alarm image, the live image and finally the automatic playback of the recording, starting thirty seconds before the alarm was triggered. Thereby the operator gets a quick overview of the situation without having to laboriously search for the recorded sequences.

By the way: Tens of thousands of alarms were generated per year before the system was updated. With the help of Dallmeier’s new software the rate of false alarms was reduced considerably.

System integrator
PSS GmbH & Co KG is an independent system vendor in Mörfelden-Walldorf and has provided services to Infraserv for some time. For Volker Nieraad, Managing Director at PSS GmbH & Co KG, it was a special challenge during this project that old analogue technology and the ‘new digital world’ had to run in parallel for months.

According to Nieraad, the key to the success of this project was the long lasting good service received by the customer, the closeness with short response time (day and night) as well as introducing a non-manufacturer-related management system and the close cooperation with Dallmeier.

Further system extensions are already announced. The first fire detection systems will be integrated during the coming weeks. In a medium term 70-80 fire detection systems will be integrated into the system. Access control systems, intercoms and number plate recognition systems will also be integrated this year, says Nieraad.

Positive summary
According to Thomas Krüger, head of the company’s control centre, Infraserv Höchst is highly satisfied with the surveillance system stating “The picture quality has improved significantly and the Low Delay control of the S/N cameras is really a lot of fun. Last but not least, the whole implementation process went perfectly smoothly. We received optimal advice right from the beginning.”

Based on this positive experience, further extensions and connections to the management system are planned.