Genetec told Zalud’s Blog that the Office of Housing in Victoria, Australia, has adopted Omnicast, Genetec’s IP video surveillance solution, to protect the residents of approximately 7,000 dwellings within the city’s affordable housing development projects.

Currently, 72 individual sites are being monitored by over 700 cameras which function over a wireless Ethernet network, linking all buildings back to a central monitoring station. By the end of the project, the Omnicast system is expected to grow up to 1100 cameras total. Additional archive servers are also in use at the central monitoring station, where at least 28 days of all video recordings are held for video playback.

The Office of Housing selected Integrators Australia to oversee the development, deployment and maintenance of the system. According to Dean Monaghan, General Manager at Integrators Australia, “There was just no other solution that worked.” In fact, it was continuous problems with their previous legacy system which prompted the Office of Housing to shift away from their outdated DVR technology and to look at Genetec’s network-based solution, Omnicast. The new system demonstrates many advantages such as improved image quality through better bandwidth management, increased ease of video footage retrieval, and most importantly significant cost savings from hosting other services over the same wireless network.

Since typically low-income residences are prone to some standard challenges such as vandalism, violence and crime, Omnicast is primarily being used to ensure the safety and well being of the tenants. “It is just a very streamline process with Omnicast and the Office of Housing is very satisfied with the new system,” claims Monaghan.