Arecont Vision Meagapixel Cameras Improve Image Quality at Pat LaFrieda Meats

Customer

Pat LaFrieda Wholesale Meat Company has supplied fresh meat to New York City's restaurants, hotels, banquet facilities and retail outlets for three generations. During the night, butchers process steak, veal, chopped beef and many other products for delivery by 5:30 a.m. each business day, just in time to be on the menu of some of the city's best restaurants. Years of good service and good products have made Pat LaFrieda the number one name in meats distributed to restaurants in New York City.

Challenge

Pat LaFrieda Wholesale Meat Company recently constructed a new state-of-the-art building in New Jersey. Effectively managing the business to meet strict delivery schedules is a key to the company's success, and with the move to a new location they began searching for a new technology tool to help keep track of delivery vehicles, pallets and boxes – and to provide advanced security.

Megapixel solution

Pat LaFrieda Wholesale Meat Company called on VisionTec Solutions located on Long Island, New York to design and install a video surveillance system to meet their security and productivity objectives. A supporter of megapixel technology since its initial introduction to market, VisionTec Solutions employs the most advanced technologies to deliver the highest value and mission-critical performance. For this application, they immediately turned to Arecont Vision Megapixel technology.

The video surveillance system installed in the new facility incorporates 15 Arecont Vision AV1355 1.3- Megapixel H.264 MegaDome® Cameras and 12 Arecont Vision AV2155 2-Megapixel Day/Night Cameras inside and outside the facility to provide video images with extreme clarity throughout the course of the day. In addition to greater image clarity, the megapixel cameras are able to cover more square footage with fewer cameras versus conventional IP cameras. The megapixel cameras allows management to zoom in on specific areas of live or archived video to see important details such as the words printed on the side of a box.

The Arecont Vision megapixel cameras are networked to a custom-built server and network video recorder (NVR) software by NUUO with 5 terabytes of storage. Arecont Vision collaborates with NUUO and various other NVR and video management system (VMS) suppliers to ensure smooth system operation of Arecont Vision cameras. The system at Pat LaFrieda Meats is monitored on a 46-inch Sharp LCD in the main office, and at two other offices throughout the building. 

“Arecont Vision cameras were a natural choice for the Pat LaFrieda installation,” said Ralph Tisei, President of VisionTec Solutions Corp.“The image reproduction from Arecont Vision far surpasses any other megapixel manufacturer. No other cameras were even considered. On this project, the cameras we used yield many times the video resolution compared to traditional analog cameras.”

The Arecont Vision Model AV1355 is a 1.3 megapixel H.264 MegaDome® network (IP) camera providing 1280x1024-pixel images at 32 frames per second. Features of the all-in-one integrated camera, lens and IP66-rated dome housing include a 1/2” CMOS sensor and Arecont Vision's MegaVideo® image processing at 80 billion operations per second. The cameras employ H.264 (MPEG 4, Part 10) compression to minimize bandwidth and storage requirements while maintaining real-time image resolution. Capabilities include motion detection, image cropping, region-of-interest viewing and the ability to zoom into an image after it is archived (forensic zooming). Light sensitivity of 0.1 lux at F1.4 enables low-light viewing and recording, and the day/night version of the camera has a motorized infrared (IR) cut filter.

For applications requiring even greater resolution, the Arecont Vision AV2155 H.264 network (IP) MegaDome integrated camera, lens and IP66-rated dome provides 1600x1200-pixel images at 24 frames per second and 0.1 lux light sensitivity at F1.4.

Megapixel benefit

The Arecont vision megapixel solution has already proven its value at Pat LaFrieda Meats. In one instance, the system was used to confirm that a truck delivery invoiced to the company had never been made.  

“Megapixel technology has been very popular for us,” said Mr. Tisei. “On average, megapixel cameras yield four to fourteen times the image quality as conventional cameras. The clarity is spectacular and provides extreme detail for face and license plate recognition.” VisionTec Solutions also reports that support from Arecont Vision has been very good. It's not surprising, considering that Arecont Vision was awarded the Frost & Sullivan 2008 Product Award for strategic product innovation and insight into customers' needs worldwide.

“The quality of Pat LaFrieda's products are represented every day on the best menus throughout Manhattan,” said Chris Sessa, Director of Eastern Sales – North America, Arecont Vision. “We are pleased that a quality conscious company like Pat LaFrieda Meats recognizes the performance and dependability of Arecont Vision megapixel technology and that our products are helping make their business even better.”