Country Club Taps Arecont Vision for Video Surveillance Upgrade (Security Sales & Integration)

View/download the original article published by Security Sales & Integration here.

FRESNO, Calif. — The Fort Washington Golf and Country Club, located here, recently collaborated with Matson Alarm Co. to upgrade its legacy video surveillance system to an IP-based system. 

The end-user sought to replace an analog system it had in place for more than 15 years with one that offered better quality images, along with new capabilities and efficiencies.

“The previously installed cameras were very poor quality, so when an incident occurred we could not really see what happened,” says Alan Ehnes, Fort Washington’s director of golf. “And when we took the video recordings to the police department, the image quality was so poor they couldn’t enhance it beyond a blurred image.”

With this in mind, management determined that an IP surveillance system utilizing megapixel cameras were the best choice in terms of quality and growth potential. The search for a megapixel camera system then started, but just as quickly ended when club management saw a demonstration of Arecont Vision cameras.

“Once we saw the clarity and detail of the images captured by the Arecont Vision cameras, we didn’t want to waste time. We knew that they were the right choice for us,” Ehnes said.

The Fort uses a video management system (VMS) by exacqVision to monitor live and recorded video from each of the cameras. The cameras are connected to a single large screen monitor so club personnel can see all the cameras at all times.

Matson Alarm Co., also located in Fresno, delivered the installation. The system comprises one Arecont Vision MegaView AV3226PMIR 3-megapixel Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) camera, one MegaVideo Compact AV5115DNv1 5-megapixel camera with 8-80 mm lens, and three SurroundVideo AV12186DN 12-megapixel 180˚ WDR panoramic IP cameras. With these five cameras, The Fort’s personnel are able to view a much larger coverage area with significantly greater detail than with its previous system.

Not long after the system was installed, the club got a glimpse of how beneficial the camera upgrade would be.

“We experienced a problem about a month and a half after we installed the new IP surveillance system at The Fort. Someone drove onto the property after hours, parked, entered the clubhouse, stole keys out of a purse in the coatroom, and then proceeded to steal their car,” Ehnes recalls. “We called up the video recordings taken with our new Arecont Vision cameras and were able to easily determine when and what happened.”

What happened was a woman drive into the facility parking lot, got out her car and left with the stolen vehicle. With the level of detail the cameras picked up, the car license plate and perpetrator could easily be identified.

“We turned that surveillance over to the police and two days later she was arrested,” Ehnes says.