City Security Camera Problems Improving

In July Fox 25 highlighted problems with Oklahoma City’s
security camera network.  At the time,
despite the multi-million dollar investment in purchasing and maintaining the
system, more than 100 cameras were offline, broken or missing. 

Just four months later the city has made remarkable
changes to the system.  “Cameras were not
properly checking into the system we got a lot of that resolved for the most
part,” said Schad Meldrum, Oklahoma City’s Information Technology
Director.  “Now, for the most part, we're
close to 99% running.”

Current figures show only 14 cameras off the network and
only three cameras down.  The city has
taken several cameras out of the network, but those removals were planned to coincide
with construction related to Project 180. 
The overhaul also included replacing older cameras that were in need of
repair.  “Some of these cameras were out
of warranty and end of life 1:27 so it made a lot more sense to replace the
analog cameras with digital,” Meldrum told Fox 25.

In addition the city has moved to centralize control of
the vast camera system.  Oklahoma City’s IT
department has one person trained who oversees the network.  In the past, individual city departments
purchased cameras and storage on their own. 
While the individual networks all communicated with each other, it was
costing more to maintain systems because of aging technologies and no
centralized services.

Upgrading the out-of-date cameras did come with an extra
cost up front.  However the city says
ultimately spending more now will save money in the future.  The reason has everything to do with
technology improvements.  “The video
compression is about 20 times compared to what it was with analog video,”
Meldrum said.   The compressed video means
the city can save more video for longer periods of time and still save money by
having to purchase fewer computer servers. 

Some of the camera replacement costs were covered by
federal grants and the city is still looking for ways to improve the system.

Posted: Wednesday, November 28 2012, 10:11 PM CST