Sony ISSUE 3 manual Farsight Chooses, HSR-1P

case study

Farsight Chooses

the HSR-1P

One of the UK’s largest remote video monitoring companies has chosen the Sony HSR-1P to replace

its existing complement of time-lapse video recorders and multiplexers.

On a weekly basis Farsight (UK) Ltd, based in Peterborough, makes and receives in excess of 20,000 video patrols/alarms from its diverse mix of clients situated throughout the UK.

Farsight is currently using two HSR-1P digital surveillance recorders and 40 DV270 tapes to meet all its recording requirements. Farsight Operations Manager, Paul Dadford, explains: “Traditionally, all video was recorded to VCR. However, as each video receiver requires a VCR and at least 30 tapes, retrieving video data from archive was a time-consuming, inefficient and labour-intensive task.”

Farsight’s R&D department was therefore tasked to provide a recording solution that would reduce the time taken to retrieve archive video and reduce the overall effort required to manage video recording across 14 video receivers.

Four digital surveillance recorders were chosen for evaluation. Only the HSR-1P provided a complete integrated solution with the digital recording cached to hard disk and then copied to the integral DV tape.

Paul Bromley, Farsight IT Manager, says the HSR can be linked with Sony’s PMS video transmission system, allowing both units to be controlled from one software platform giving a totally integrated solution. “The use of DV technology gives the HSR-1P an impressive storage capability. The system is easy to use, compact and extremely robust.”

The integration of the DV tape also had unexpected benefits, in that software written at Farsight to log the incoming and outgoing video patrols, now controls the HSR-1P directly, enabling retrieval of archive video footage in minutes instead of hours as was the case with the old VCR recording system.

“Instead of wading through banks and banks of video cassette tapes, I only have to enter the time and date in search mode and the incident is immediately retrieved. Additionally, the unique Sony water-mark on every recorded frame gives our client base a guarantee that no digitally stored information has been tampered with.

“The introduction of the HSR-1P has enabled us to provide better quality video recording for our clients while at the same time reduce the overall work required to administer a complex video recording system.”

For more information contact the Sony Business Information Centre: 01932 816340

5