West Coast auto dealer utilizes TimeSight solution

Nov. 18, 2008
Stevens Creek Auto Group gets 90 percent storage relief

MT. LAUREL, N.J., November 18, 2008 - TimeSight Systems, the industry leader in Video Lifecycle Management (VLM), today announced that Stevens Creek Auto Group has successfully implemented its TimeSight VLM video surveillance solution. The leading West Coast auto dealership based in San Jose can now take advantage of high resolution megapixel video surveillance images with the coverage and protection they provide, without suffering the storage costs or limited retention times associated with such systems.

"When we began seeking a solution, high quality video surveillance and retention times of at least 100 days were our primary goals," said Steve Cornelius, General Manager of Stevens Creek Auto Group. "Most vendors told us that we needed to either lower our retention and quality or significantly increase our storage hardware to tens of terabytes ¨C the equivalent of ˇ®storage sticker shockˇŻ. We needed a different approach that supported both our quality and our retention goals within our budget and TimeSight delivered with its VLM appliance."

With over $80 million in revenue, 250 employees, thousands of customers and millions of dollars in inventory and property liability, Stevens Creek has a lot to protect, including an excellent reputation. Add the dynamics of a softer than usual economy and the extremely competitive retail auto market, itˇŻs clear that Stevens Creek also needs to protect its bottom line. The company uses video surveillance as an important tool when dealing with incidents such as employee and customer accidental damage, vandalism and theft, personal injury claims and damage claims.

By working with TimeSight Systems, Stevens Creek was able to identify three key risk time frames within their retention window (High Risk Period, Medium Risk Period, and Lower Risk Period). By aligning TimeSight VLM with MORe (Motion Optimized Recording) settings to its risk-retention profile, Stevens Creek storage footprint was immediately reduced from 30 terabytes to less than three terabytes or by more than 90%.

TimeSight VLM appliances with MORe intelligently manage and store Stevens Creekˇ®s surveillance data over a three month retention period, enabling the move to richer, higher resolution video systems without the increase in storage required by other systems. The company can now use new high resolution cameras for a richer video experience, eliminate grainy video, and increase identifiable lot events such as theft and vandalism while maintaining months of video at the desired quality and storage cost of less than days or weeks from all other alternatives.

Through this VLM MORe approach, Stevens Creek Toyota increases the quality and effectiveness of their video systems while dramatically minimizing their storage budget in a compact and easy to use appliance.

"Before TimeSight I was being forced to choose between image resolution, frame rate or retention time," said Ken Arno, IT Manager, Steven Creek Auto Group. "TimeSight was the only solution that gave us the required resolution, frame rate and retention, all for dramaticaly less storage than other alternatives."

Whether adding cameras, updating camera resolution, increasing quality or frame rates, or extending retention times, users will require more storage space and be forced to bear the associated costs of that storage investment. VLM with MORe enables companies like Stevens Creek Auto Group to enhance their surveillance effectiveness through all of these approaches to increased efficiency while actually driving down storage costs by managing video data throughout its useful life.