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Improving Service Through Surveillance
Digital Surveillance Solutions Inc. helps a New York hotel achieve top-quality management and security with IP video.
Hotel managers must keep a constant flow of guests and staff happy and safe. Proper security is a key factor of quality customer service. Cars in the parking lots can be vulnerable to theft; parties in the rooms can disturb other guests; items can be misplaced; hotel procedures must be followed; and most important, the owners want to ensure that employees treat the customers properly.
That's why Garden Place Hotel in Buffalo, NY, asked Digital Surveillance Solutions Inc. to install a customized IP video surveillance software platform and IP cameras that allow staff to view live and recorded video throughout the facility and at a sister property, Salvatore's Italian Gardens restaurant, nearby. The system uses Milestone XProtect Enterprise IP video surveillance software as the platform for managing 28 Axis 210, 211, and 206 network cameras, as well as some Toshiba analog cameras converted through an Axis 2400+ video server.
The Garden Place hotel, located just off the New York State Thruway in a Northern suburb of Buffalo, is owned and run by the Salvatore family and 75 employees. When hotel guests enter the elegant front lobby and approach the front desk, they quickly realize they are in a safe and controlled environment. On a wall behind the counter hangs a 61-inch LCD screen displaying video system images from cameras around the property.
“Our customers comment on it all the time; they get a real kick out of it. They'll stop and look at it curiously; then our employees use the HotSpot feature in Milestone to switch between different camera views. They say: ‘Oh, that is really neat!'” said Mark Jerge, the hotel's general manager.
Giant Screen for Super-Sized Overview
“We simultaneously display 25 of the 28 camera images being recorded throughout the entire hotel on two 61-inch JVC flat-panel projection screens—one in the manager's office and the other at the front desk reception area,” said Mike Blumenson, president of Digital Surveillance Solutions Inc., the Certified Milestone Partner that implemented the system. “The tool we're using to display so many cameras simultaneously is the monitor inside of Milestone, because that application will allow you to scale up to 64 cameras displayed simultaneously. The customer initially was not convinced we could see them all at once in enough detail, but the Milestone software really lends itself well to this application. We take full advantage of the monitor tool to use all of the real estate on screens of this size with the images shown beautifully. We're getting roughly the equivalent of what would be eight- or nine-inch monitor images for each image.”
Blumenson continued, “The system this replaced was a five-by-five bank of black-and-white monitors that connected to a DVR that in turn daisy-chained back to each camera with individual feeds coming into individual monitors. The customer liked being able to see the entire hotel property at once on that monitor wall presentation and (they) weren't ready to give that up. So we were able to replace that using Milestone.”
Order in the House
“We have climbed to the top with a reputation for the best quality, and we aim to uphold that in every possible way,” stated Joe Salvatore, owner of the Garden Place Hotel. “The Milestone system is the best tool for us to keep watch and have total management control.”
