VIVOTEK secures National Center for International Schools' Campus

SAN JOSE, Calif.—The National Center for International Schools (NCIS) houses both the Chinese American International School, founded in 1981, and the French American International School, founded in 1962 in San Francisco. Each school joined in an educational and bond-generating venture — NCIS — in 1994 and purchased the former Caltrans building located in the middle of San Francisco on Oak Street.

Both schools are pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and pride themselves on rigorous academic training, combined with cultural awareness and investigation.

After considerable remodeling and upgrades to the Caltrans building, the two schools now share a vibrant, functional campus where security is a major priority to deter criminal activity and protect students and staff throughout the property. However, security concerns in and around the perimeter of the school have become a challenge, so deploying security cameras in strategic positions to deter inappropriate conduct and preserve potential evidence for reported incidents has become of prime importance.

Recently, NCIS launched a project to update and improve visual monitoring of the overall campus. Now, overall video surveillance includes a multitude of VIVOTK solutions. For special circumstances and exterior requirements, NCIS's new video surveillance system features five VIVOTEK network cameras including two multiple sensor, adjustable cameras; the MA9321-EHTV for exterior corners of the main building; a FD93810HTV for the main building rooftop; and the MS9390-HV for exterior, low-height property lines.

NCIS chose the MA9321-EHTV for the camera's desired high resolution and 360-degree coverage of property, street frontages and street intersections/crosswalks. As the MA9321-EHTV. It provides NCIS with high resolution video recordings through four independent sensors and remote focus lenses. By having each sensor independent of each other, the camera views four different regions simultaneously, therefore reducing the total number of cameras needed for surveillance and lowering total installation time and costs.

NCIS chose the 5-megapixel H.265 fixed dome, FD9381-HTV, for the desired high-resolution coverage of a 13,000-square-foot playground across the street from one of the installed cameras.

VIVOTEK's FD9381-HTV professional H.265 high-efficiency outdoor dome network camera offers NCIS with 30 fps at 5MP or 60 fps at 1080p of image quality. By employing H.265 technology, the camera is able to provide higher and more efficient image compression rates than previous H.264 systems. In addition, the FD9381-HTV employs VIVOTEK's Smart Stream III technology and H.265 compression codec, reducing bandwidth more than 90 percent while still maintaining image quality, compared to traditional H.264 without Smart Streaming technology.

Lastly, NCIS chose the multiple sensor camera, the MS9390-HV, for the camera's 180-degree coverage of building frontages and sidewalks in a constrained-space location, without requiring twice the number of cameras.

Through the use of two wide angle lenses, electronic image stitching and high-resolution sensors, the 8-megapixel, 180-degree MS9390-HV is in a new class all by itself. With its unique dual-sensor design, it can maintain a higher vertical field of view (FOV) than most traditional multi-sensor panoramic cameras using four sensors. This higher vertical FOV enables NCIS to have more video coverage, thereby enabling the school to capture more evidence below the point of camera installation. The MS9390-HV goes even further with WDR Pro technology for high contrast environments, 30fps at full resolution and 180-degree IR illuminators up to 20 meters, ensuring NCIS with 24/7 comprehensive panoramic video surveillance.

“Clear video from VIVOTEK's cameras have been of great assistance to NCIS and the San Francisco Police Department in the course of investigating a wide variety of security and safety incidents, including some criminal activity,” Daniel Klingebiel, NCIS Executive Director, said in the announcement. "We have worked with various brands of IP cameras. Ultimately, we have standardized on and now only use VIVOTEK cameras due to their superior quality, standardized configuration and ease-of-installation. We met our VIVOTEK Regional Sales Manager at ISC West 2019 and have been greatly assisted with camera selection and trialing of new camera technology at our campuses.”