Fifteen years ago, cameras on ferries were generally divided
into two groups: those carried around the necks of passengers
and those focused on cash registers, food vending machines or
bars. They were to prevent employee pilfering as much as for
watching passengers.
These surveillance cameras used videocassette recorders,
better known as VCRs, that recorded images on a magnetic tape.
The use of these cameras and recording devices later expanded
to monitoring other areas of the boat such as the engine room
and vehicle deck while the boat was underway.
"Now [cameras] are put in for both that and homeland
security," said Dan Peterson with the Pierce County (Wash.)
Ferry System, which put a multicamera system on its new 215'
double-ended ferry, the Steilacoom II . "And we've added more
cameras than we would have put in normally, for homeland
security [reasons]."
Instead of VCRs, these digital video recorders (DVR) keep
images on a hard drive instead of tape, a technology that first
started being used in the mid-1990s.
One big difference between the two recorders is retrieval.
Instead of having to play the VCR tape back and forth, with a
DVR you can search by date, time and motion clips. Minus the
need for tapes, "everything is computer software based with
hard-drive storage. You get more pictures and higher quality
pictures," said Paul Pritchard with Allied Fire and Security in
Renton, Wash. And those images are displayed on flat-screen
monitors in the wheelhouse.
The number of cameras is pretty much up to the operator, but
eight to 10 cameras aren't unusual.
Peter Duclos of Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding , Somerset,
Mass., has put 10 to 12 cameras on ferries built at his yard.
Duclos said that not all boats have systems that extensive, but
the number is growing. Pritchard noted that as "ferries are
getting more of a security budget, they are able to put on
cameras and cover the ship."
RESOLUTION
The cameras used with digital recorders are smaller than the
ones used with VCR recorders and provide better resolution,
which is important if you are trying to identify someone with a
hand in the till or acting suspiciously. As with most things,
the camera's resolution will depend on how much you are willing
to spend.
Prichard said cameras with more than 500 lines of resolution
"get significantly better as far as quality. " These are
horizontal lines of resolution and have been the standard
measurement of resolution in the security industry.
Bound to confuse the issue are digital video cameras with
resolution measured in megapixels. Most people now own personal
digital cameras for snapshots, but in the security industry,
the high-resolution megapixel cameras are new and hardly - if
at all - used for boats. Understanding the difference between
lines of resolution and megapixels, Prichard suggested, is akin
to the difference between your standard television and a
high-definition TV.
The major problem with a megapixel video camera is that
while it delivers very good resolution, the images take up a
large amount of space on the recorder's hard drive. If a boat
owner wants to store two weeks to a month's worth of video, he
has to figure out how much it will cost for a hard drive to
store that much material, and in the end, the cost might be too
great. In that case, video quality and resolution has to be
sacrificed for storage.
Megapixel video cameras are also more expensive than the
standard digital video cameras. For instance, a ballpark figure
for a two-megapixel video camera is probably in the $1,000
range, versus a standard video camera at $300 to $400.
Whatever type of camera is used, it's a good idea to protect
it from people who don't want to have their picture displayed
on a wheelhouse monitor. Pritchard said his favorite
vandal-proof camera is currently the Bosch dome camera, which
also features "great optics."
WIRELESS
As DVRs replace VCRs, DVRs may eventually be replaced by the
newest technology - network video recording or NVR. This is a
wireless recorder that can use an IP server.
With IP cameras, a recorder isn't needed on a boat. Each IP
camera has a network address, so it is basically a small
computer on a wireless network. By accessing the IP address you
can have remote viewing of the boat from as far away as the
wireless connection allows.
"IP is wonderful because you can do multiple functions,"
said Pritchard. For instance, a camera's view can be made
available to the general public via the Internet. That's called
a slave view.
"They can't alter it or save it. They can't do anything to
it," said Pritchard. But with a password, "A security
administrator can have security portions sent out, determine
the frames per second, picture quality, stream this amount and
store it on a server."
IP cameras are more expensive than standard digital cameras,
but some money is saved because wiring from each camera doesn't
have to be run to a central recorder.
Prices should also drop as more manufacturers offer
them.
Ferry companies might not be willing to spend the money for
a wireless surveillance system, but as Pritchard pointed out,
ferry companies are interested in wireless networks to allow
passengers to use their laptops, "and you can use the same
network for an IP camera."