AXIS Communications

Annual PGA golf tournament leverages AVHS solution to protect attendees, golfers and staff while improving loss prevention

San Antonio, TX – April 15, 2011 – Axis Communications, the global leader in the network video market, today announced that its partner NAVCO has installed a hosted video surveillance system at the PGA Tour’s annual Valero Texas Open in San Antonio as part of its security and loss prevention solution.

This is the first time that the tournament, a Golf San Antonio event, will be leveraging video surveillance to supplement onsite security staff. A network-based, hosted video system made it possible without disturbing the attendees, players or aesthetics of the course.

The Valero Texas Open, which started on Thursday, April 14th and is in its second year at TPC San Antonio’s AT&T Oaks Course, is expected to attract large crowds over the four-day tournament. Each and every spectator will enter the golf course at the main ticketing gates and be funneled through the Valero Corner Store tent, which will be monitored using the hosted video solution.

“In addition to providing a great entertainment experience for our spectators, we also have a fundamental goal to ensure that they have a safe experience while protecting the property that has been entrusted to us by our business partners,” said Tony Piazzi, president and chief executive officer, Golf San Antonio. “NAVCO’s hosted solution with Axis cameras helps us achieve our goal.”

NAVCO, the largest privately held national security system integrator in North America, installed cameras at potential areas of loss around the golf course, such as at the Valero Corner Store, as well as near the TPC Apparel Store, admissions booth, refreshment tent, golf cart parking lot and areas where large crowds are expected to gather. Additionally, since most Golf San Antonio personnel work late into the evening during the tournament, NAVCO saw the need to have late night coverage over staff parking areas.

“Providing a surveillance solution for a golf tournament – especially one that’s on national TV – provides a unique challenge. You have to make sure not to disturb the beauty of the course while still covering the typical security risk and loss areas,” said David McVicker, national account manager, NAVCO. “Since it would have been completely impractical to run cable all the way back to the recording site, recording to the cloud was the ideal solution for Valero and Golf San Antonio.”

To install the cloud-based surveillance system, NAVCO leveraged the AXIS Video Hosting System (AVHS) platform and One-Click Camera Connection features of the Axis network cameras to communicate with the video storage cloud server. Eight total cameras will stream live video to NAVCO’s Videometrixs.com cloud portal, which was created to store hosted video as well as provide actionable intelligence for the end-user’s business. At the Valero Texas Open, video will be monitored by tournament personnel who have security access while recording of the system is set to motion detection.

The outdoor-ready network cameras selected by NAVCO included a mix of AXIS P1346-E Network Cameras, AXIS P3344-VE Fixed Dome Network Cameras and AXIS Q6034-E PTZ Dome Network Cameras. Each camera line is equipped with automatic day/night capability, has embedded video intelligence and provides exceptional image quality. Additionally, the cameras are all Power over Ethernet capable, which made installation much easier and provided an elegant solution for the golf course by minimizing the number of wires needed.

Anixter, a leading global distributor and mutual partner of Axis and NAVCO, worked closely on the project to provide the necessary cabling and mid-span devices to transmit the video data and power the cameras.

“Network video surveillance has seen great success in the security industry for installations of more than 32 cameras, but there is still tremendous growth potential for those smaller camera count systems that typically use analog,” said Fredrik Nilsson, general manager, Axis Communications Inc. “Hosted video is the perfect solution for a small camera system that requires live monitoring like the one they have at the Valero tournament.”