Luxemburg’s football fans can now safely enjoy football matches at the Josy-Barthel Stadium, without having to worry about possible riots by hooligans, because a state-of-the-art surveillance system by Dallmeier watches over them. A direct network connection to local police forces ensures that in case of an emergency, help will quickly be on the scene.

The Josy-Barthel Stadium is the national football stadium of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, in which national and international football matches as well as athletics competitions take place. It was named after athlete and politician Josy Barthel, who won the gold medal over 1,500m at the Olympic Games in 1952. The stadium can accommodate up to 8,200 spectators and, owing to advanced video technology by Dallmeier, the security personnel are able to keep an eye on the whole premises.

Out with the old, in with the new...
The Josy-Barthel Stadium had long operated a video surveillance system, which was still using tape recorders, though. Guenther Seifert from Digital Secure, an experienced Dallmeier partner for video applications in law enforcement, got to hear about the situation and hence contacted German CCTV/IP specialist Dallmeier. “The image quality and the functionality of the system were simply no longer sufficient for law enforcement applications, especially because of the frequent panning movements of the PTZ cameras“.

With the new Dallmeier system in place all events at the stadium can now be recorded in highest image quality at 25 fps. In case officials suspect that some hooligans might have mingled with the other fans, individual spectators can be located by the cameras and magnified up to the size of a passport photograph. “Owing to the outstanding image quality of the of the recordings, we are able to obtain usable image material, even at great distance,“ says Guenther Seifert.

For recording the DIS-2/M, a modular, one-channel audio and video recorder is used, which is designed for mounting and operation in a 19“ module rack that can house up to 10 modules.

With the DIS-2/M Dallmeier uses the operating system Linux, which is deemed highly reliable throughout the IT world. In order to further increase system stability, the operating system was separated from the hard drives and swapped onto a Flash-ROM memory.

In the case of a breakdown, the defective component can be replaced per each individual channel. Furthermore, the HotPlug functionality, available by default with the individual components as well as the redundant power supply units of the module rack, guarantees a high availability of the complete solution.

“The high failure-safety was another critical factor in choosing the Dallmeier solution“, says Guenther Seifert. “Since recording takes place directly at the recorder, it is network independent. So, even if the network should fail, recording continues unaffected.“

Fully networked...
Another benefit for the Josy-Barthel Stadium was the flexibility and the network capability of the DIS-2/M devices. During events all recorded images are transmitted directly to the police headquarters where the general situation can be monitored live and coordinated at all times. If riots seem to be imminent, the police can react immediately and intervene.

The recoded images can be conveniently viewed using the PView software. Live picture transmission, backup, virtual tours or synchronisation are just some of the functions which make it easy to monitor with PView software. It is possible to have PGuard (alarm management software) trigger alarm picture switching in the PView window.

Plans for the future...
The management of the Josy-Barthel Stadium are highly satisfied with their new system. Even if the requirements at the stadium should change again in the future, the popular football arena will stand up to any necessary modifications. Guenther Seifert explains: “The open system architecture of the Dallmeier solutions has already allowed the integration of existing cameras into the new system, which of course involved a significant cost advantage for the stadium operators. However, an expansion of the system or an exchange of individual cameras cannot be ruled out. This is another reason why we have made a good decision in choosing Dallmeier because owing to the high flexibility of the system, future expansions or adjustments can easily be made.“