The backbone of the department is its dispatch center, located on Portsmouth Street, where a six-strong team responds to calls from the 26 blue light emergency phones located around campus, as well as 911 calls that are forwarded to the center. A network of 300 video surveillance cameras situated indoors and outdoors provides dispatchers and officers with visibility of the campus. These cameras enable the team to monitor areas and view situations in real time to coordinate appropriate response. The camera system is managed and operated through a video management software (VMS) system.
The college has been a Octave customer for 15 years. Until recently it was operating the Ocularis VMS, which had proven to be a sturdy and reliable platform to manage its cameras, as well as ensure video footage could be captured, stored, recalled and replayed by detectives as part of their investigations and evidence gathering process.
However, with an eye on the future, Joseph P. Tiraboschi, the chief of police and executive director of public safety at the Springfield College Police Department, decided to upgrade the VMS as part of a wider long-term project to harness the advances in surveillance and security systems technology.
Octave Coda Video makes all of our lives easier, when monitoring and responding to an active threat, as well as post incident investigation and evidence sharing.
Octave Coda Video makes all of our lives easier, when monitoring and responding to an active threat, as well as post incident investigation and evidence sharing.
A review of the systems currently available on the market validated Springfield College’s decision to evolve its longstanding relationship with Octave and upgrade to its next-generation enterprise-class VMS – Octave Coda Video (formerly HxGN dC3 Video).
The process of switching to Coda Video is simple. Additionally, organizations such as Springfield College that are migrating from Ocularis can take advantage of a powerful upgrade tool, which automates much of the transition process, transferring users, groups, permissions and views from the existing system to Coda Video.
The video system is central to the dispatch center’s operations, whether using a live video feed to coordinate a response to a road traffic incident or monitoring suspicious activity on campus.
Tiraboschi observed, “By upgrading from Ocularis to Coda Video we realized an instant improvement in the ability of our surveillance system to support day-to-day activities of our dispatchers, officers and CSOs to be more effective in their police work.”
He continued, “It is quicker for us to share video footage with Springfield Police, the Massachusetts State Police and the District Attorney’s office. Files that previously took several hours to download can be available on a portable drive within 20 minutes.
What’s more, since the upgrade to Coda Video the department has extended the period it stores video footage on its two locally hosted servers from 14 days to 21 days. However, it isn’t only the speed of the download that has improved the evidence management process.
Tiraboschi added, “We can now synchronize footage across multiple cameras in one single high-quality video, so the district attorney and court system have just one file to review, all the way through to trial.”