“Our employees travel around the globe, and often in very remote locations. Part of the Corporate Security Team’s mandate is for the GSOC to coordinate their movements and ensure that these employees remain safe wherever they operate. Every situation is different, especially managing the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis, where the versatility and ease of use of the VuWall system allowed us to bring the most relevant data onto the video wall at the most critical times, enabling our operators to respond quickly.”
Aaron C. Lee, CPP, Head of Security and Life Safety at HSB
Challenge
In order to monitor 64 worldwide locations and assign HSB’s 1,200 engineers, inspectors, and technical personnel to perform inspections and review problems at industries and homes around the globe, the company was seeking to install a central video wall at its global security operation center (GSOC), headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut. HSB required an easy-to-use video wall system capable of controlling and displaying a multitude of sources — from cameras and computers to web pages and TV channels — in a range of formats. In addition, the control system needed to be simple enough to build new ad-hoc layouts for monitoring emergency situations. The organization also wanted the flexibility to select the entire video wall or a portion of the video wall and to share with the managers located in two other offices adjacent to the control center. Likewise, those managers required the ability to control what they see on the monitors in their respective offices, whether it be a mirror image of the entire video wall, a portion of the video wall or simply the content coming from one of the sources. Finally, the system needed to provide intuitive KVM capabilities to ensure operators can quickly and easily control and interact with the sources directly on the video wall or a monitor at their choosing.
Solution
HSB selected the VuWall VuScape video wall controller and VuWall2 software platform for their new set up at their GSOC. The VuScape is configured with 12 outputs, where eight are used to drive the main 4×2 video wall while the other four outputs are driving the individual monitors: two auxiliary monitors and two monitoring stations for the managers in their offices. With this setup, any source available for the video wall is also available for the auxiliary monitors.
HSB selected VuWall primarily for its versatility, ease of use, interoperability with 3rd party solutions such as Genetec and Crestron, and certainly for its 24/7 reliability.
Result
Today, every user at HSB’s GSOC can quickly and easily control what they see from any monitor or video wall. Users can control and distribute any content source to any display on the network, from VuScape’s interface that offers a birds-eye view on all the display surfaces. With virtual mousepad capabilities, any operator can interact with the sources directly using their own keyboard and mouse. A further benefit is that VuScape seamlessly interfaces with the Genetec Security Center, so that all HSB’s cameras configured in that platform are automatically listed as sources in the VuWall2 interface.
The VuWall system was effortlessly programmed into the GSOC’s Crestron system, which also controls the lighting and audio routing. The only video wall commands that required additional programming were the single-line commands to launch layouts or scripts. Users can edit the layouts and the scripts within VuWall2 without further changes within the Crestron program. This saves time and resources when the organization needs an ad-hoc layout customized to an emergency rather than the standard one. This capability and the ease of use of the VuWall2 interface is a fundamental part of HSB’s smooth and efficient operations.
About HSB
The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Co., (HSB), Headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, is a leader in global equipment breakdown insurance and other specialty coverages; inspection services; loss reduction; and engineering-based risk management for business, home, and farm, since 1866. The company provides equipment breakdown coverage through a network of brokers and agents and also through other insurance companies who partner with HSB and who include equipment breakdown as part of their insurance products for commercial lines and personal lines customers.
Related Products
VuScape
A high performance video wall controller ideal for control rooms, collaboration rooms and corporate signage.
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