When the Hamilton County (Ohio) Emergency Management Agency (EMA) had a complete technical renovation last year it acquired a Vista Phoenix system for use with its street camera system.
Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Hamilton County EMA runs a regional operations center for 12 counties in three states: eight in Ohio, three in Kentucky and one in Indiana. The agency is concerned with all natural and man-made hazards, including international and domestic acts of terrorism and homeland security functions.
Vista Phoenix is a network distributed open content management system for simultaneous encode, decode and display of AV data. “Our main use for Phoenix is to bring in our street camera system for viewing,” says Steven Siereveld, regional operations center manager. “We have approximately 100 street cameras in the Cincinnati area and river cameras in all three states. With Phoenix we can capture all the camera feeds, bring them in and view them in full HD quality on our new main display, a 14×35-foot videowall comprised of Christie Entero high-brightness 67-inch LED cubes.”
Prior to installing Vista Phoenix the Hamilton County EMA brought in the street cameras through a software web viewer and displayed multiple security camera-style views on monitors. “Now we can pull direct feeds from the camera with Phoenix. Our integrator, AVI in Cincinnati, recommended Vista Phoenix as a complement to our Christie videowall and Vista Spyder image processor. It’s a perfect fit,” Siereveld says.
The street and river camera displays are critical for emergency situations. “We need these camera feeds available for emergency viewing and for planned events like the annual River Fest, which draws half-a-million people, and next year’s MLB All Star Game,” Siereveld explains. “So far, we’ve only used Phoenix for testing and drills, but it works well and the quality of the camera feeds is just great.”
About Vista Systems
Vista Systems’ switchers have become the industry standard for live multiple-destination video and data mixed signal switching with real-time windowing and composition. For more information on Vista Systems, visit their website at
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