Estate of the Art – Hikvision, Ten Ten Suystems & DVS Ltd Case Study

The property is a Grade 2 listed country estate in Tremeirchion, Denbighshire, in North Wales. With a sweeping driveway, mature parkland, woodlands, stream and lawn gardens, the estate is located on the East side of the Vale of Clwyd and boasts impressive views over the surrounding hills. The estate consists of a number of buildings clustered around a central manor house, and covers an area of approximately 30 acres, including all the surrounding gardens and grounds. 

But the estate’s rural location and large expanse of land also means a significant area of opportunity to potential intruders. This opportunity is also bolstered by the estate’s proximity to the A55 expressway with its direct connection to the national motorway network. The estate’s driveway is a mile long, which presents its own practical complications, as it’s crucial for the estate’s owners to see who arrives at the main gate from within the estate. Due to the estate’s vulnerability, a CCTV surveillance solution is required to provide full coverage of the property from all directions. With aging technology in its existing surveillance system, the owners chose to implement an upgrade. They turned to integrator Ten Ten Systems, who provided a new Hikvision CCTV surveillance solution. The Hikvision system is integrated with the estate’s automated gate control and internal monitors, which use technology from Green Access Limited. 

A coverage challenge

Steve Birks is managing director of IT specialists Ten Ten Systems. “The main challenge for our engineers during the implementation process was providing a wide area coverage across the entire estate with no down-time,” Steve Birks says. “The upgrade to the CCTV solution required the use of cameras which could both take advantage of the existing surveillance hardware and allow for additional future upgrades.  We turned to Hikvision, and their distributor, DVS Ltd., to help develop a system for the estate due to their position in the market for offering integrated devices that met the functionality that was required.  The Hikvision network video recorder which was used has a capacity of 16 channels, which would potentially allow the addition of up to seven more cameras on top of the newly installed nine currently in place across the estate.

“The new Hikvision solution has taken full advantage of the existing telegraph poles used for the previous CCTV solution, with one key difference: Hikvision’s cameras are all equipped with a combination of ultra-low light, infrared or thermal imaging functions, as well as Hikvision’s Smart Technology. The addition of this technology into the property’s CCTV surveillance solution has proven essential for the security team in the detection and prevention of intrusion from all directions across the entire property. The most vulnerable area to intrusion is the woodland area to the rear of the central manor house, where we installed a thermal network bullet camera. The thermal camera is perfect for use in detecting potential break-ins across a relatively small field of view, using Smart technology.”

Steve Birks explains that the upgrade faced a number of additional challenges. “The previous CCTV solution relied on the telegraph poles to achieve good height coverage,” he says. “We had to take this into consideration when choosing which cameras to place in which locations to maximise coverage and efficiency. Also, because the driveway leading up to the estate is a mile long, this presented another obstacle in terms of range, which is the reason for the inclusion of a 3-megapixel camera into the solution.”

Estate-of-the-art technology

The Hikvision surveillance solution at the estate consists of nine CCTV cameras and one Hikvision NVR. The internal areas of the estate are covered by three 3-megapixel ultra-low light network domes. Surveillance of the estate’s external areas is provided by five 2MP IR DarkFighter bullet cameras, alongside the thermal camera which enables high quality night-time surveillance of the estate’s woodland area. It’s equipped with Hikvision’s Smart behavior analysis technology, which includes Smart Line crossing, Intrusion, Audio exception, Region Entrance & Exit functions. At the heart of the new surveillance solution lies a 16 channel NVR, enabling the owners to store up to 12 terabytes of recorded footage from all cameras.

“The newly installed Hikvision CCTV surveillance solution has proven to be an enormous success for both the customer and Ten Ten Systems,” Steve Birks says. “The end result of the CCTV upgrade is a nine-camera smart surveillance solution which provides maximum efficiency and functionality at an extremely competitive price. Because the estate covers 30 acres, it required 10 miles of Cat6 cabling, but the implementation process was seamlessly completed with no down-time.

“The customer is extremely satisfied with the result of the upgrade. The key benefit is the ability to monitor the estate remotely, from anywhere in the world without lag, which provides real-time surveillance and instant playback across a wide range of devices, from a desktop to a tablet or smartphone. The project has proven a tremendous success for the owners, Ten Ten Systems, DVS and Hikvision UK. With just nine cameras and an NVR, we have succeeded in providing the estate owners with the most cost effective, efficient, high end CCTV solution possible.”