Baseball’s Newest Gem Takes IP Video to the Ballgame

March 31, 2006 SSI Staff

New Ballpark for Cardinals Comes Together in Pieces
The construction of Busch Stadium III was all about challenges, and that didn’t just include the secu
rity system.

A decision was made to literally have part of Busch Stadium III built on the same site where Busch Stadium II sat. The decision was also made to play out the 2005 season in the previous park and move into the new park in 2006. While aimed in different directions, the outfields of the two parks sit in the same area. Cardinals center fielder Jim Edmonds will be catching fly balls in the new Busch Stadium not too far from where he caught them in the old one.

The Cardinals’ solution to this was a piecemeal construction of the new stadium. A large portion of the main grandstand was built between 2004 and 2005, but most of the north side of the stadium — including the leftfield seats and the security command center — couldn’t be built until the last of Busch Stadium was demolished.

That process didn’t begin until last Nov. 7, as a wrecking ball brought Busch Stadium II down. The last piece of the old park wasn’t carted away until Dec. 8.

“We knew pretty much what we were in for and that we were going to have to do this piecemeal,” says Joe Walsh, director of security and special services for the Cardinals. “I don’t think from a CCTV standpoint it’s going to be that big of a problem for us. We might be a couple cameras short when we open up the ballpark, but I think that overall we’ll be close to 100 percent.”

And the stadium builders will be cutting it close. The last row of green grass wasn’t laid down for the field until, appropriately, St. Patrick’s Day. As for the security installation, it was 60-percent complete by mid-March.

Even after Opening Day goes by on April 10, the stadium still will not be finished. Finishing touches on offices and some of the luxury suites won’t be completed until July and 6,100 seats won’t be ready for fans until then. The camera systems for those unfinished areas will also remain offline, but that won’t leave anyone unprotected.

Hybrid System Offers ‘the Best of Both Worlds’
As different as the new park is from the old, so are the security systems.

Built with 1960s technology, the Cardinals relied on 1980s equipment to secure Busch Stadium II in the form of 14 cameras connected to 14 VCRs. That’s a sharp contrast from the 114 cameras feeding into 10 network video recorders (NVRs), 10 expansion units and eight 16-channel DVRs at the new ballpark (see equipment list on page 42 of April 2006 issue).

While not having an exact figure, Abernathy says the equipment alone in the video security portion of the installation cost the team about $500,000. Early on, it was determined that a hybrid network/coax-cable solution was needed to meet the needs of the dozens of camera positions the Cardinals wanted to have in the system.

In the end, the best solution to meet many of the Cardinals’ needs proved to be an IP-based system that had never been tried on such a large scale. Panasonic Security design teams that worked with Will Electronics took their products places they hadn’t gone before.

“Initially, we were apprehensive about a total IP solution,” says Will. “By putting in this hybrid solution, it provided a solution that kind of gives you the best of both worlds with the flexibility of all of the connectivity that the IP solution gives you.”

Will says there is a distinct division in the system between the recording and live-viewing IP streams. The live streams are all MPEG-2 based to allow for robust refresh rates. The recording stream uses motion JPEG with an emphasis on getting a clear, high-quality image.

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