Ft McDowell Tribal Gaming Organization / Yavapai Nation partners with DW Spectrum IPVMS software platform from Digital Watchdog. A comprehensive system history and case study.

1. Fort McDowell Casino
partners with DW Spectrum IPVMS
to Pioneer a New Paradigm
in IP Video Management Solutions
for Gaming
Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation
Fort McDowell Tribal Gaming Office (FMTGO)
Case Study for the Adoption of DW Spectrum IPVMS solution
from Digital Watchdog

2. Problems and Background
The Fort McDowell Indian Community opened the first bingo hall in Arizona in 1983!
Since that opening the gaming facility has expanded numerous times. Fort McDowell has
grown to offer:
• Numerous Food and Beverage venues
• A top flight Golf Course
• Resort hotel accommodations
• A richly competitive gaming environment
The casino features:
• 128,000 Square feet of slot machine
• An 1,800 Seat Bingo Hall
• 18 Blackjack Tables
• 20 Poker Tables

3. FMTGO Background
Since inception in 1983 Fort McDowell Tribal Gaming Office
(FMTGO) has maintained dense surveillance coverage of all gaming
and “Back of the House” areas. Surveillance coverage and compliance
have always been maintained and fully provisioned prior to each
expansion initiative.
This empirical and sometimes volatile growth has fostered a strong DIY culture in the surveillance
department leading us to embrace a culture of system design, R&D, and full systems integration
capabilities.
FMTGO surveillance techs and management are routinely called upon to design, source, build and install
camera systems and other low voltage solutions for areas outside of the casino in locations such as
courtrooms, schools, community centers, and public safety buildings.
These are provided for without relying on local integrators for labor and design services. All interaction with
surveillance solution providers are at the level of equipment orders only.

4. 2004 Migration from VCR to DVR
In 2004, following management changes, FMTGO diverged from its DIY philosophy and
accepted a proposal from a local CCTV systems integrator to convert from VCR to DVR
recording. This conversion retained the existing American Dynamics level 3, six bay
video matrix switch as the surveillance front end.
VCR shelves were scrapped and replaced with:
• A 12 Rack Capacity Server Room/Data Center
• A total of 50x, sixteen channel 4RU DVR units were housed in the new climate
controlled server room
• UPS and fire suppression systems were updated and competently integrated with a full
server room build out
• Physical installation of console components were aesthetically pleasing and the server
room build looked professional

5. DVR Administrative Migraines
Despite outward appearances the project quickly revealed itself to be an administrative
nightmare. Aside from removing the need for VCR tape changes, everything about the 2004
DVR system was cumbersome and conferred only marginal video quality improvements.
The new system was not a significant improvement over the VCR's and multiplexers that it
had replaced.
While the underlying DVR server hardware and network components were of premier
quality for 2004, the DVR server software was prone to crash without warning, and had no
provisions for error logging, alerting or health monitoring.
The DVR application installation software was also withheld by the
integrator absent our acceptance of their rapaciously authored
service and maintenance agreement.

6. The DVR Nightmare continued
Additionally, the DVR client application (discovered in 2008), was so dysfunctional that
the integrator had kept its existence secret and instead up-sold the casino on an
expensive Avocent 5110 KVM matrix switch.
Using the Avocent in lieu of a viable client application forced operators to interact directly
with the DVR servers and perform exports to a network share each time they needed to
review video.
FMTGO would endure the next eight years:
•Using the Avocent KVM switch as a VMS client
•Cloning Windows 2000 boot drives
•and correcting operator mishaps on DVR servers.

7. Slow Progress for a Complete System
2006 brought a management change, and by 2007 FMTGO was finally given the green light
to take meaningful corrective action. We procured an economical replacement solution in the
form of:
• Hikvision 16 channel encoder cards
• A suitably stable, (if otherwise unremarkable), VMS software
Due to tight budgetary constraints, upgrades would have to occur over
time, by attrition, and re-purpose as many computer components as
possible. The upgrade by attrition process lasted until December of
2012. Surveillance console operators could finally experience the
virtues of a relatively unified and stable client / server VMS architecture
promised by the integrator back in 2004.

8. New Mission Parameters
With the prospect of a new casino in the near future and a 20 year old analog
matrix switch / infrastructure, FMTGO is determined to deploy an exemplary
IP Video system.
This system will satisfy
stringent design,
scalability and cost criteria
without compromising
FMTGO's operational
ideals or the spirit of selfreliance necessary for the
realization of authentic
surveillance and security
value.

9. Mission Objective
The quest for a suitable IPVMS that embraces FMTGO goals and technical requirements
started in 2007 with the emergence of high frame rate megapixel H.264 IP video products.
Megapixel video, while expensive at the time, was seen as a way to finally provide quality
coverage over poker tables.
FMTGO built its first NVR server, installed a POE switch, and
deployed twenty-two first generation Arecont AV3105 cameras
over poker tables in December of 2008.

10. Final Obstacle - The Industry Itself
The project seemed a total success until 2009 when it was realized that higher performance
and lower cost camera models could not be integrated unless “license upgrades”
purchased.
●
This upgrade ransom policy completely silenced
any notion of continued IP adoption using what
was otherwise a capable IPVMS product.
It seemed that most third party IPVMS software were crippled
by ill-conceived, incompatible or even predatory licensing
policies.

11. Requirements for Action #1 - 6
Any prospective IPVMS candidate system would need to meet the following minimum
requirements.
1.Protect Tribal assets by enhancing surveillance coverage and operational ease of use.
2.Identify threats to public safety and the enterprise.
3.Ensure compliance with all casino regulatory bodies and conformance with industry
standards.
4.Provide an economical migration path from analog cameras to network cameras.
5.Demonstrate clear advantages over Ft. McDowell Yavapai Nation’s current analog
VMS and competitive IPVMS offerings.
6.Allow for a smooth transition from existing network camera and NVR server
installations to future casino and surveillance data center facilities.

12. Requirements for Action #7 - 10
Final four requirements and arguably the hardest
7. Offer a sane, easily understood and flexible licensing model.
8. Provide 64 bit installations for Linux servers and 32/64bit clients for Windows and
Linux workstations while also supporting both x86 and ARM processor architectures.
9. Expose a flexible server side API for user developed computer vision applications and
RTSP re-streaming functionality.
10. Demonstrate a consistent and aggressive software development cycle for bug fixes
and feature enhancements.

13. One Clear Choice
FMTGO acknowledges that there are many solutions in the IPVMS market that satisfy the
first six requirements.
However…
The only solution FMTGO has found after
extensive testing and research that provably
satisfies all ten minimum requirements is:

14. DW Spectrum IPVMS Solution
Leveraging the unrivaled functionality of the DW Spectrum IPVMS software, and
installing a variety of mega-pixel camera products, Fort McDowell Tribal Gaming
Office (FMTGO) has dramatically improved system performance!
FMTGO will continue to migrate analog cameras over to the DW Spectrum HighDefinition surveillance system ultimately replacing all analog cameras.
FMTGO will forego the practice of using analog to IP encoding for fixed IP cameras.
FMTGO is effectively supplanting analog cameras with IP
at a five to one ratio in most coverage converted areas.
(Objects like cashier targets are required by regulators to
have a 1:1 dedicated camera view.)
5 to 1 Ratio!

15. Powerful Solution
DW Spectrum empowers surveillance console
operators with many meaningful tools that
cohesively combine in an intuitive and accessible user
experience.
DW has the only interface yet seen that effectively
curtails operator preoccupation with video controls,
thus allowing consistent scrutiny of the video
content.
The benefits of DW's “Force Multiplying” User
Interface are becoming evident in four fundamental
ways...

16. DW Spectrum IPVMS - Force Multiplier
1. Live video monitoring and forensic review are performed faster and
more efficiently than with any VMS seen in recent trade shows, local
casinos, or witnessed on surveillance tours of high profile Vegas
gaming venues.
2. Incident reports are now being written without the word
“Inconclusive”.
3. Operator stress has been substantially reduced!
4. Executive Management, expecting to see video surveillance
capabilities on par with popular TV series myths, are consistently
impressed with DW Spectrum's visual presentation and feature set.

17. DW Spectrum IPVMS Benefits
• Operator control advantages aside, administrative features are equally organic and
robust.
• DW Spectrum provides for extremely granular control over every facet of the VMS
configuration allowing the administrator to elicit all the performance inherent in
the cameras, network, servers and operators.
• This granular control is accomplished in a focused way that does not impose
extraneous menu choices or introduce complicated configuration issues.
• There are no configuration settings options that redundantly appear in different
forms and no decoupled configuration utilities.

18. DW Spectrum Helps
●
DW Spectrum’s integrated help system is also refreshingly
pertinent to each menu when launched.
●
It is fast loading and search friendly.
●
Performing configuration changes in DW Spectrum is
actually enjoyable.
●
Whether configuring an event response, adjusting motion
recording or reviewing a server log… There is absolutely
nothing that seems ill-conceived, hastily implemented or
contrived to generate a sales call.

19. Going IP
While the benefits of going “IP” are
obvious. So are the concerns.
Until the release of DW Spectrum, the
surveillance IP video market as a whole
had so far only offered products that
critically limited choice with respect to
FMTGO's requirements.

20. Conclusion
DW Spectrum is the only IPVMS solution to date that inspires the confidence
necessary for system wide migration at Fort McDowell. To say that FMTGO is
pleased with DW Spectrum is a gross understatement. FMTGO looks forward to
providing long term enhanced surveillance protection to its community using the
game changing IPVMS technologies made possible by Digital Watchdog.
Surveillance Manager and Technicians:
Jason Tannaz, Lee Brown and Shaun Mcgilbary
Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation
Fort McDowell Tribal Gaming Office
Surveillance Technical Department
Fountain Hills AZ, 85269