Located just a few miles west of the Texas border in the eastern edge of New Mexico, Hobbs is a community of 32,000 that enjoys mild winters and warm summers. With 8,000 students, the Hobbs Municipal School District continues to grow which calls for an increasing need for effective and reliable technology, particularly in the video surveillance area.

Challenge
Hobbs New Mexico Schools Dissatisfied with Existing Video Surveillance Software Provider, Want Better Features, Responsive Tech Support

Unhappy with previous video surveillance software providers, Hobbs called on local systems integrator Klein Security & Safety to find a permanent solution that met their high standards, as well as a long, unmet desire to have recorded audio in addition to video.

“Hobbs had serious problems with their previous video surveillance software providers. It became such an issue for them that they abandoned what they had in place in search for a better product,” said Klein Security & Safety Systems Vice President Mark Kleinsteuber, CET.

“Among the problems they had with their previous software was that it was unreliable. It didn’t perform as promised. They persistently had problems with upgrades which would put more bugs in their system. Their biggest concern, however, came to be dealing with the ‘horrendous’ and ‘absent’ tech support department regarding fixing these constant issues.”

Klein Security & Safety recommended Hobbs download and try a free Video Insight software trial because they knew it to be a superior product that could provide what Hobbs needed and so much more, said Kleinsteuber.

“We recommend Video Insight software for all of our projects – among them schools, businesses and  petrochemical plants,” he said. “It works with nearly any camera model an end user has or wants and it is a reliable and feature-rich product. We rarely experience problems, but in the event there is an issue, customer service is responsive and top-notch.”

Video Insight was the perfect solution for Hobbs

“Video Insight was so much better than the other software products we were using – by far,” said Hobbs Municipal School District Systems Engineer Andrew Toglia. “We went from having to run two different software products at the same time – neither of which provided sound with video which is what we really wanted – to running one with Video Insight. But the best part about Video Insight is that it works!”

Hobbs has made an aggressive effort to ensure comprehensive video surveillance coverage of their 16 district buildings providing more than 480 cameras throughout the district including elementary, junior high and high school campuses. The next project phase of new construction will include an additional 70 cameras, bringing the total camera coverage to 550.

The Hobbs video surveillance system operates with one centralized server located at technology headquarters and an archival server at each building. School administrators monitor cameras at their campus and also take recordings when an incident occurs.

As Toglia mentioned, one of the key areas Hobbs officials sought in a video software provider was the ability to monitor and record sound, a feature their previous software providers did not have.

“As a school district, oftentimes pairing sound with video provides a complete picture of an incident, enabling administrators to better pinpoint parties involved and the evolution of an incident more precisely,” said Toglia. Another issue Video Insight solved for Hobbs was storage. The previous software Hobbs used was based on time and not on size, said Toglia. “So, with them you’d always just have two weeks of storage no matter what. But with Video Insight, we base it on size – so we can configure it to store for as long as we want, which is particularly helpful being a school district where we often have long periods of time without regular activity in buildings due to summer or holiday breaks.”

In addition to recorded sound and storage, another huge plus for Video Insight is that the software allows access to the cameras from outside of the network.

“You can view all of your cameras from anywhere,” said Toglia. “We were able to give the police officers in our district login credentials so when they respond to a school they can log in and view cameras from a laptop or smartphone before going into the building. They couldn’t do that with our previous software.”

Toglia said they also like being able to control PTZ within the software and the ability to play recorded video back and forward at 8x the speed with a very “smooth image.”

Another benefit? Ease-of-use

“The administrators have found Video Insight to be so easy to use. We haven’t even had a formal training, nor have we had requests for one. We loaded the software on their desktops and gave them a five minute tutorial and they have been up and running ever since.”

Above all, Toglia and Kleinsteuber agree that Video Insight offers “the best” they have experienced in technical support. The Video Insight U.S.-based, one-hour-call-back-guarantee tech support department has “really been the most impressive to Hobbs and to my company,” said Kleinsteuber.

“Along with being the best video surveillance software product, tech support is another of the top reasons why we always recommend Video Insight.”