By NICOLE GUGINO
OBSERVER Assistant News Editor
SILVER CREEK - Technology changes at a fast pace. This can be a good thing or a bad things depending on the situation.
Article Photos
OBSERVER Photo by Nicole Gugino
Shawn Gorgan of FCS shows the Silver Creek Village Board an example of the proposed security cameras for the village park and ball park at a recent meeting.
Robert Bykowski and Shawn Gorgan of FCS sat down with the Silver Creek Village Board recently to talk about how advancing technology has changed the quote given months ago.
Bykowski explained the equipment in the original quote is now obsolete.
Police Chief Timothy Roche has been looking into security cameras for the village park and the ball park for almost a year an a half and after getting bids twice and got commitment for half payment from Petri's Baking Products. It looked as if the cameras would be installed this summer.
However, the camera equipment and data storage equipment has all been upgraded since May 2011. The original cameras were analog and digital, but now these are out-of-date and cameras are sold exclusively in digital. The data storage has also advanced from a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) to a server with a 10 terabyte hard drive (or 10,240 gigabytes).
"What happened between July 2011 and today is all the equipment we proposed is obsolete ... it all evolved into new equipment. The new equipment is now all digital before it was analog/digital. ... The price on digital cameras is comparable now so why do analog?" Bykowski said.
These upgrades have created added costs, however Gorgan presented the village with its plan to redistribute the costs in the most manageable way.
They explained the plan eliminated one pole to compensate somewhat from the cost of the server as well as finding software with a one-time license instead of annual renewal and also going from a tilt-pan camera to a fixed zoom.
Gorgan said their goal is to increase the quality and keep costs down, however the new quote the pair brought to the board was for $17,000, $3,000 more than the original bid.
They said the grid would be good for three to five years depending on further advancements in technology. They also said if the board approved the cost they could do the work this month.
The board made no decisions at it meeting. The next meeting will be held Monday at 8 p.m. in the village hall.
FCS has also done camera work for Silver Creek School and Chautauqua Institution.
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