Get a Better Look at Your Sewer Pipes

Envirosight’s new zoom camera provides utilities with a powerful assessment tool.
Get a Better Look at Your Sewer Pipes
The Quickview airHD captures HD video at up to 400 feet in favorable conditions.

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Zoom assessment allows utilities to get a quick picture of what’s happening in their pipes and target further inspection accordingly. It’s an effective tool that can save time and money.
Envirosight launched its first zoom assessment camera 15 years ago. In the years since, inspection camera technology has advanced tremendously. The new Quickview airHD represents many of those advancements, along with some of Envirosight’s own technological improvements.

What was the idea behind the design of this camera system?

Municipalities need a tool that provides a quick, affordable assessment of sewer condition. Camera crawlers are just too costly and time-consuming to deploy in every situation, so zoom assessment tools like the Quickview airHD serve as a front-line strategy for rapidly determining whether a pipe is in good shape, or whether it needs additional CCTV crawler inspection or cleaning.

What issues does this resolve over previous pole camera systems?

Since we launched the industry’s first zoom assessment camera 15 years ago, municipalities and contractors have really embraced the zooming concept. Naturally, many inspection camera manufacturers have followed us into the market with similar products.

We wanted the next generation of our Quickview product to make leaps in efficiency and detail, so we approached R&D with a focus on both usability and quality of the deliverable. As a result, the new Quickview airHD offers a combination of features no other zoom survey camera does, including:

  • Real-time wireless control and video streaming, so setup is dramatically simplified and operation is highly intuitive.
  • HD video to capture detail far greater than any other zoom assessment camera currently available.
  • Remote height and tilt adjustment, which allows an operator to attain optimum view alignment quickly without extracting the pole.
  • Hands-free operation, where stabilizer legs keep video perfectly steady, allowing the operator to focus on the footage observed.
  • Touch-screen tablet controls, which offer the operator a familiar device interface at a consumer price point, while providing a platform to exploit the most advanced wireless and HD video technologies.

Beyond these innovations, the design of the Quickview airHD still incorporates our patented Haloptic light engine, which projects shadowless illumination that’s perfectly aligned with the camera’s view axis to achieve maximum inspection range.

Is this a front-line initial assessment system, or can it fill the role of a crawler system for a smaller utility that doesn’t do a ton of inspection?

Quickview airHD doesn’t replace a crawler, it helps municipalities use their crawlers more wisely. The majority of sewer lines don’t need full CCTV inspection, and a preliminary assessment with a zoom camera can identify those lines. Whether you have inspection capability in-house or contract it out, reducing your crawler inspection workload is a big time- and money-saver — the PASS Program estimates up to 34 percent reduction in costs and 17 percent boost in productivity for a systemwide assessment.

How do the centering foot and positioning system work?

Zoom assessment works best when the camera looks down the centerline of a pipe. The Quickview airHD’s new patent-pending foot incorporates a ratcheted gas-spring mechanism that makes centerline positioning easy. The operator pushes down on the pole (against the spring) to lower the camera to the desired height. The ratchet holds the position. If the operator overshoots, pushing the camera to its lowest extent will release the ratchet, resetting the camera to maximum height. Extracting the camera from the hole to adjust foot height is no longer required.

What is the camera’s effective range?

Viewing range depends on size, material and condition of the pipe, but under favorable circumstances the camera sees as far as 400 feet.

Is there a way to determine the exact distance/location of a defect?

Quickview’s role is to identify sewer lines where defects warrant further inspection with a camera crawler, so the position of any defects (in lines where they exist) will ultimately be measured by a crawler. Still, an operator can count pipe segments to determine approximate distance to an observed defect.

What benefits does wireless operation provide?

Its wireless design means fewer setup steps, less clutter around the manhole, and improved safety. In addition, cables are a wear item, so eliminating the cable removes a potential failure point.

How is the recorded footage stored and shared?

Quickview airHD captures video and still images to device memory as industry-standard MPEG and JPEG files, respectively. From there, depending on the tablet device, you can share them as you would any other media: by email, text or cloud storage, or by transferring them via removable media or tethering to a laptop or desktop computer. The Quickview airHD app is available for Android tablets, iPads and Windows tablets and laptops.

Can footage be reviewed on a laptop or desktop so text can be added on a real keyboard, or is the Wi-Fi client function intended to serve the sharing role?

As just mentioned, footage can be transferred to a laptop or desktop computer via removable media or device tethering. Once on the computer, it can then be shared or merged into cloud-based inspection reporting software like WinCan VX. Quickview airHD also has built-in text overlay capability, so custom captions (including dynamic data like GPS position, camera inclination and date/time) can be added directly to video and still images.



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