Jeroen1000

@Buellwinkle My requirements are rather simpel or perhaps not so: Guard my drive way (see first post). Specifically I want to clearly recognize faces, both during day time and at night. So I began drafting my spec's like: - IR-cut off filter - IR corrected lens Both of the above on a fairly good camera (good frame rate so no hughe shutter slowdown, good lux rating, ...) And of course, suitable IR-illuminator(s). I'd spend around 600 dollar on the camera and I don't have a real budget yet for the illuminators. I'd say below 150 dollars should be realistic.

@thewireguys. I checked both in Holland and Germany (neighbors:)) and it is considerably cheaper for the very same product. It's just the purchase of the item without installation (just to be clear). I think you assumed the 300 dollar 'extra' included installation?

I'm telling you, it's 10 times easier to build a computer than selecting a camera . I'm very thankful for the pro advice as often, installers in my country don't appear to be be in the loop. I found one installer who knew the ins and out but he asked 300$ more than the retail price for a Mobotix

Superb point. I had not taken those feature filled NASes into consideration. I do not know to what extent a dedicated NAS is a good idea or not. I mainly use the current NAS for streaming movies. Judging from the bandwidth used, my current NAS isn't even breaking a sweat. I haven't looked into it fully, but I believe H.264 is the superior codec (bandwidth and compression wise). But this topic is within my area of interest so I should be able to manage I don't like the sound (no pun intended )of slowing down the shutter speed. I want to avoid blurring motion too much. Am I correct to say that 1/60 of a second is ideal and going any slower will blur fast moving objects like cars and people that are running? Sorry. But having read so many times that a lens can make such a hughe difference, it is high on the priority list. This is probably such a noob question but here goes: does varifocal mean that a lens could be ajusted from like (making it up here) 35 mm to 60 mm. This adjustment would be manual (as in turning a ring on the lens)? This lens could then 'optical zoom' to for instance 80 mm (optical zoom being a software setting). Where as a fixed lens could also be 35 mm but can also optical zoom to for instance 60 mm. OR I got it all wrong, and manually turning the ring IS optical zoom? To fully comprehend, I hope when looking up backfocus, it is a common term lol. Hmm are normal optical zoom settings not remote-(software) controllable? I can only say One a different note, this company was on my list after Mobotix lol.

I found myself a very interesting CCTV article. I've heard of all the term described in it but I get totally lost when the author is putting them together. F stop Color temperature IRE Reflection ratio Lux These appear to be the main parameters when evaluating performance. I know vendors don't specify all of them but I can (try and) ask them to. At any rate I'm most curious about this. http://www.mintron.com/HTM/Q&A/Htm/Minimum%20illumination%200.0001%20lux.htm

Hi everyone, I'm a computer engineer from Beligum looking to install the best CCTV system I can afford I've been reading a lot on the forums these days and I'm looking to up my knowleadge a little further! Hope you don't mind some questions soon. Cheers, Jeroen

hi guys, I know I'm new so my apologies if this is a moot or dumb question. I start out with the strangest questions first Coax is essentialy a composite signal (includes both luminance and chrominance information and in case of regular TV also audio). I won't delve to deeply but sending this over 1 wire is asking for quality problems. Are there camera's which use Y/C (S-video, commenly called S-VHS) or YPbPr (component) or even RGB (also a component signal)? It just doesn't make sense an expensive camera uses such an inferior video signal transport system. I suppose coax has plenty of bandwidth for B/W but when it comes to color it really is not the best choice. Any thoughts?

Share what you have learned please:)I I'd say the 30IRE one has the better specifications. IRE has something to do with light intensity I believe...the lower the number the lower the light conditions. The one camera is able to producte an image at 50IRE while the other one needs even less light, in this case 30 IRE.

Thanks for the thorough answers again. It will be a tough decision to make. The forum still holds a ton of info I need to plow through! Thanks again for setting me on my way guys.

It is the HDMI specification they upgrade. There is now support for for 4K x 2K resolution. I Don't have any say in that I'm afraid And that is what I regret really. I'm at home in the IT world where developments go really fast. I thought I had to be missing something here. As for as resolution goes advancements appear to stand still. My point is: if an IP camera can hold the hardware required to encode the picture information, using let's say,H.264, a capture card will be able to do that also. They just don't make them . Also note ATI and NVIDIA's GPU's can encode (one at the time) video stream to H.264. The chip technology to encode a video file to MPEG4 IS availble now. So it all boils down to a caputure card which can do this with multiple streams (doesn't geovision have one?). But when there are no non-ip cams that output a higher res. this is a moot point. As I already said, I see the disadvantage of running 3 coax cable. I don't however see the problem of camera's outputting a higher resolution and sending that through 1 coax (apart from cost that is). I kind of ranted on about the rest above:) What you are saying is that few manufacturers combine the good from the analogue cams with the convenience from IP cams? Some like Panny do. Would indeed make a great cam if they can beef up the res. 60 fps is where is maxes out when it comes to unique frames. The rest is 'intelligent' frame creation by the TV circuitry or repeat frame. Thanks for all the insights. I did have a motive for asking all this. As I value your pro input, in your opinion, is the analogue res. enough to recognise the face of the burglar/vandal if using a quality analogue cam, good IR-lighting and the right lens? Or should I go the IP cam route trying to find one which offers good night time vision? In any case, I will be using a computer to caputure/store the video. How much more will this cost over the analogue solution: Analogue: Capture card + software + camera + IR lighting. Cable is not really expensive. Digital: Software (probably included with the camera) + camera + CAT5 cable or wireless.

I can relate that 3 coax's for one signal may be pushing it for large installations. Good point. But that is still no reason for this low resolution thing. In case I'm mistaking a single coax has more than enough bandwidth for a 1080p signal. For me this feels like: want megapixel resolution? Fork out some money for an IP camera. @scorpion: this will not cost a hughe amount of money. A 100 dollar webcam is even capable of this @ Soundy, since you made a good point that 3 cables per cam is too much, why not provide higher resolution over that single cable then? Surely there is no real technical restriction here? Many home A/V equimpment has had component and S-video for ages. Think of DVD-players and S-VHS vcr's.

Hi scorpion thanks for you reply. I'll provide more insight to my initial question now: The reason for not purchasing a camera that digitises the signal is twofold: 1) Analogue transportation systems can easily accomodate for HD quality signal. Good quality component cables (or 3 times a BNC terminated coax cable) should be able to transport 1080p also. Don't misunderstand me here: digital offers benefits over analogue in terms of fault correction and is less prone to interference but it is absolutely untrue that an analogue signal is inferior to a digital one (for example VGA) 2) Why do CCTV camera's that output an analogue signal limit their video res. to about 576 x 720 then? Is it bandwidth? No. Is it because of the fact that CCTV images are/were primarily displayed on SD televisions? Possibly, but we do have HD TV's now. I'll bounce back the question then: why not use higher res. camera's that output an analogue signal? IP is relatively new to the CCTV scene so a good argument is that the best of the best may still be analogue cams. I believe to have read IP camera's are not brilliant at night and the analogue ones still beat them hands down in that department. So, it would be nice to have a analogue camera out put 720P for instance. I'll have a capture card digitise this then. It is not inconceivable it will even do a better job than the A/D processor in an IP camera. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on this one