mowbs

Hi, I've just upgraded my home CCTV to HD-SDI and I am happy with the day time image but it is grainy and has poor clarity at night, far worse than the CCTV42 system that just packed in after 18 months (I'm not happy with that, and I was never happy with their DVR, what a horrible user interface - but that's a story for another day) I'm pretty sure the problem is cheap - you guessed it - eBay cameras. I like the open faced dome cameras because they're less obtrusive than regular cameras and I tried to buy the best I could find. I'm not scared to spend money on good cameras but I also don't want to waste money on overpriced very average crap (I'm back to my old CCTV42 system again there) Here's some (probably made up) details of the cameras, FYI they were £100 each SONY EXMOOR 1/2.8" 1200TVL FULL 1080P HD 2.1MP - GIVING CRYSTAL HD-SDI CLEAR IMAGES, CLEAR CAR NUMBER PLATES AND FINER DETAILS EFFECTIVE PIXELS - 1920x1080P DIGITAL ZOOM UPTO 10x DUAL BNC OUTPUT - FULL 1080P HD-SDI BNC OUTPUT + 1200TVL ANALOGUE BNC OUTPUT (USE HD-SDI DVR FOR FULL 1080P HD IMAGES) 3 MEGA-PIXEL HD 2.8-12mm VARIFOCAL LENS - EASY TO ADJUST TO YOUR PREFERED VIEWING ANGLE 36 IR LED'S - 30-35 METER INFRA RED NIGHT VISION - 0.002 LUX OSD MENU - D-WDR - 3D DNR - BLC IR CUT FILTER GIVING TRUE COLURS Can anyone point me in the direction of what I should be looking for in a camera or recommend any? Thanks

Hi, as an addition to the cameras and as an audio alert I would highly recommend Dakota Alert. Give them a Google. They're wireless and quite good for drawing your attention to people / vehicles entering your property, even with CCTV recording you miss a lot of what's happening and you'll never need your doorbell again. They're also very good for night security if someone is entering your property. I have 2 mounted on trees on my driveway both set to different chimes so I can tell if someone is coming towards or away from my house. Deer will set them off but they are precise enough to be able to aim high enough off the ground so they are not set off by rabbits / cats etc. I aim my sensors into trees on the opposite side of the driveway because the beam travels a long way otherwise and spreads out the further away it is. They also do a sensor that can be buried in the road and will only pick up the metal of a car driving over it, and a pneumatic one that is triggered by driving over a strip if animal false alarms are an issue for you.

Here's a screenshot of me skulking around looking shifty with the Twilight VFD, excuse the on screen menu - I was playing around with the settings. The IR cut has a very good range. I had it turned up to max here but I don't think it needs to be so high. Again, remember this is complete darkness without even a moon. The IR lights attract your attention when you get close enough hopefully making you look into the camera and giving a good ID but when I walk out of view the IR brightness increases and gives a good light to the back ground.

I thought I'd update this thread since I've been playing a lot with my camera settings and I've recently bought a new one. I've come to the decision that the cameras I bought previously are just all as (let's just call it poor to save the moderators removing words) inside. There's no getting a good night image, the best I can get is a slow motion effect (I think that's caused by me increasing 'Sens-Up' setting on the OSD which gives me a brighter image without too much of the noise I seem to get if I increase the AGC too high) Any people walking around my property (remember it's pitch black with no street lighting) are a white/grey blur, I would be able to tell someone was there but there is no way I could tell if it was human or aliens. Despite these cameras claiming to have IR Cut, I don't see any cutting of IR when I stick my face right in front of them, either dimming of the red IR led's or any image change when I watch the footage back. Anyway, I liked the look of the Twilight VFD (varifocal dome with 3 array IR's) Since it looked slightly different from all the generic housings of the other cameras I've seen or used (I've given up believing any claimed specs of these cameras, even for comparison between 2 similar ones), so I purchased one (from Pro-motion cams - am I allowed to say that?) for a great price (£115 or something with very fast delivery) and I am over the moon with the night image. You can clearly identify a person, it's no longer just a grey smudge blurring past the camera. It's real time 25fpm smooth motion and almost as identifiable as if it was in broad daylight and the IR cut is amazing. I still need to play around a bit with the OSD settings but even right out of the box it blew me away. This is what I've been looking for from all the previous cameras I have wasted my money on. If you'll forgive the pun, the difference with this and my other cameras is literally night and day (and this is not even the most expensive camera I've bought) I'd still be interested to hear anyone elses experiences with different brands of HD SDI cameras in dark environments - good and bad. I suspect the Samsung's or maybe the Nitedevils would be worth trying but they don't really seem to do them in domes with IR. Hopefully this thread will be of some use to others but in conclusion I was previously very disappointed with HD SDI in my dark environment but now I couldn't be happier with it. I wish I had been able to compare night time images before buying my other cameras but I am glad I kept trying different ones until I found the Twilight, I can't recommend this camera highly enough (or the service and price from Pro-Motion Cams) and I'll be buying several more to install in my most prominent positions.

Update: I've been playing around with the OSD settings, I've found the best night time image I can get is with the AGC (auto gain control) turned down quite low, the compromise is that the image is quite dark but it is very dark here at night with no ambient light and as Neutech suggested I think I will now play around with lighting. I don't want to light the place up at night so I'm going to buy an IR extender and see where the best place is to mount it. The image is now much better when my PIR light comes on than it was previously. I do still have vertical lines in B&W night mode, they're not so bad with the AGC turned down but still very prominent. I bought 1 camera from CCTV First - they've reduced the price and now are around £120 - and I have found it to be better than the others. It has no vertical lines and a slightly better daytime image, although I find the colour slightly grey. I could maybe still improve on that with OSD adjustments. Interestingly the B&W image is more of a green tint, almost like night vision. But neither night time image is as good as my previous 700 TVL system. The eBay seller has been good and has said he will send me a couple of replacement cameras - one of them has a problem with the OSD, it keeps scrolling as if the joystick is stuck in the down position. I tried to attach a photo but the it's telling me the file size is too big.

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to buy a camera from CCTV First, it has the exact same housing as all the other open faced domes and pretty much the same specs as others available for around the hundred pound mark but it is £163. Is the extra £63 to fund the shop owners foreign holidays or are you actually getting something for your money? Personally I'm not convinced, but they have screen shots on their website taken in the dark and it's nothing like the noise and grain mine has. At worst I'll have thrown the extra £63 away and at best I'll have found the CCTV images I've been looking for for a long time while wasting a small fortune on equipment that just hasn't delivered what I expected and I will buy more of them. It's still 2 weeks before I get home so I'll carry on in my quest to find the best HD SDI cameras I can. I will obviously post my findings here to help anyone who stumbles upon this thread in the future looking for decent HD SDI images. I can't be the only one who is not able to view equipment in a showroom before purchasing.

Thanks Chris What cameras have you had experience with? I bought my DVR from HDCCTV and they have told me their cameras give good night images, I think I'll try one of them and I'll report my findings. The only reason I didn't buy a camera from them initially was because they only do them in white and I prefer the cameras to be a bit more descrete. I'd still be interested to hear anyone elses experiences with HD-SDI cameras

Thanks for the reply, That's seems like a pretty good idea I will have a play around with lighting, although I don't think it's my main issue. I have a PIR security floodlight at one of the camera areas and it doesn't make much difference when it's on, it certainaly doesn't remove the grainy noise from the image. I spoke to the seller and he has been pretty helpful, he has recommended playing with the settings on the OSD and said he'd talk me through it. Unfortunately i'm away for a month so I won't be able to try anything until I return. I would be interested to hear from others what difference playing with the settings can make, I would have thought they would have had a reasonable picture with the default setting. I'm not looking for spectacular images, I'd be happy with what my old SD cameras were giving me at night. Cheers

Hello CCTV Forumers. Like the title suggests I'm looking for some advice on buying a new DVR (and cameras but I'll start here first) I have a CCTV42 8ch system at present which replaced a Maplin Swann set up and I have to say I was quite disappointed with both especially the CCTV42 considering how much it cost. It can only play back on something like 6fps on D1 and the software interface is horrible to use. I find I use the system a lot just to look around my garden in real time and really like the idea of HD but I would also like a nice feel to the software. I would love to try before I buy but I live around Aberdeen and I can't find any retailers, I would even travel anywhere in Scotland rather than waste another grand or 2 on something I'm not happy with. My main priority is at least 25 fps playback on EVERY Chanel and easy playback of what just happened (if a crisp bag just blew past I don't want to watch it back for 5 mins before I find where it happened) Can anyone recommend a DVR they have experience of or better still somewhere in Scotland I could see a couple of different systems in action, even a friendly knowledgable retailer in England who could offer good advice. My budget is between £500 (I know, I'll get nothing for that) to £1000 for the DVR, if convinced it was worth paying more to get a better quality, I would. Many thanks