chris.wilkes 0 Posted March 17, 2008 Hello, New to CCTV, but 10+ years of Broadcast & Production Engineering of television & radio. Experience in design, installation & maintenance of broadcast HD & SD video storage, archive, routing, Satellite Up-link & Down-Link, encoding (MPEG2, MPEG4, Dolby AC3), muxing & IP Streaming, trans-coding, non-linear editing, closed captioning, and large scale backup power and protection. And with all equipment these days, networking as well. With a few bad contracted CCTV installs at a few sites that I work with, I decided I would add CCTV to the list of things I need to know to get the job done. I find the CCTV field has a few disturbing issues. There is a lack of standards in equipment specifications. I have found that most manufactures refer to 1 fps is actually 1/4 resolution of NTSC/PAL. Why invest in a camera that gives great resolution then only record it at 1/4 resolution? Some may say that you need the resolution for live viewing. My argument then is why don't you just hire someone to sit and watch the camera instead of recording it. If 1/4 resolution isn't good enough for normal viewing, then it is not good enough to record. This industry has too many want-to-be's in it and needs some technical standards for Frame Rate @Resolution, a third-party measurement of PQR Encoder Quality specifications for both Video and Audio, and up-time reliability numbers. Most of these so called CCTV boxes/cards don't even bother to put their name on it, possible due to shame and to avoid legal responsibilities. Shame on the vendors selling it and letting them get away with it. Seems that 90% of CCTV equipment on the Net is garbage. Another 5% is OK, but not even close to what the industry needs. Another 3% is provided by industry giants at a cost that is more than what it takes to implement it with television broadcast equipment. Oh, and don't get me started on IP companies thinking they can make a camera and 98% uptime is acceptable. Another part of the problem I believe is to be the customer wanting so called surveillance at bargain basement prices. Thankfully I am meticulous with research and this forum has helped. Thanks for everyones time posting, your comments and experiences have helped me make education decisions. I joined so that I can post what I have learned with systems that I have installed and to help guide people away from shady manufactures and vendors. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kensplace 0 Posted March 17, 2008 Hi Chris, and welcome to the forum. Your right about the specs, its a minefield with some products, with a lot of care being needed to ensure you dont pick a dud product that does not meet your needs. Resolution and Lux level claims especially are often misleading! It would be nice to have a standard test for products to benchmark things against, but I cant imagine all the manufacturers agreeing on a standard somehow. I would love to try out a real broadcast quality camera (pal) to see just how much quality a capture card and drv is capable of recording - broadcast TV quality is so much higher than any cctv cam I have seen yet, but I would imagine so is the price tag.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
scorpion 0 Posted March 20, 2008 Seems that 90% of CCTV equipment on the Net is garbage. Another 5% is OK, but not even close to what the industry needs. Another 3% is provided by industry giants at a cost that is more than what it takes to implement it with television broadcast equipment. Oh, and don't get me started on IP companies thinking they can make a camera and 98% uptime is acceptable. Another part of the problem I believe is to be the customer wanting so called surveillance at bargain basement prices. You're good! You're in! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
