Commercial Grade CCTV System

Don't settle for a sloppy camera-system-in-a-box, invest in a quality system that will last. Most installations run $3500 to $4000 and gets you the following...

(1) GE 500GB DVR
(4) VITEK weather-proof/vandal-proof IR dome camera's, 35 IR LED's provide 100' range at night
(1) regulated fused power supply
(1) battery back up provides power to system up to 8 -10 hours during power failure
(1) GE 15" monitor

Access to DVR through web browser via internet.
Pipe protected wire runs for exterior runs.
Quality and professional installation!!

Due to the nature of running wire to all 4 corners of a completed home, a free consultation is required before total cost can be quoted.

 

This is not a criticism of your system, which appears to be fairly priced given the hassle of running coax, setup, etc.

I do want to help people understand the limitations of analog CCTV camera resolution. I will also make some recommendations in another post for the person who wants to explore high resolution IP network camera solutions, along with costs.

http://www.axis.com/edu/identification/resolution.htm

Using the above guidelines, for a typical 1/3" analog CCTV camera which might have a 4-9mm lens.

For the zoomed in setting (9mm):

For identification: 3m (about 9.8ft)

For recognition: 7.5m (about 24.6ft)

Wide Angle 4mm setting (similar to a typical Lorex camera).

For identification: 1.3m (about 4.4ft)

For recognition: 3.3m (about 10.9ft)

I've also attached a chart for various lens focal lengths and sensor sizes, which gives similar numbers.

Pretty bleak outcome for a single camera, but this is how things are calculated from a commercial standpoint. This is part of the reason my favorite credit union has a camera behind each teller.

I recognized this phenomenon when we had a system from Costco a few years back (since returned). In one of my favorite books on CCTV cameras, by Vlado Damjanovski he states that

"Our main problem is the limited number of pixels..."

All analog CCTV cameras are ~0.3MP...think of your cell phone from 10 years ago.

"Yet, when there is an incident and a positive identification is required, the CCTV designer could be blamed for having a system that cannot recognize a face or a car, even if they are captured in the camera field of view. Here is a simple advise: do not compromise your system design; rather, educate the customers so that they understand why more cameras with certain coverage would be required."

"If necessary, have two cameras covering...one wide...one narrow. Initially, this might seem to be overkill, but when a suspected intruder is identified and captured, the system proves its existence. This is the purpose of a surveillance system."

Thus with analog cameras, for the typical homeowner who wants no more than two cameras on the front of the house it is hard to get

1- enough pixels for identification beyond about 10ft (which is fine for keeping an eye on your car if you don't garage it)

AND AT THE SAME TIME

2- wide coverage angle

It is part of the reason you see The Loudoun County Sheriff Dept putting videos on youtube...there are enough pixels to recognize but not to identify. This technique has been used successfully with crimes in Lansdowne.

Because analog CCTV varies quite a bit with quality and performance with lighting conditions I would also request example pictures for the following conditions:

Include east facing in the morning, and south facing in the afternoon to see problems with sunlight and backlit objects. Analog can solve this (e.g. autoiris, back light compensation) but only the most expensive analog cameras solve it without defaulting to slowest shutter speed adding blur.

Include night pics, with no DSS/frame integration (these techniques slow the shutter speed below 1/60s at night). You are going to need light whether it is IR or visible. The amount of light depends on the camera sensitivity. Analog CCTV can be better than IP cameras here in terms if sensitivity, but not always.

Include motion - analog cameras you will always see interlacing artifacts on fast moving objects. Realize that it takes a picture of half of the vertical lines, then 1/60s later it takes picture of the other half. Anyone who has an DSLR knows that you will not have much luck at 1/60s. I've attached a picture of this timing.

Include example of captured footage on DVR - it will never be as good as what is displayed on the monitor since it is further compressed using H264 or other means.

This guide is also useful:

http://www.boschsecurity.us/NR/rdon...51F02021082/0/SelectingtheRightCCTVCamera.pdf

I also highly recommend reviewing the Megapixel examples posted at cctv forums (create an account to see the images)

http://www.cctvforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=11322&hilit=megapixel+demo

Mike

 

Without getting into technical specifics I think anyone would generally agree that digital surveillance camera's typically offer better resolution than analog. However I've also installed analog systems that are indeed superior to many hi res IP camera's. Messoa cameras, for instance, are able to capture license plates through rain and fog from 75' - 100' away while the target is moving at speeds upwards of 100mph. I doubt any homeowner in Broadlands is willing to shell out 2 grand for a single camera though.

For the DIY homeowner with handy skills, setting up your own IP camera system can be a fun and rewarding project. What I've offered here is a quality analog system with dedicated 500GB of storage that is superior to any kits you'll pick up at Costco - though a DIY homeowner will also find satisfaction in installing his/her own Costco analog kit.

Ultimately any camera system will prove to be a valuable resource in the event of vandalism or theft to personal property.

 

http://www.messoa.com/global/product/index.aspx?id=19

"The SCR515PRO is an intelligent traffic camera optimized for capturing overviews and license plates."

"...enables the camera to capture images from vehicles traveling at speeds up to 200 kph (112 mph) and makes it especially well suited to high speed applications. The SCR515PRO's traffic surveillance capabilities are further enhanced by its industry leading fog penetration technology, which enables it to recover real color images from foggy or smoky video streams."

http://www.boschsecurity.us/en-us/reg

I've also read Bosch also makes some license plate cams that users seem to like (also expensive). Neat stuff.

 

Rediculously neat. And rediculously expensive.

 

$3500 to $4000? OUCH! That's pretty pricey and out of my price range.

 

Hey Mike-and-Kim... Does vitamin d have a deinterlace feature?

 

No de-interlace. It deals with IP video (and USB webcams), some video servers have that feature. E.g. I use Axis 241S encoders for some of my analog cams, which has that feature but it only works somewhat. My guess is that it's just too much processing required to completely fix it, it would have to distinguish what moved and didn't and by how much and correct it.

http://www.axis.com/products/video/video_server/about_video_servers/deinterlacing.htm

One of the true curses of analog cameras...and old TV's for that matter.

The issue is with moving objects, since the second field is always delayed by 1/30s. Thus any moving object will show jagged lines as the fields are not captured at the same time. If you have a pic of a frame (2 fields) I've heard there is software that can remove this after the fact. I'd be impressed if any software (effectively) removed this on the fly.

For example, squirrels jumping from tree to tree readily produce this effect, or any object moving through a large enough percentage of the field of view. That is, one tends to notice it on objects taking up most of the picture more so than far away ones.

Some DVR's get around this problem by recording 2CIF expanded, which throws away 1/2 of the vertical resolution (already pretty limited on an analog cam).

I've also attached two cropped examples, one of a squirrel (progressive) and one of the mailman tossing a package (clearly interlaced, although I can't remember if de-interlacing was on). The geometry student out there will be able to estimate sizes, and since we know those lines are 1/30s apart could figure out how fast that package was going.

Mike

 

Thanks!