Re: residential outside TV camera - suggestions?

[rory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

The quality will depend on the camera used, lens, cable and
connections, as well as the DVR.

A PC based DVR will not be as good quality as a Stand Alone RTOS DVR.

That said, when you try to playback the RTOS DVR, on the PC to save or
enhance, it will be less quality than the PC DVR.

Best option would be an RTOS DVR, and a simple Video Capture card in
your PC. Only use the Capture card when you want to save the DVR's
video to an Avi File. This way you will be getting 740x480 resolution
which is very good on the PC. The AVI would be huge (80MB for every 10
seconds approx), so you would use Movie Maker to convert it to a WMV
file (drops to 500k for every 80MB AVI file approx), and then copy that
to CD or USB. etc.

Best of both worlds would be a PC DVR and an RTOS DVR. Loop out from
the RTOS DVR to the PC. It can double as a high quality capture card
also, using something like VidCap from Microsoft, free video capture
software,or AmCap, you can capture video from each single input one at
a time, when you need to save recorded video. This way you are getting
the video from the RTOS DVR which is going to generally be better. Make
sure the RTOS DVR is something like Wavelet and record at at least
15fps, as you can use your PC DVR for remote video, you wont need to
worry about the wavelet slow network speeds, use Mpeg4 for the PC DVR.
Wavelet is better quality than Mpeg4, but slower over the network, and
larger files so it runs out quicker. Just let your PC do the long
recordings with features, and the RTOS do the high quality.

Rory


Scott Berg wrote:
> An excellent point!  From the  demos I've seen and reading I've done,

> I think I understand the basics.  One point that I keep coming back
to
> is this:
>
> If I have a few (2 to 4) high resolution (possibly digital) cameras
> fixed on a moderate size field of view each and store everything as
> digital data, can I do an electronic blow up / image enhancement that

> would yield the details lost by having a relatively large field?
>
> If yes, this would allow me to minimize the number of fixed field
> cameras (lower cost and complexity) yet get the key identification
> information I want.  Also, very large disks are now cheap, so
> archiving several days of data for multiple cameras isn't such an
> impossible task.  I do understand that the court evidence aspect
would
> be somewhat compromised, but it would still be worth it to me.
>
> Thanks.
>
> "Frank Olson" <feolson@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:f_E3e.880705$Xk.57054@xxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > "Scott Berg" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> > news:s2A3e.14158$ZB6.6148@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >>I want to install one (maybe more) TV cameras to watch the outside
> >>of my house or the street in front of my house.  There has been a
> >>series of vandalism incidents at my house and some neighbors.   The

> >>requirement is to get a clear picture of an incident, probably at
> >>night, with a timestamp and enough detail (resolution) to be able
to
> >>identify suspects.  Everything I've seen so far has given a grainy
> >>image that tells you it was a light colored car with two people,
> >>possibly male.
> >>
> >> Is there anything out there with better performance?  I have some
> >> flexibility with cost and installation difficulty.
> >
> >
> > Scott, you really need to think this through.  How wide an area do
> > you expect single camera will cover and still provide "enough
detail
> > to be able to identify subjects"?  The narrower your field of view
> > the more likely you'll be able to pick out the details you need,
but
> > for that to happen you'd have to pretty well have a multiple camera

> > installation (similar to what they have in banks).  The alternative

> > is to have a camera that "pans" the area you want covered which
will
> > mean you may not catch the perps "in the act" while the camera's
> > looking the other way.  If your concern centers around a particular

> > area (like around your car which is parked in one spot on your
> > driveway for instance), you're still going to need at least two
> > cameras to cover both sides of the car.  It's not good enough for
> > most courts to simple see a perp enter and leave an area.  You have

> > to be able to "catch them in the act" of committing vandalism and
> > have a clear enough image to identify just who's doing it.
> >