Re: CCTV Cameras

["Socrates" <londonlinks@xxxxxxxx>]

Panasonic makes a
970 lines resolution camera, but at $975 a camera (fixed)...if there
are
used in the right application, with the right lens, displayed on the
right
monitor?

If you display any image from a CCTV camera on a VGA monitor you will
get a nice clear view of the camera scene.

You are however simply monitoring the live feed from the camera -you
are not looking at the saved images or video which has to be converted
from an analogue TV-lines-signal to a digital compressed file - and
therein lies the problem.

In the capturing, conversion and compression of an analogue signal
coming from an analogue CCTV camera, you end up with a dog's dinner of
an image, so that in almost all cases it is impossible to identify the
people in the image unless they are standing completely still right in
front of the camera with their nose pressed to the lens!

This is so even when the video camera is a digital "megapixel" variety,
as in a network ip camera. The resolution of 2 megapixels together with
a slow shutter speed and inferior lenses used in the technology mean
that one cannot obtain clear enough images of people's faces - one can
only get a general impression for example of a car park - one cannot
see the car number plates or other levels of detail.

If however you connect a simple digital stills camera such as a Canon
Powershot S2iS via a USB cable to a laptop or pc,  which can reside
under the shop counter on in a cupboard in your home, it will capture
stunning pictures of anyone in the camera scene, even if they are
running past the camera.

This is because you are able to set the shutter speed to 1/125th of a
second, and the sensor on a digital stills camera is at least 4
megapixels even on a cheap version. The technology and lenses are also
geared up for taking clear images, whereas digital video cameras are
more geared up for simple monitoring purposes - not for saving clear
sequential jpg images of a camera scene.

www.londoncctv.com