While at the Mobotix partner conference earlier this week, attendees got a crash course in video quality. If you aren’t hip to the latest in video surveillance, you might be in for a shock. According to Dr. Magnus Ekerot, CEO USA for Mobotix, 90% of today’s surveillance recordings are in CIF format. That is, 288 lines of resolution. If you’re wondering what valuable evidence you can capture at that resolution, it isn’t much.
In fact, most integrators I talk to have stories of people calling them up lamenting a robbery event in which the low-res analog recording wasn’t useful in identifying the perpetrator or solving the case.
VGA recordings are better, reaching 480 lines. Megapixel cameras — what you’ll find in IP cameras — are 960 lines. This is where IP cameras really shine. To see how significant a difference there is in resolution, check out the two images below (courtesy of Mobotix). The first does a great job of showing the level of detail in faces being captured with a megapixel camera versus one in CIF resolution.
This next image compares the level of detail you get in three different resolutions. If identifying the license plate of the red VW is important, only one camera would do the job here.
After looking at this evidence, you tell me if your customers should have a low-res analog camera or the latest megapixel IP cameras. Use images like these to help convince customers, first, that they need to upgrade to a useful system and, second, that the added cost of megapixel cameras is worth the investment. Oh, and make sure you’re the one selling them their new cameras!
January 30, 2013
PhysicalSecurity, POS