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THE FUTURE OF CCTV, DELIVERED TODAY!
If you are lucky enough to
have been castaway on
some desert island for
the past few years, then
you can be excused for
not knowing what the
future of CCTV is!
However, if you have not
had the pleasure of sand,
sun and surf for the last
decade, you'll know the future
is IP-enabled megapixel cameras! A
few manufacturers have nodded their
heads towards HD, but that has been about it.
Here at PSI, we are great fans of HD, and regular
readers will remember our efforts to push major
manufacturers down that route, so we were understandably
excited when we saw a pre-release version of Sanyo's VCC-HD4000P.
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Before we even consider this product, a point
needs to be made about HD video. It could be
the technology that pushes CCTV onto the next
level, and here is why. It’s an easy sell for installers,
and it’s wanted by end users! Consider the following
scenario.
Imagine an end user has an existing CCTV solution,
but he wants to upgrade it. You suggest that he might
want to think about looking at IP connectivity because it
can deliver higher resolutions that the PAL standard,
which his system is already using to its full potential. He
wants to know how much better the resolution is.
If you offer him megapixel cameras, he instantly
recognises the terminology and asks the inevitable
question: how many megapixels? Now, presuming his
pockets aren’t exceedingly deep, and bearing in mind
that the hike in performance still needs to be usable,
you suggest 1.3 megapixels. He probably has a 5
megapixel camera in his phone, so it sounds less
impressive that it really is. It also seems expensive for a
CCTV camera significantly worse than his mobile!
However, tell him that you can deliver HD images,
and he instantly knows the score. He appreciates that it
will be better quality, and he knows it is going to cost
more. Sky has taught him that! The additional benefits –
such as being able to use cost-effective 16:9 displays –
won’t come into it. To the user, HD is desirable, and at
around two megapixels, it’s still manageable!
It might seem a small point, but customer
acceptance is more than half the battle when upgrading
to new technologies. Like it or not, in the consumer world, HD television and video is what the general
public covet the most.
It is also important to make a comment about the
camera we tested. We received an impromptu demo of
the camera after coming across a pre-production model
quite by chance. It seemed rude not to ask whether we
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could have a unit to test, and were somewhat surprisedwhen we were allowed to have a pre-production model.
A few days after it had arrived, we were informed a
hardware change had been made and
were sent another
updated camera!
The unit is due
for its official
launch at Essen in
the second week of
October, and given
that several Sanyo
offices around the
world seem to
carrying out final
testing and adjustments
to the product, it means
that production specification
isn’t 100 per cent finalised.
However, the models we
received certainly give a very good
understanding of the performance
on offer from the VCC-HD4000P.
Because we are working with preproduction
models, and because the final
tweaks are still on-going at the time of writing, we will
not include final specifications. They will, however, be
available after the launch via www.psimagazine.co.uk
for anyone who wants to download them. The base
specification and performance will remain the same as
reported here.
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Product design
The VCC-HD4000P is actually a whole lot more than a
HD CCTV camera. For a start, it can deliver video over
and above full HD resolution. The actual camera delivers
a top resolution of 2288 x 1712, although it has more
functionality at full HD (1920 x 1080), and the data is
more manageable!
The camera has four modes, each with a set of
resolutions. These are HD (H.264 and JPEG) or H.264
only, both with resolutions of 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720,
1024 x 576, 960 x 540, 640 x 360 and 320 x 180. Both
modes are obviously 16:9 aspect ratio. The other two
modes are 4:3 aspect ratio, Standard (H.264 and JPEG)
and JPEG only. These have resolutions of 2288 x 1712,
1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 1080 x 864, 1024 x 768, 800 x
600, 720 x 576, 640 x 480, 360 x 288 and 320 x 240.
There should be something there for every installation!
Other features include x10 optical zoom, day/night
operation, BLC, AGC, privacy masking – the camera has
all the usual features plus some more, and includes an
SD card slot and USB output from additional archiving
devices. However, let’s be honest; this is the first
competitively priced HD CCTV camera from a major
player in the CCTV industry, and it’s the quality we’re
interested in. Suffice to say you won’t be disappointed
by the feature set on offer, and the software supplied is
enough to view, record and manage the footage.
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Performance
This camera will be, for many
installers, their first play
with HD video, and the
impression that they will be
left with will be one of video
quality with a serious wow
factor. Image definition is
stunning, and colours are crisp
and accurate. Even on a VGA output, which we all know
softens up images, the final picture knocks a composite
high resolution camera viewed on a CRT well and truly off
its perch! The difference is hard to describe. It’s vast.
Imagine a soft VGA resolution camera viewed on a cheap
LCD monitor, next to a state-of-the-art high resolution
camera viewed on an expensive CRT, and then you only
start to appreciate the difference. It is significant, and
needs to be seen to be appreciated.
It is easy to crank the camera up to its full four
megapixel performance and be amazed at the quality,
but stick to HD and you soon discover that this Sanyo
camera is built with the real world in mind. At HD
resolution, it is simply outrageous how clean and sharp
the image is. That the camera has its own integral 4
megapixel lens means you won’t strangle the resolution
with inappropriate optics. It also means that you don’t
have to buy a lens, which makes the unit even more
cost-effective. We’ll cover price in a minute, and trust us,
it’s worth the wait.
The camera is a day/night unit, so what’s the low
light performance like? IP-based cameras do often
struggle as ambient light levels fall, but Sanyo does well
to keep the standard up. It’s not stunning, but it’s more
than acceptable compared to other IP-based cameras.
Compare the VCC-HD4000P to composite cameras,
and the HD camera wins.
Compare it to IP-based
megapixel cameras, and the HD camera wins. Sanyo’s
intended pricing is the same as a composite high res
camera by the time you factor in the cost of a lens, and
that’s staggering!
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