White light illuminator ,IR illuminator

White light illuminator, IR illuminator or even halogen lighting. Which ever form of lighting you chose to compliment your HD CCTV system it is crucial to consider your CCTV lighting plan with the same level of thought as you choose your HD SDI cameras and your recording solution.
An HD CCTV system without an White light illuminator is like a conductor without his orchestra. One needs the other.  Without lighting you will not see anything and colour is impossible to reproduce. HD CCTV is far more sensitive to light levels than analogue and installers need to let their customers know at point of sale. Don’t just hope ambient lighting will be sufficient. It wont!
In response to the obvious need for CCTV lighting many HD SDI camera manufacturers are including IR illuminator LED’s within their camera unit itself. Anything from 12-96 IR LED’s can be seen fitted to many HD SDI cameras now depending on the distance the installer is trying to achieve. These cameras work well and we would recommend them , however there is always a scenario where a White light illuminator will be needed, this is of course where colour images at night are important.
Here at HD CCTV solutions we stock one of the most robust range of white light and IR illuminators on the market. Manufactured in the UK, these tried and tested CCTV illuminators are ideal where an HD CCTV system is being deployed.
So think CCTV lighting when designing HD CCTV systems and think White light illuminator for colour IR illuminator for covert lighting , easy to install highly cost effective and efficient and a compliment to any CCTV system you are installing.

HD CCTV SDI camera SDI DVR

HD SDI technology allows you to connect 1080P and 720P CCTV cameras using existing or new coax. This gives the benefit of HD resolution without the need to run these images over an IP network. The obvious advantage is that true broadcast quality HD can be viewed and recorded without the need to compress the images in order transmit across a TCP/IP solution. In addition no training or IT knowledge is required. This makes this technology a favorite with many existing CCTV installers especially in the UK where we have so many existing analogue CCTV systems that need upgrading and enhancing. HD CCTV is the ultimate answer to all our issues with poor picture quality from analogue cameras.

 

Who are HD CCTV solutions

Here at HD CCTV solutions we are able to provide anyone who has an existing analogue CCTV system using coax with an upgrade to HD . That’s HD CCTV cameras using your existing infrastucture with no need to put in cat 5 or try to implement an IP solution in order to get high definition CCTV pictures.

How you may ask?  Well HD SDI cameras and HD SDI DVR’s are able to send high def images over coax so all you need to do is upgrade the ends and re-use all your original investment in your coax infrastructure.

We upgrade and enhance existing CCTV systems and re-use cable and existing analogue cameras where appropriate. A perfect solution for anyone who wants HD CCTV

 

HD CCTV solves all the problems with CCTV

HD CCTV is being touted as the answer to every installers dream when it comes to upgrading and enhancing existing analog CCTV systems. But how does it work and what are the shortfalls if any? HD SDI CCTV cameras can produce images that can achieve 720p and 1080p video at a full 30 frames per second. Add to this the fact that upon delivery there is  no latency or use of compression of the image and you start to see the attraction of this technology.

To enable installers however to reach a balanced view there is a need to ask if  HD CCTV can replace or even supersede IP based HD CCTV cameras?

Many in the CCTV industry have asked if IP solutions will be blown away by this new technology. Well firstly we need to consider that 80% of the UK market place is still analog CCTV solutions and HD CCTV in the form of  HD SDI is definitely at an advantage to take the share of upgrades. but is it flexible enough when it comes to integration and will the advance to 10 16 or even 20 megapixel IP cameras mean that HD CCTV will be dropped in favour of IP?

HDcctv benefits


Firstly we need to understand exactly how HD CCTV works as opposed to IP HD cameras.  HD CCTV uses coax and has been developed on the back of HDTV and the technology behind the pictures we see on our TV sets today. It is not dissimilar from a standard analog CCTV system and uses coax to carry images of up to 2.1 megapixels from the camera to the DVR. It does not use cat 5 or existing IT networks this means there is no compression required and as a result no latency.

The primary benefit  to CCTV integrators is the ease of installation. Because HD CCTV can use existing coax or is wired as a point to point system, any engineer with basic knowledge of CCTV can install it. No IP addresses, IT managers interfering or network issues to contend with. Quite simply its plug and play. This makes installation simple, uncomplicated and best of all cheaper than many IP based systems. No new cabling makes a retro fit installation far more commercially attractive than an IP solution.

The ability of HD CCTV to re-use the same cabling infrastructure as most traditional analog systems is though the main selling point together with images that will impress even the biggest sceptics of HD SDI CCTV. One of the largest costs in any analog system conversion is the changes to the cabling infrastructure. This technology allows organizations an easy, economical way to upgrade a legacy analog system to achieve the benefits of megapixel cameras.


One of the main challenges to HD CCTV and its uptake in the UK has been the lack of companies who are able to offer a cost effective HD SDI DVR this however has most definitely been overcome. IFSEC 2011 was the tipping point with HD CCTV systems being the star of the show. It was almost like the consumers had forgotten about IP CCTV. Still more competition is required and hybrid HD SDI DVR’s seem the obvious path to upgrade.

One barrier to HD CCTV is that the resolution capabilities IP are far greater. HD SDI cameras can produce the max resolution being 2.1 megapixels. IP cameras have as much as 5 times that resolution and it is only bandwidth limitations that stop this being expanded further. However many years in the industry have taught us that anything much higher than 2 megapixels starts to become cost prohibitive and even though sometimes higher resolution might be preferable it is often not practical. When viewed 2 megapixels is generally accepted as quite sufficient especially when compared to the previous best offerings of analogue CCTV.

Of course IP will always have its needs and the larger the organization the more likely that IP will be the preferred solution. This however still leaves vast amounts of the market place open to HD CCTV and gives the wider population the access to HD that has previously proved too expensive.

So the question was is HD CCTV the answer to everything, well no its not but it is certainly going to provide a viable alternative to IP and one that will prove to inevitably be the preferred option to current CCTV installers and their huge user database.

 

HD SDI DVR reviews

We thought the best way to prove the whether HD SDI DVR s were a viable proposition for installation here in the UK was to to carry out a full installation and test it ourselves.

Todays blog is about the installation itself and what we found, we will be discussing remote connectivity at a later date.

DVR SPEC (Korean in origin)

Entry level full HD standalone HD SDI DVR.

H.264 main profile

1920x1080P live monitoring

support HDMI and VGA output of full HD 1920x1080P resolution

4 HD-SDI video inputs.

support HD live display and recording 720P @50FPS.

Pentaplex live ,playback, recording ,networking and backup.

Storage is a MAX of 2xHDDs.

Remote connection via iPhone , Blackberry, Android.

Advanced CMS software.

 

The claim that an HD SDI CCTV installation over coax is a better option for installers rather than an IP solution is simple . No learning curve and easy upgrade. We have heard several reasons why HD SDI DVR s should not be used and this is mainly down to doubts that existing cable will be good enough to support HD SDI.

So to prove the point we bought some HD SDI kit in from Korea. The price was very reasonable dispelling one of the main issues facing potential HD SDI installers in this country, that being that the cost would be prohibitive. We decided on a 4way HD SDI DVR that was able to record and display images at 720p, 12 FPS and support up to 2 terabytes of hard drive.

The HD SDI cameras were of excellent build quality and design. One was a bullet camera complete with IR and one was a vandal proof dome , again equipped with IR.

The bullet camera spec was as follows 1080P HD-SDI bullet C/W 18 IR LEDs. It had a CMOS module  and 2.8-10mm ICR megapixel lens.

The dome camera was a 1080P HD SDI vandal resistant dome camera this time with 24 IR LEDs and a 2.8-10mm ICR megapixel lens

We deliberately decided to install the RG59 coax next to mains and make our connections in chocolate block, hoping this would show up any problems that may occur during upgrades, after all if HD SDI CCTV is going to sell here in the UK then it has to work in the toughest of conditions.

The installation was simple and took lees than an hour we decided to connect the coax in choc block at first and use made up standard coax leads to connect into the recorder. This was to try to prove some of the feedback we had  about how we need to use top of the range  BNC connectors in order for HD SDI technology to work.

We switched the system on an eagerly awaited the results. The first thing we noticed on the dome camera was lots of bright specs of colour burst affecting the picture. A problem solved by shielding the choc block connections by use of the hand. We then had perfect, clear and undeniably excellent pictures from both cameras. However by removing  the hand that was acting as a shield the colour burst returned. It became apparent that on the dome camera at least a better connection was required.

The pictures though were superb, having dealt with analogue in the past this live image was refreshing and crisp but what of the recordings? It soon became clear that the recordings were not as good as we had hoped. The compression required and the 720P definition meant we lost the sharpness of the live view. Of course we expected this but it was important this was improved, so time to upgrade the connections.

We decided that one camera should have standard BNC’s  the second camera would have HDCCTV approved connectors. We ran out 90 metres of  RG59 coax on each camera to increase the cable run and made off the BNC connections accordingly. Firstly the colour burst we had experienced especially from the dome camera had gone, the image quality in live mode was now superb. We took some daytime recordings and were interested to see that as we ran the playback the quality had improved quite dramatically the only disappointment was when the image froze we seemed to get inconsistent clarity. We had read about this phenomena but we were now experiencing it. Some frozen images were excellent , others slightly blurred and disappointing. What was not disappointing though was the clarity of the playback while in motion. You could count my colleague holding up 5 fingers from 30 metres away something that would have been impossible in analogue.

So onto night time images. The dome suffered from IR reflection this was eradicated by removing  a nearby light fitting but this was something that surprised us . However once the reflection issue was solved the live picture at night were good, not stunning but very acceptable in an area that had zero light. The bullet camera though once again excelled. Great night time images captured some excellent pictures of cars passing at night though it must be mentioned the lights from the car drowned out any attempt by the camera to pick up plates that during the day had been achieved with consummate ease.

Playback at night suffered the same fate as our daytime pictures . The H.264 compression desperately trying to save hard drive space meant that although acceptable and without question far better than analogue the recorded night time images were not as good as we had hoped. It does however need to be noted that the HD SDI DVR we were testing was the entry level model and well under £800 it must be accepted that there has to be compromise in some areas of performance.

Ease of installation and set up was so simple and the kit was of excellent quality. In summary this was our first experience of installing HD SDI cameras and an HD SDI DVR and overall we were very impressed, night time images especially from the bullet camera were second to none and the night time recordings will be a huge improvement on what analogue can offer. Our first taste of HD SDI technology has shown us that HD SDI has an awful lot to offer the world of CCTV. It won’t be too long before some of the main players realize that this is the sort of image quality that many installers and end users have been seeking for some time. HD SDI has arrived, an excellent solution hugely better than analogue and not as expensive as was first predicted