camera sensor v video resolution

spaceHopper · 21-07-2021 5:13pm #1

(edit: rechecked the quote it references a camera is 5M pixel but they include a leaflet for a 2M camera, I'll double check with them)

My mum lives alone in the country and got broken into while she was home, thankfully she's OK but we need to do something about security.

I got a quote for security cameras and I'm not sure about it. The output is 1080P but the sensor is only 5M pixels. What's this going to be like at say picking up a reg of car at the end of the driveway 10 to 15 M away on wide angle camera.

I want the visible security a camera give but I also want it to be a good system.

dotsman · 21-07-2021 5:21pm

Um, 1080p is 2.1 MP. That is what 1080P means (with the additional info that the 2.1MP are in a 16:9 ratio).

The alternative is to go 4K (8MP), but you are talking about serious storage required.

Ultimately, the resolution is only one factor to consider. The main aspect impacting quality is the camera lens. How sharp can it capture the image, what area is it zoomed in on and focused on? Also to be taken into consideration is the lighting etc.

spaceHopper · 21-07-2021 5:44pm

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117642885#Comment_117642885

Sorry i edited it it's actually 5M 2.8mm wide angle lens

dotsman · 21-07-2021 6:30pm

https://boards.ie/discussion/comment/117642991#Comment_117642991

I'm still not sure why it's a 5MP camera, yet you are referring to 1080p. Is it that it will only store the video in 1080P? If so, then you will lose the benefit of the 5MP detail.

To give you a better idea of the difference between 1080p (2.1MP), 5MP and 4K (8MP), the below video will do some comparisons that are relevant to you.

Finally, I'm not too sure of the 2.8mm wide angle lens. The larger the field of view, the more you see, but at the huge sacrifice of detail (again, covered in the video). Typically the wider the field of view the better to monitor a huge area, the smaller field of view is for detail - identifying people/cars etc (with the best scenario being to use lots of high resolution cameras with low field of views, but that is also, by far, the more expensive option), so you need to decide what best suits your needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD0QS6xd2D0

spaceHopper · 22-07-2021 9:22am

1080P is just a video format, if you want to be anal about its aprox 20M pixle. So you put a 5M pixle image in it you have to make up or 3 mixles for every one you have so you lose detail. That's my concern is there enough detail? I might ask for on of the cameras to be change to narrower field of view focusing on the driveway.

dotsman · 22-07-2021 10:17pm

I don't mean to keep harping about this and I'm not trying to be anal about it, but it is important that you understand. 1080p is 2.1 Megapixels. It is 1920 pixels across and 1080 pixels down (a 16:9 ratio) which gives you a grand total of 2,073,600 pixels (often rounded to 2Mp or 2.1MP when describing the pixel count). If you are using a 5MP camera, it is not the number of pixels that you need to worry about in the camera, as you will only get 40% of them if the image is being downscaled to 1080p.

Did you watch the video I posted? It will give you a good idea of what you are looking for (a car reg is one of the many things they focus on across a variety of distances across a variety of camera resolutions).

spaceHopper · 27-07-2021 5:20pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117649119#Comment_117649119

sh1t you are right my maths was off I did 19200 ( as common baud rate) x 1088

camera sensor v video resolution

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