CCTV Camera Types and Usage
When assembling these definitions, it became fairly obvious there are a number of misconceptions regarding cameras, what is current, along with the pros and cons of each type. Should you find an error, or have questions regarding the content contained within our site, please feel free to Contact Us.
Bullet / Box cameras have become so similar. The most iconic design for CCTV cameras, they can be easily identified as security. The key difference between a bullet camera and a box camera is the box camera's interchangeable lenses, which can offer longer range tele-zoom lens. Oh, and price. Box cameras tend to be in lower production these days, so they are a fair be more expensive than the common Bullet camera.
Bullet cameras come in a number of configurations, with fixed or variable lenses, numerous special application designs, including but not limited to explosion proof, heat and corrosive resistant, etc.
PROS Bullet/Box cameras up until most recently, have been and are still the preferred camera design for harsh (dust, dirt, sun, snow, etc) environments as the small lens surface tends to be protected by a hood, which limits the exposure to these elements.
CONS Bullet/box cameras tend give away the exact location of their covered area. From a distance, you can see the general direction the camera is aimed. This is partially defeated with a 2.8mm lens which can have a viewing angle lf 90-105 degrees horizontal. These also are the least vandal resistant. With the longer body, the camera can be moved or even removed if hit with a stick or some other heavy object.
Dome cameras are the most common used in commercial and professional residential installations. These cameras are generally protected with a polycarbonate dome cover although some lower quality cameras (often sold as “indoor” cameras), may have a lower strength plastic dome. These cameras, similar to bullet cameras, offer fixed and variable lenses, IR night vision and other features.
PROS Dome cameras are much more vandal resistant. It's dome shape and the properties of poly-carbonate make the it very resistant to impact, preventing the camera from being moved or the lens damaged. It is also much more difficult to see from a distance where the camera is aimed.
CONS Dome cameras with poly-carbonate covers are not suitable for corrosive, high temperature areas. poly-carbonate (as with most plastics) is not 100% UV stable. Over time (years), it's common for the l
Turret cameras are quickly becoming the most common CCTV cameras being used. These are the enduros of the camera world. Similar to dome cameras, these cameras tend to have a round shape, making their direction of coverage more difficult to identify from a distance. Similar to a bullet camera, Turret cameras have a small lens surface area, reducing their being affected by the environment while being more cosmetically appealing than bullet cameras.
PROS The biggest benefit for turret cameras is the small surface area over the IR LEDs and lens. Less surface areas means less area to get damaged over time and less chance of clouded or ghosted images during night IR or bright sunny days. With the IR LEDs and the lens not under the same common polycarbonate cover, manufactures are able to offer higher powered IR LEDs for longer range night vision. This also makes light flooding attacks extremely difficult.
CONS Without the half sphere polycarbonate covering found on dome cameras, the main housing is less protected from physical strikes, although all turret cameras installed by CCNS Technology come in cast metal (powered coated steel or aluminum) housing. The IR and lens also lack the vandal protection provided by dome cameras.
PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) cameras have been around for some time. As the name describes, these cameras can be moved remotely left and right across the horizon, tilted up and down, and most cases contain a motorized telephoto zoom lens. These cameras are ideal for covering large open areas such as a parking lot or where an operator needs to view around an areas where stationary cameras just will not provide the coverage. Most commercial PTZ cameras when paired with the correct NVR/DVR, can be programmed to focus and/or follow items of interest, then return back to touring mode when the event is over. This is great for parking lots, where a stationary camera spots a vehicle or padestrian. The PTZ camera can follow the person or vehicle as they move through the property, providing the safely of continuous coverage as they move from stationary camera coverage to stationary camera coverage. Outdoor rated PTZ cameras tend to have a zoom lens capability of 4 to 32 times zoom.
PROS Able to proved both wide area and up close coverage of a large area. These cameras can move left, right, up and down while zooming in and out on the object of interest. A PTZ camera can be setup to tour around a pre-programmed area to provide greater overall coverage.
CONS Price... PTZ cameras are by far the most expensive cameras available on the market (with exception of specialty cameras such as explosion proof, Thermal cameras, etc). Most cases, a number of stationary Doom or Turret cameras can be installed in the place of 1 PTZ for a lower cost. An improperly programmed PTZ/NVR can result in the PTZ camera missing a critical event either by the camera touring away from the incident, or being left by an operator who moved the camera view to a specific area.
Camera Format
IP
POE Also known as "Power over Ethernet", this format is fastly becoming the most common wiring for cameras and other network attached devices. Both power (44-52VDC up to 25.5A) and network communication (up to 1gbit) is provided over one cable, generally cat5e or cat6.
Wireless cameras are generally reserved for appliance embedded cameras (doorbell cameras, outdoor security light cameras, etc) and budget consumer cameras. Most cameras using wireless communication utilize the 2.4GHZ frequency, although some are now available with 5GHZ support. These cameras are susceptible to interference or outages due to other wireless devices using the same or similar frequencies and are dependent on the client's WiFi network to be able to support the throughput and range.
Coaxial (aka Analog)
CVBS stands for "Composite Video Blanking and Sync”. It is a conventional analog signal delivered through an analog BNC connector. It also can be delivered through an RCA connector or other types (older cameras sometimes used a PL-259 connector).
CVBS signal can support max. 960H video resolution. 960H represents the number of horizontal pixels in a video signal transmitted from a camera or received by a security camera recorder DVR (Digital Video Recorder). 960H represent 960 x 576 (PAL) or 960 x 480 (NTSC) pixels, you can compare it with the lower D1 resolution providing 720 x 576 pixels (PAL), or 720 x 480 pixels (NTSC).
AHD stands for “Analog High Definition” and means an analog closed-circuit television video surveillance standard that uses a coax cable to transmit HD 720P and 1080P video from a security camera to a security camera recorder DVR (Digital Video Recorder).
HD-TVI means “High Definition Transport Video Interface”, it is an Analog CCTV standard transmitted over coax supporting HD 720P to 3MP Video signal in real-time. HDTVI can support long distance video transmission reaching up to 500 meters.
HD-CVI (High Definition Composite Video Interface), an analog transmission standard based over-coaxial-cable delivering two HD video formats: 1920H or called otherwise Full HD 1080P (1920×1080) & 1280H or called otherwise 720P (1280×720) through progressive scanning.