Recently, I stumbled upon an article with the headline “Cops obtain crisp surveillance photos of three shoplifters“.
Click here to view Figure 1.
At first, I was excited. I thought the footage must be from a megapixel camera, something I rarely see showcased by police or reporters. But after clicking through to the article, I was disappointed to find the images were 635×476 pixels, or VGA resolution. I wondered why the police, and the reporter, were so impressed. Has the standard for video surveillance footage been set so low that well-focused VGA cameras are impressive?
This may come across as a bit morbid, but as I watch the news each day and hear of crimes followed by the classic line “police have released this surveillance video”, I quietly hold my breath hoping to see high-definition, megapixel footage. Alas, it’s always standard definition, grainy, blurry, and sometimes monochrome, video.
I understand it will take many years for this to change, but I try to imagine the day when images like the ones published by NYDailyNews.com are considered poor quality.
To elevate the standards and expectations of surveillance evidence, megapixel technology will need a few showcase stories. It might be sad, but these stories need to be told by law enforcement or local news broadcasters.
Though millions of dollars are spent every year marketing megapixel surveillance cameras, it seems that very little of that marketing reaches the end-user. I (like many others in this industry) find megapixel cameras tend to sell themselves. Not because the end-user is asking for them, but because they are not expecting them. These end-users watch the same news broadcast I do every night, and see the same horrible surveillance footage, leading them to believe there is nothing better on the market.
In the past, I despised television crime dramas for depicting the unrealistic use of surveillance footage, but for however bad television shows are for surveillance, news broadcasts are now at the opposite extreme. I find it painful to watch the daily news reinforce the belief that surveillance cameras are ineffective, while in reality, the opposite is true.
For now, I must accept that standard definition cameras still make up the majority of surveillance cameras currently in use. I do, however, eagerly await the day megapixel surveillance cameras start regularly featuring on news broadcasts.
Not only will the exposure help drive growth in the megapixel market, it will help enlighten end-users of what is really possible.
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Many of my comments on here relate back to appropriate camera selection to achieve the operational requirement of the customer and not simply choosing the most expensive cutting edge product “just because you can”. The analogue camera images in the article were produced by a camera for a much reduced cost than a mega-pixel version and haven’t they performed as the customer wanted? The images could be much clearer of course but the perpetrators have been identified from them so it’s job done at lowest cost isn’t it? Of course if you have a very wide entry/exit point and one… Read more »
Surveillance CCTV camera would certainly revolutionize criminal investiation. I think , its going to be a dream come true to investigators if better resolution camera are replaced with old vintage devices.
I always wonder what will happen to that criminal activity being captured by PTZ security camera and some one other then (may be hacker) the owner is a witness to that as most of the security cameras can be accessed on the internet and by hacking passwords. What will be the procedure of investigation for that if that activity is highlighted.
Getting rid of default passwords/user names on your DVR and creating new long ones containing alpha/numeric/special key characters (20+ characters is good) is a good start plus a decent firewall program. I’ve extensively used both private networks and business broadband to carry CCTV images from site to monitoring centre and haven’t had any issues so far? Not sure if this is an issue in the industry perhaps others may know?
Prompt retrieval of images is always good practice as well.
Tony thats the way forward and I hope it will definitely stop many from sleepless nights and avoid their images being hacked. But I have seen quite a few camers from inside the rooms as well as buildings which can be easily accessed on internt. I just wanted to know is their any regulation barring people to share these images without protection.
Little to add One of the most important factors in the war against the terrorism and crime is the response time to a suspect act. I did a little calculation on 5 megapixel camera with 100 mm lens, and I reached this You can recognize a person the moment you see his face from about 192 m and you can identify that person from 180 m for a resolution of 300 p/m, from this we can see that even this person is running there is a response time between 25 to 30 sec. now tell me that you can do… Read more »
I can’t see the image but fully agree with you if your operational requirement for the camera is to identify faces at 192m, then the mega-pixel camera/lens combination you suggest would more than likely do the trick. However, if your operational requirement for the camera is to identify the faces of people passing under the camera through a doorway about 2-4m away then surely a much cheaper analogue camera is fit-for-purpose? This is what appears to be required for the camera contained in the original article and the displayed images indicate that it was successful as the perpetrators were caught… Read more »
I do agree with you Tony
2 to 4 m from the doorway is not for 5 mp camera, but still you can use IP digital camera or digital cam, because I believe that there are networks a good percentage at houses level. So why analogue while even the analogue camera use a digital recording to store the information. !! More signal converting less fidelity we get
Tony, you’re right of course. The images in this case were up to scratch so why pay more? I do agree with Colin though that it’s weird the reporters got so particularly excited about the image clarity.
Amazing little calculation, Lami S. Certainly, you’d struggle to do that with an analogue camera, but then that would have been the wrong camera, as others have already said.
I think , its going to be a dream come true to investigators if better resolution camera are replaced with old vintage devices.
@Shehrbano Kamran, I totally agree with you. I really hope better resolution cameras are installed so that it makes the job of investigators easy else it becomes very difficult to make out from the low-resolution picture. I am sure high resolution cameras will need bigger storage facilities and hence this might require infrastructure upgradation.
Surely then it is just a case of selecting the correct camera or resolution for the location/environment. 2-4m from a door doesn’t require a 5 megapixel camera but if covering a large area then yes.
I agree that response time–and cutting it down–is crucial in the war against terror. In fact, it’s crucial in most crimes where the culprit was recorded committing the offense. I am all for megapixel resolution cameras and I believe it is only a matter of time. Clearly the benefits far outweigh the costs here.
I completely agree with you, it is matter of time before analogue cameras and even HD cameras will become history. I think the only reason for popping up of the HD cameras is because of huge investments in developing a better TV than SD and I remember the war between the companies that started to choose a standard for HD, this remind me by a similar story about ISDN that make some people happy having a faster communication method that is faster than the modem and when a new and much faster methods like ATM were ready they have… Read more »
Not only will it help investigators, but it will also speed up investigations and response time. I see a lot of good coming from upgrading surveillance and security cameras.
@Dominic Shepherd, I would agree that choosing cameras based on the need would be the smart thing to do. No sense going for all 5-megapixel cameras if the area being covered is relatively minute. I would say going for better quality hardware would be best in most cases, and I still believe that. But if you’re in a tight budget, then customizing each camera based on need would be best.