Why are security cameras so crappy

[kabatura]

Black and white and so often grainy. Why?

 

[TheVirtualMind]

Not where I work...

 

[LovelyLady]

The quality of the monitor you are viewing is not necessarily the quality of the image that is being recorded.

 

[Black suit]

But still, his point still stands. Security Cameras bring up memories of badly grained low quality images. We see it on the TVs too.

 

[WhitePimp]

Bad feeds, bad cords, exposed elements that deteriorate quality over a period of time, not to mention, the most random thread ever created.

 

[speakeasy]

My guess is because they are constantly on and recording 24hrs a day, they have to conserve space on recording devices, and I assume they do so by using black and white, low frame rate and highly compressed images. Imagine how much space it would take up to have a nice HD quality video in full color running 24hrs a day?

If some guy is robbing a bank, all they need to know is what he was wearing, what his race is, how tall, how fat, what he did, etc. You don't need super high quality video to tell all that.

 

[STR8UP]

Generally it is poor wiring and low signal. A video amplifier would do wonders for most of these security cams that are 50-100ft from the DVR.

 

[Nygard]

Oh, do you really wanna know why? It's not defective technology or sillyness. To begin with, those cameras are recording 24/7 and the video needs to be saved.If the encoding of the video has too much quality, then you'll have an storage problem. And second, if you encode it with too much quality,then the security central will not get it at the same time it's happening, there's a delay. Unfortunately, unlike the storage problem, you cant get rid of that delay by putting more and more money into it, it's something related to the encoding.

 

[In Motion]

Nygard is right. They run 24/7, what the **** do you expect, HD quality? Do you think high resolution cameras running 24/7 365 days a year would be cheap?

Seriously guys. Think before you ask these questions.

 

[LowPlainsDrifter]

I think there are several reasons:

Often the footage you see played back on a TV news show is at least one generation or two removed from the source recording.
To save money, a lot of establishments continue to use outdated equipment, purchased and set up years ago, especially if nothing serious has happened lately. To further save some dough, they often re-use the same tapes endlessly, on rotation. What happens is that the tapes get stretched out, and the magnetic oxide coating on them starts to physically wear away...
The other reply-posters made good points about a lack of amplification. I would add signal attenuation if the wire run is longer than spec... I'm sure the camera lenses could use a good cleaning every now and then, too.
The biggest "root cause" however, is simply that the people using them don't take security seriously enough to make sure that clear footage is taken... and they wait until the horses are out of the barn before locking the door.

 

[bigjohnson]

The security footage at our facility is high quality, color, and stored offsite in a digital vault. But then we are not a 7-11 either.

 

[Crazy Asian]

maybe cause they are recording 24/7 and they don't want to use anything that requires too much memory or power since 99.9% of what they record is BS.