You won't ever see 4MP video, said the man

[ipOsX]

I was asking a pro installer today about fitting a new Hikvision POE CCTV system to coincide with my new 1000Mbps fibre broadband/LAN and when I told him that I would like to see 2560 x 1920 4MP video footage on my 5k Mac monitor, he told me not to bother and choose instead 2MP cameras because my system would never be able to display video at higher than 1920 x 1080 without upscaling/interpolating it.

If this is true, why are people buying 4/5/8MP cameras? Is the NVR the bottleneck? Are there no NVRs capable of receiving/processing native 4MP+ video and sending it to the LAN without dropping data? For sure, I have seen 2560 x 1920 CCTV video on my monitor from a 5MP camera but when I looked more closely, it was less sharp than when viewed at 1920 x 1080 which suggested that it was simply being upscaled. Or is proprietary client software a bottleneck?

I can't believe that my system is the problem since it can play 4k Youtube H264 or H265 video very smoothly and it looks great.

Grateful for your thoughts. And maybe your recommendation for a Hikvision NVR which can deliver 4MP video to my monitor…

 

[mat200]

I was asking a pro installer today about fitting a new Hikvision POE CCTV system to coincide with my new 1000Mbps fibre broadband/LAN and when I told him that I would like to see 2560 x 1920 4MP video footage on my 5k Mac monitor, he told me not to bother and choose instead 2MP cameras because my system would never be able to display video at higher than 1920 x 1080 without upscaling/interpolating it.

If this is true, why are people buying 4/5/8MP cameras? Is the NVR the bottleneck? Are there no NVRs capable of receiving/processing native 4MP+ video and sending it to the LAN without dropping data? For sure, I have seen 2560 x 1920 CCTV video on my monitor from a 5MP camera but when I looked more closely, it was less sharp than when viewed at 1920 x 1080 which suggested that it was simply being upscaled. Or is proprietary client software a bottleneck?

I can't believe that my system is the problem since it can play 4k Youtube H264 or H265 video very smoothly and it looks great.

Grateful for your thoughts. And maybe your recommendation for a Hikvision NVR which can deliver 4MP video to my monitor…

Hi @ipOsX

A lot depends on the monitor / tv - with a "4K" UHD or better I would think you should be able to find a setting which will properly display 4MP / 5MP in a subset of the monitor screen at it's native pixel resolution.
( imho a lot depends on the firmware of the monitor / screen )

 

[bp2008]

Hello.

Either the installer was an idiot or there was simply a misunderstanding. Practically all modern NVRs are capable of handling 4K video (which is 8.3 MP), and are capable of outputting 4K resolution. 4MP is only half of that. Not a problem. I can't recommend any particular NVR because I don't use an NVR. I use a Windows program called Blue Iris which performs the role of NVR. I know of no software that is going to limit you to 1080p unless you are using a device that is specifically not capable of video decoding beyond 1080p.

When you downscale a higher resolution video, for example 2560 x 1440 down to 1920 x 1080, it is normal for it to look a little sharper than a native 1920 x 1080 video. The downscaling hides some of the defects in the video, such as compression artifacts, and naturally and sharpens edges that might otherwise be a little soft due to a less-than-perfect lens or the bayer filter.

You should realize that a typical 4MP camera is only about a quarter the resolution of your 5K monitor. In other words, a 4K camera would be a better fit.

 

[ipOsX]

Thank you bp2008 - that's the answer I was looking for. Now I just need to find the right NVR. I would very much like to view 4k footage since my system should be able to handle it but I worry that if/when I expand to more cameras I might be putting it under strain and I would rather see smooth 4 or 5MP footage at 25fps than choppy 12MP at 10 or 15fps.

 

[Will.I.Am]

The output monitor shouldn't dictate the cameras you want.

Higher megapixels aren't the be all and end all, but even if you only had a 1080p monitor, a 4k camera would allow you to have 4 1080p images in a grid so (in theory) you can zoom in to a recorded 4k image and still retain the quality of a 1080 camera.
There are other considerations like low light performance etc, but unless the system is solely for showing off and playing with, the display monitor should be low down on the list of reasons for what resolution of camera you're choosing.

Same is usually true of fps. No one needs 30fps unless you're a casino dealing with people swapping cards.
15 clear, good quality images every second are way more useful than 30 or 60 images that just don't quite have the quality to properly identity someone.

4mp is a good balance atm, most decent back ends are more than capable of running 4mp cameras at pretty much whatever frame rate you'll like, but recording at that quality at a high frame rate will eat up your hard drive pretty quick if you've a lot of cameras.

 

[ipOsX]

Good points,Will.I.Am but since this system is partly for observing wildlife, a naturalistic 25/30fps is obviously preferred. And there is also a lower limit to what would be a viable video resolution on a 5k monitor. You could argue that a new and dedicated monitor is called for but for some budgets, that might be a luxury too far.

 

[Will.I.Am]

Ah, I can see why you'd want higher fps then.

It's very dependent on where your cameras are installed in relation to your subject , but higher resolutions would still be beneficial, especially in daylight, if the cameras are a bit away from the subject.

Obviously ptzs are great if you wanted to zoom in for a great image of high quality, but wildlife isn't known for playing nice and sitting still.

Higher resolutions would allow you to record a larger area then zoom in after the event while still keeping a good quality image, but they do come with the drawback of increased hardware usage, increased storage requirements and sometimes lesser low light performance.
All I'm saying is that high resolution recordings do have their benefits even if the monitor you're using to display them can't actually display the full image at full quality.

The ideal thing to do though is to get your camera as close as possible to the subject, or to choose one with the right lens size - I just think in your specific use case, having cameras covering a small area might not be very useful, you need something to cover a larger area but still retain quality if you have to subsequently zoom in to a specific area - that's one benefit of higher resolution recording that isn't removed no matter what monitor you're using.

 

[Elton Noway]

Thank you bp2008 - that's the answer I was looking for. Now I just need to find the right NVR. I would very much like to view 4k footage since my system should be able to handle it but I worry that if/when I expand to more cameras I might be putting it under strain and I would rather see smooth 4 or 5MP footage at 25fps than choppy 12MP at 10 or 15fps.

Network issues aside... in my case it was the system not the monitor. I recently purchased a 4K NVR "kit" that included 4K 8MP cameras. Yes it can record beautiful 4K video... but with a catch. When set to record at 4K (3840 × 2160) the frame rate default is 15 FPS. I can bump up frame rate the but then resolution drops off dramatically. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to get a deal I couldn't refuse on a LG Ultrafine 5K monitor so I'll admit a little disappointment when I first viewed some "4K" resolution from my system. NET: Unable to view true 4K high resolution video. The 4K quality is pretty good albeit with a slight motion blur at 15 fps when an object is moving, but then again there are usually plenty of frames to pick from to find one with good detail.

 

[bp2008]

The frame rate has nothing to do with motion blur. That is 100% the fault of exposure time being too long. You can also get visual artifacts that are easy to mistake for motion blur if you are using WDR or strong 3D Noise Reduction.

 

[ipOsX]

Network issues aside... in my case it was the system not the monitor. I recently purchased a 4K NVR "kit" that included 4K 8MP cameras. Yes it can record beautiful 4K video... but with a catch. When set to record at 4K (3840 × 2160) the frame rate default is 15 FPS. I can bump up frame rate the but then resolution drops off dramatically. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to get a deal I couldn't refuse on a LG Ultrafine 5K monitor so I'll admit a little disappointment when I first viewed some "4K" resolution from my system. NET: Unable to view true 4K high resolution video. The 4K quality is pretty good albeit with a slight motion blur at 15 fps when an object is moving, but then again there are usually plenty of frames to pick from to find one with good detail.

I don't know if the technology is yet up to 4k playback at 25/30fps. Even this relatively expensive NVR can only output 4K at 30Hz via HDMI. What use is that?
https://www.hikvision.com//uploadfile/image/10481_EUD00212BDatasheetofDS7600NIK2PNVR20160415.pdf

I've even found one NVR that downscales an incoming 5MP stream to 2MP for processing and then upscales it to 5MP again for broadcast on your LAN. Anyone not savvy about video graphics would think they were watching a 5MP video whereas it was an upscaled 2MP video.

If it is next to impossible to view native video at any higher resolution than 2MP then a lot of people are being conned into buying 4-8MP cameras. I had a professional installer here on Monday trying to sell me a 8MP system and then floundering when I asked him how I was going to view it on my way above average system. He told me that the pressure to install UHD cameras comes from customers so he goes along with it.

 

[Parley]

The installer is wrong and not up to date. My Hikvision NVR's handle the 4MP cameras just fine. A couple of months ago I purchased a 4K 28" monitor and the pictures are fantastic. This is with the Dahua IPC-B5442E-Z4E 4MP WDR IR Bullet cameras and what I now consider the go to camera. The detail is much improved over the 2MP cameras. See this thread.

Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+

 

[Will.I.Am]

He's not very good at his job then.

I've installed 12mp cameras on a site with 720p monitors before because it allows them to zoom right in to a recorded image and still have enough quality to id a person. You couldn't do that with a 1mp camera - that's the benefit of higher resolution recording.

 

[bp2008]

4K @ 30hz output means they don't have HDMI 2.0, but it doesn't make it any less capable as a 4K NVR. You don't have any 4K cams capable of above 30 FPS anyway.

It does take a while for the latest tech to trickle down to IP cameras/NVRs. You can still buy cameras today that want you to run Internet Explorer on Windows with an ActiveX plugin to use their web interface.

 

[TL1096r]

How does it work? I have a 4K 8MP.
On my 30" screen not the best

I have a Samsung UHD and it looks much better. It is all mirrored from a switch coming form a 1080p monitor though. Samsung UHD just creates a better picture even though I don't feel it is streaming 4k to my monitors?

 

[ipOsX]

The installer is wrong and not up to date. My Hikvision NVR's handle the 4MP cameras just fine. A couple of months ago I purchased a 4K 28" monitor and the pictures are fantastic.

That's the kind of recommendation I'm looking for. Could you tell me which model of NVR?

 

[bp2008]

@ipOsX How many 4k @ 30FPS cameras are you wanting? If the number is fairly small, you might be better off running Blue Iris on a Windows PC. At least going this route, I can promise you will get one of the best web interfaces available for a CCTV system (shameless plug. hehe. I built UI3 which is Blue Iris's web interface) which will run fine with actual 4K resolution video streams on your mac.

The price of a capable computer varies depending on your needs, but at the low end it is cheaper than most NVRs. Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk

 

[ipOsX]

@ipOsX How many 4k @ 30FPS cameras are you wanting? If the number is fairly small, you might be better off running Blue Iris on a Windows PC. At least going this route, I can promise you will get one of the best web interfaces available for a CCTV system (shameless plug. hehe. I built UI3 which is Blue Iris's web interface) which will run fine with actual 4K resolution video streams on your mac.

The price of a capable computer varies depending on your needs, but at the low end it is cheaper than most NVRs. Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk

bp2008, funnily enough, you're not the first person to give me this advice on this forum …but I'm in a Windows-free zone and likely to remain so.

 

[ipOsX]

How does it work? I have a 4K 8MP.
On my 30" screen not the best

I have a Samsung UHD and it looks much better. It is all mirrored from a switch coming form a 1080p monitor though. Samsung UHD just creates a better picture even though I don't feel it is streaming 4k to my monitors?

TL1096r, there might be some clues here:

https://www.sourcesecurity.com/datasheets/hikvision-ds-2cd4085f-a-p-ip-camera/co-3425-ga/5 4K.pdf

 

[TL1096r]

TL1096r, there might be some clues here:

https://www.sourcesecurity.com/datasheets/hikvision-ds-2cd4085f-a-p-ip-camera/co-3425-ga/5 4K.pdf

Yes trying to figure out if I can run 4K on these monitors with blue iris.

 

[Parley]

That's the kind of recommendation I'm looking for. Could you tell me which model of NVR?

I have two of the 8 port versions. https://us.hikvision.com/sites/default/files/vs_ds-7600ni-i2_p_series_042419na.pdf

I also have a 4 port Hikvision NVR.