While phone cameras are improving regularly, security cameras look as if they are twenty years behind; pale colors, grainy and blurry images… It’s not much different from UFO images.
For this reason, the face of the thief or the license plate of the suspect vehicle may not be visible. While video technology is so advanced, there are actually quite logical reasons why this problem still persists.
In order to understand the reason for this, it is necessary not to equate security cameras with modern cameras.
Because unlike cameras as we know it, security cameras can make a dark area seem bright, and the resulting image is not perfect. It looks like it was taken with a calculator, but at least it gives us an idea of the event it recorded. It can be a life saver as it has IR (infrared) technology. But of course, this is not the only answer to our question.
The task of these cameras is actually very tedious because 99% of the images recorded by those who are placed in the home or workplace are not noteworthy.
It would be very expensive to record that many videos in 4K quality. Of course, there are security cameras that record high-quality images, but the vast majority prefer low-quality cameras due to the storage problem and the expensiveness of these cameras.
If you also need to buy cameras to shoot different rooms, the cost will be doubled or tripled.
Consider also big businesses; Because dozens or even hundreds of cameras will be required, first-class equipment may not be preferred in order to save on budget calculations.
In fact, most of the time, security cameras are not operated in homes or small businesses. It is used to deter potential criminals.
As a result of continuous image recordings, recorded videos are deleted in 24 hours but are sometimes retained for weeks or months.
It may be necessary to compress videos to fit this much data, which reduces the quality of the video. Even a 24-hour video requires about 1TB. If we take into account the footage from dozens of cameras, the storage problem becomes even greater.
In fact, the first people who watch the image on the camera will not see a bad image, but since the videos are repeatedly compressed while these images are transferred to YouTube or TV, the image deteriorates further until we reach us.
For example, there are around 500,000 security cameras in London. There are more than 15,000 cameras in tube stations alone, recordings from there are recorded and stored for 3 days, while footage from London’s train stations is kept for 28 days. This requires a lot of storage capacity.
Since security cameras shoot in harsh conditions, there are different factors that distort the image.
Although some are made to withstand harsh weather conditions, some are still susceptible to water, abrasion, dust, spider webs, insects. As the lenses will be affected due to all this and more, the shooting quality will decrease.
One of the reasons why important elements such as faces and plates cannot be easily selected is the “trimming” process.
These cameras record a wide angle. If you zoom in on a small area of the image and crop it, the image will naturally become much more blurry. Trimmed, zoomed videos are shown in the news instead of the original video. We experience this problem even with the photos we take with the phone.
Who knows, maybe one day a final solution to this common problem will be found.
Sources: Science ABC, Science Direct, University of California, Thiarajar College of Engineering
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