Another Camera Question

[jawfish]

Hey, firstly I would like to say that I am brand new to this, and don't really know the difference between all of these electronics.

I am starting an ROV build and am staring with the camera. I found this one which I think may be good. Thoughts?

http://www.surveillanceparts.com/produc ... amera.html

I know that this would need a lens. My question is, although a fixed focal length on a MTV mount would be fine, would it be possible to have a CS variable zoo like this:http://www.surveillanceparts.com/produc ... amera.html

on the camera? Would I be able to control it, or would the fixed option be better?
Thanks!

[turtle]

take a look at this link it shows you the on screen functions, theres a lot of wires that would need to be extended but the camera seems a good buy.


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Super-WDR-650 ... 20c026880a

[jawfish]

Thanks, that does look like a good price. What do you think the image quality would be? It says HD, but I kind of doubt it.

[thegadgetguy]

It says it has 650 lines, which is pretty good for a board camera. If image quality is all you really want, though, you might be able to find something better for $225.

[derelicte]

650 lines does not make a hd camera. that doesn't seem like a very good deal to me.

[jawfish]

I'm sure there are great cameras out there, but this is really all I want to spend. I'm not expecting 720p, but I don't want to be staring at a grainy screen. Would the 600 lines basically mean 600p? That would be enough as far as I am concerned.

[thegadgetguy]

The "p" in 720p or 1080p acutally stands for "progressive", which is a term that refers to how the signal is displayed. If I'm not mistaken, both these cameras would output in a format called "interlaced". If you are using NTSC (used in the US), then the max resolution you can have will be 480i, which basically means you have 480 vertical lines, and 640 horizontial lines, and the video is interlaced (interlaced is inferior to progressive).

If you want higher resolution than that, you'll have to step up to component video or something. That being said, just because a camera is not HD, doesn' t mean it has to be grainy. In my experience a camera's video becomes grainy because there isn't enough ambient light. I've seen standard def video that looked better than 1080 video, just because the standard def camera had a lower lux rating. I don't think you should have a problem finding a camera for under $100 dollars that will output 480i like video that is not grainy.