purple cctv

[Owain]

My Lucky Golden Hedgehog CCTV camera gives a surprisingly sharp picture for under a tenner. However it occasionally 'posterises' the image eg all the white lines on the road occasionally turn psychedelic purple?

(not as interesting as Adam's CCTV uploads!)

Are they all like this or did I screw the lens in too far and press something?

Also the lump where the camera cable splits into A/V/power gets hot. I'm not sure if this is responsible for the claimed 200MW power consumption at 12 volts ...

Owain

[Andy Bartlett]

I suspect the purple bits are where the camera pixels are hitting saturation (too bright). Either stop the lens down (lol) or see if you can change the exposure control algorithm in the supplied software (lol2).

Andy

[Andrew Gabriel]

The camera elements usually run at 5V. Mine are fed with unregulated 8V supply and have a bog standard 5V linear regulator attached to the inside of the metal casing. It sounds like yours might have a linear regulator in the lump you refer to, and dropping 12V to 5V will give off more power than mine does. This does mean they can run on very long lengths of low voltage supply cable without worrying too much about the voltage drop. A switched mode regulator would be more efficient, but some surpless heat is required in outdoor cameras to keep the front clear of condensation anyway.

[meow2222]

Don't give your hedgehog those tablets. Its overexposure.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

The areas affected in the image are those with ballotini reflective paint, which reflect a large amount of light back in exactly the direction it came from (like thousands of minature cats-eyes). This will usually cause saturation at night when the scene is illuminated by a built-in infra-red camera light. Normally the infra-red light switches off in daylight, but I wonder if it's got stuck on in your camera?

I would expect these areas to be over-bright or saturated in night mode, if the camera has built-in infra-red lights.

[ARW]

Talking of which I can now release this video as an unlisted one to the group

[DerbyBorn]

"ARW" wrote in news:k5u7v5$hfj$1@dont- email.me:

SCUM and Low Lifes.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Hold a mirror up in front of the camera, so it's looking at itself in the mirror (but not too close). It will be obvious if the IR lights are on in the image.

That might also explain why the "lump" is warm.

[Chris Wilson]

are you not shut of them yet?

[ARW]

They were OK. It was the people that lived there before them that made me install CCTV.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I can see why country properties with no neighbours fetch a premium...

[ARW]

The ones in that video have gone. They were OK. The new ones are better.

I suppose you want a video of them?

[Chris Wilson]

Oooo ... yes please mister

[ARW]

Will this one do?

[fred]

(popped up as a you may like when yours finished)

[ARW]

I really must get the videos of the bad neighbours I had onto YouTube.

They are still only available on my VCR collection and need to be made more available.

[Bob Eager]

How unlike the home life of our own dear Queen....

(actually, it's about 3 years old)

[Chris Wilson]

Good grief ... do you have to advertise anywhere special to get folks like that, are they bred especially? Anyway I'm not sure if sympathy or condolences is the correct word but you have mine regardless.

[fred]

You've just missed the Aldi (Lidl?) usb video grabber at 20quid but I'm sure there are others. Got one but haven't tried it yet.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its Blairs Britain to a 'T'