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Analog cameras

When do I need an analog camera?

There are circumstances in which analog cameras are a better solution than digital cameras. If cables longer than 5 m are needed between the camera and recording equipment, for most digital cameras, you need an amplifier. Industrial analog cameras may be more suitable in these cases. Cable lengths of 30-50 meters are generally no problem.

An additional advantage of analog cameras is that their signals can easily be splitted by simply splitting the cable. To split a signal from a digital camera a video splitter or video splitting software is needed.

Install and setup

To convert the output of analog cameras into a digital format, a video capture card is needed. If you bought a complete solution from Noldus IT, the video capture card is present in the computer. If you bought your cameras, video capture card and MediaRecorder separately, you must do the installation and setup yourself.

See Set up analog cameras

Supported analog cameras

In theory, MediaRecorder works with output of every analog camera that is used with the Euresys Picolo  Alert video capture card. We specifically tested MediaRecorder with output of the following cameras with the Euresys Picolo Alert PCIe card with Multicam driver 6.15.13573:

  • Ikegami B/W ICD-49 PAL
  • Panasonic WV-CP504 NTSC
  • Ikegami Analog PAL/CCIR
  • Ikegami Analog NTSC/EIA

Maximum supported number of cameras

  • Euresys Picolo Alert PCIe card - Four cameras or PhenoTyper Top Units.

Tested setups with EthoVision XT

The table below shows the maximum supported (1) resolution, (2) frame rate (fps), (3) color space, (4) number of devices and (5) recording time (hours). Tests were done on a Dell 3640 PC

 

Device

Resolution

Frame rate

Color space

No of devices

Recording time

image.png

 

Ikegami B/W ICD-49 PAL- Analog CCIR Euresys Picolo Alert PCIe

768 x 576

25

YUY2

RGB32

1

0.5

image.png

 

Panasonic WV-CP504 NTSC - Analog EIA Euresys Picolo Alert PCIe

640 x 480

30

YUY2

1

0.5

18

60

 

Analog PAL/CCIR

768 x 576

25

RGB24

4

24

 

Analog NTSC/EIA

640 x 480

30

RGB24

4

24

 

important  The file size of a 18, 24 and 60 hours recording is very large.

note  CCIR is the monochrome version of PAL and EIA is the monochrome version of NTSC.

Cable length

In theory, a length of 250 m should be possible, however we did not test that. We know that a length of 100 m can be used without problems.

Notes

PAL or NTSC

MediaRecorder automatically identifies the analog cameras as PAL / CCIR (=monochrome PAL), or NTSC / EIA (=monochrome NTSC). It selects the correct frame rate and resolution automatically.

 

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