Not So Much Tv As Cctv....

[janzman]

Personally I don't think I have ever seen a piece of clear, bright, easily identified cctv film footage. We have 4k super hd televisions mega pixals. Our tv pictures are so clear bright and highly defined I don't understand why the pictures captured on city centre or any other cctv apparatus so shockingly abysmal can anyone explain?.

[Buenchico]

The hand-held cameras used by TV companies cost from £40,000 upwards, with studio cameras costing up to a quarter of a million pounds each. Part of those costs comes from the quality of the lenses in them but they've also got built-in systems for automatically adjusting contrast ratios to suit the scenes that they're filming. They're also often used in studios where there's a lighting engineer, trained to degree standard, whose job is solely to ensure that the best possible picture is obtained. The director who works alongside him will also be constantly working to find the best angles for capturing the details needed in each shot.

The chances of getting similar images from far cheaper cameras (often with grime or rain on their lenses), sited in fixed locations in poor light (or where there's glare from the sun or streetlights) aren't going to be good!

[sapelesam]

Wow, comprehensive answer from Buenchico, that deserves a Best Answer.

[goodgoalie]

He always does, sam!

[sapelesam]

Let's see if it gets a BA.

[Spicerack]

When they do have a clear picture they pixelate the face of the person they're looking for.

[Gizmonster]

I've often wondered why shops, etc don't upgrade their CCTV cameras to a decent HD quality.
The systems are out there and they're rapidly becoming cheaper - they really are quite a lot better than they used to be.
I got our first CCTV system for our house, roughly 2 years ago - 4 HD cameras (1.3 MP), 1 TB hard drive ... plus all the necessary leads etc - all for roughly £130 - BARGAIN .... and the playback is quite good, although the night vision quality is not that good.
I often wonder what's the point in having CCTV, if you can't identify people in the footage who may be committing a crime of some sort - maybe shops and businesses don't realise just how bad their systems are and just how cheap the newer, better systems are??

[Peter Pedant]

It boils down to money

pay more and you get better pictures
is it Chester who is going to cease manning its CCTV centre on account of budget cuts ?

reached I think the nadir with the telly-helly in Northern Oireland thirty years ago - tv camera in a helicopter BUT at the last moment they substituted low def cameras in order to save money

so it used to fly around and couldnt see a damn thing
relevant in the murders of the two corporals after the deaths on the rock of Gibraltar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporals_killings

[janzman]

Sorry to be a while in answering but thanks very much for all the info