Hi John,
Yep all - I am from Raytec. I thought that would come up on my account?
My honest opinion is horses for courses. If I put up a camera at home, in front of my door I will use an integrated IR camera from one of the big brands because its small, neat and I dont need 100% performance. I am more concerned with havign some security and maintaining the style of my house. I think a lot of the big camera brands want to chase the mass market for volume so that means chasing the domestic customer and small scale systems. That isnt where IR illuminators are typically deployed.
If I'm designing a security system or monitoring a perimeter then I would use stand alone cameras and IR iluminators. There are even guidelines in place in the UK and China (I dont know if there are others) that prehibits the use of integrated IR cameras on remote monitored sites because they products so many false alarms.
I know you picked up on our video which we circulated for awareness but we are going to pull together a more formal comparison that will look into the pros and cons in depth.
I would also like to add a point which covers both the price advantage of integrated IR cameras and their distance limitations:
Yes, their price is low. But lighting is goverened by the inverse square law which makes it easy to achieve short distances and hard to achieve long distances. Let's say a top end integrated IR camera will see 40m. To double that distance to 80m it would need 4x the light power. That would significantly bump up costs and helps explain why stand alone iluminators are more expensive - considerably higher power output. Also integrated cameras have space constraints. To get x4 power you would need to move to an integrated unit thta has a seperate area for the camera and a seperate area for a large lighting panel - like the old Bosch units.
Raytec will soon be launching a "Vario Lighting kit" which combines VARIO lighting and a camera housing that allows integrators to fit their own camera. It will need more work than an integrated IR camera to set-up and install but will allow much longer distnaces, be camera neutral and offer a more attractive visual installation for the end user.
Finally, we often see integrated IR cameras that have some internal light reflection that affects the image quality. This is normally dependant on the lens position but is a common issue - even more so with fixed domes