I might have missed this, but what compression did you test this on, H.264 or H.265? I'd be interested to know if H.265 on the same camera would lower the percentage increase. The overall bitrate would most likely be lower. What would intelligent codecs do, Zipstream, Wisestream, H.265+, etc.
You didn't miss it, I forgot to put it in! These measurements are all H.264, with smart codecs on. I'll double check some things in setup to add detail to the report on exact settings and post back tomorrow.
Can you describe more the settings of the cameras , like Frame-rate, and image quality settings. In some cases the 4MP produce less bandwidth as a 1080 resolution from the same vendor.
No, they are not the hottest thing in the industry. Indeed, in our favorability survey of Sony just released only 1 out of 200+ integrators even mentioned Sony's low light offerings.
I'm new here so I'm learning the ropes. The surveys of integrators clearly are the least useful of any of the resources here, HIK gets the most good and the most bad (paraphrasing but it's a clear phenomena). I expected a consumer reports style engineering based review system, which certainly many features on here are but the surveys are clearly not. And I didn't bring it up, you referenced it in this context.
Sony hasn't done a great job of keeping their products in front through marketing recently, they aren't going to win any popularity contests, but the VB770 has garnered some accolades in it's short time on the market. But low light has been the center of what they have focused on in the past couple of years and it's disappointing not to see them included. Not your fault they've been quiet for a while, but the superior performance of their products from video quality and reliability has rarely been factually contended.
The surveys complement are engineering / technology tests to show what a wide variety of integrators are using.
Sony's low light performance is very good - but it's very expensive. It's hard to sell many $5,000 cameras when pretty good low light cameras are widely available under $1,000. There are applications where the VB770's price premium is justified but, because of the significant price delta, it's a niche.
Again, Sony's fault for not getting them out there but the newest releases feature much expanded low light capabilities like the VM772R that are a fraction of the cost of the VB770.
To be clear, the VM772R is decent for a 4K integrated IR camera. We tested it. But it uses a much smaller sensor than the VB770 and its performance is nowhere near that camera. From our tests:
Also, last I checked that was a $2,000+ camera (street price), which makes it a clear outlier when most cameras are under $1,000, typically far below $1,000. So even if it's a fraction of the cost of the VB770, it is still priced well above average for an IP camera in 2019.
Additionally, it is not a fair comparison to include either the VM772R or VB770 in this test, as they do not include a true VBR implementation (they do not fix compression and vary bitrate as is typical). We've mentioned it in our tests of those specific cameras, as well as this report. So testing them against true VBR cameras which vary bitrate more widely (both higher and lower) would be misleading. If they've fixed that in firmware, we'd be interested to take a look, but last we checked, it was still true.
What type of light meter do you use? Can you add a column in your reports to show 1 or 2 different lux meters used in the actual tests? I trust what you say but it would be nice to see the numbers from a few measurement devices for a baseline. Thanks in advance.
We use an Extech LT300. It's one of the few we've found that measures down to 0.01 lux. Most meters are not made for low light measurements. Many people can probably get by with 0.1 accuracy, but for our testing we are routinely below that level.
I would agree with your statement in general, just want to clarify that light doesn't have to mean visible light. Most of the cameras in this test were integrated IR, so there was non-visible light in the scene.
Figures in the charts are in megabits per second (Mb/s, Mbps, however you prefer to notate it). I'm going to send these charts to our graphic designer to add that notation and will report back when it's done.
If you have any other questions, let us know!
Agree
Disagree
Informative
Unhelpful
Funny
Create New Topic
Subscribe to IPVM Research to read the full report.
Why do I need to subscribe?
The IPVM Research Service includes products tests and shootouts plus competitive and financial analysis, helping decision-makers better evaluate purchasing, partnering, developing, and/or competing against companies in physical security.
Comments (24)
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
I might have missed this, but what compression did you test this on, H.264 or H.265? I'd be interested to know if H.265 on the same camera would lower the percentage increase. The overall bitrate would most likely be lower. What would intelligent codecs do, Zipstream, Wisestream, H.265+, etc.
Create New Topic
Jörg Steuerwald
Can you describe more the settings of the cameras , like Frame-rate, and image quality settings. In some cases the 4MP produce less bandwidth as a 1080 resolution from the same vendor.
Create New Topic
Jason Crist
Very interesting that Sony wasn't tested, the VB770 and newer gen low light cameras are the hottest thing in the industry.
Create New Topic
Jason Crist
Again, Sony's fault for not getting them out there but the newest releases feature much expanded low light capabilities like the VM772R that are a fraction of the cost of the VB770.
Create New Topic
Jason Crist
would've been nice to have tested it against the others ;)
Create New Topic
Undisclosed #3
What type of light meter do you use? Can you add a column in your reports to show 1 or 2 different lux meters used in the actual tests? I trust what you say but it would be nice to see the numbers from a few measurement devices for a baseline. Thanks in advance.
Create New Topic
Alfredo Santiago
02/19/19 08:46am
Good info but at that low level useless if you need to see who or what. You need light.
Create New Topic
daniel tobias
Editors,
Thank you for this informative article.
Can you please clarify the unit of measurement for the day and night bandwidth values?
Are those mbps, Mb/s, or an arbitrary value?
Thank you.
Create New Topic