Panoramic Surveillance Camera Comparative Study Examined

A comparative study of panoramic megapixel cameras has been released. This test compares and evaluates Oncam Halocam, the Mobotix Q24, the Arecont 8365 and the Immervision IMV-1.

The report was conducted by WatchPoint Video and funded by Oncam Global. Download the 10 page comparison report. Also read our background on other offerings and the hype around panoramic.

The report examines resolution, low light image quality, frame rate, bandwidth consumption, PTZ usability, etc.

The report's conclusion highlights Oncam and Mobotix noting, "Oncam wins when the application calls for high resolution and good day/night characteristics."

To the contrary, according to this report's test the ArecontVision had the same effective resolution as Oncam. Also, given that Arecont's unit combines (4) 2 megapixel lenses compared to 1 fisheye 5 megapixel lens for OnCam, it is surprising and questionable that Oncam's resolution would be equal to ArecontVision's. Furthermore, to us, the sample image of Arecont appears to demonstrate higher resolution than Oncam's.

Finally, in the performance section, OnCam demonstrated the highest consumption of both CPU utilization and network bandwidth (not surprisingly given that OnCam is a 5MP MJPEG whereas all other cameras support more efficient CODECs).