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Hikvision 4K Cameras
If you've been keeping up with technology much the last couple of years, you'll have heard the term 4K resolution or UHD mentioned a lot, with a great deal of excitement.
The previous "full-HD" standard of 1920x1080 (more commonly known as 1080p) is being superseded by 4K resolution, or 3840x2160, boasting an impressive four times as many pixels as its predecessor which you can check out in our forum thread on different camera resolutions. This isn't cutting edge, future technology either. It's already here, and it's being adopted as a common standard in a lot of industries.
It's easy to see how such a large increase in pixel count (and thus image quality) is very useful in a CCTV application, and the price of a 4K camera continues to drop to something much more accessible, particularly when looking at Hikvision's 4K camera offerings.
We've recently been able to test a Hikvision DS-2CD4A85F-IZS paired with a DS-7716NI-I4-16P, a member of Hikvision's new -I series NVRs which support up to 4K recording. You would not be able to add a 4K camera to one of Hikvision's existing -E series NVRs.
The results were quite impressive.
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The DS-2CD4A85F-IZS is a very reasonably priced introduction to Hikvision's 4K range, capable of recording 4096x2160 at 22fps and 3840x2160 (8MP, 4K) resolutions at 25fps. Like most of the Hikvision range, the camera is plug-and-play, and can be simply connected to any compatible -I series NVR fresh out of the box. Alternatively, you can of course add it across the network by providing the camera with a source of 12V DC or POE to the 802.3at standard.
Remote zoom and auto-focus make installation much simpler - simply point the camera at what you want to monitor, and then configure it remotely via a networked PC or mobile device.
Those familiar with Hikvision's other SMART 4-series bullet cameras or the DS-2CD2T42WD-I will notice immediately that the camera is comparable in size and appearance, looking otherwise very standard for Hikvision. A small junction box is included with the camera to house the various connections.
Image quality improvements over existing 2MP and 4MP cameras during the day are immediately noticeable, but the true benefit can be gained from digitally zooming in to read details such as number plates, covered below.
Below is a capture from the camera taken during the day. The camera is zoomed in to its maximum focal length of 12mm, and the large lamp post in the centre of the scene is approximately 15-20m from the camera's mounted position.
Clicking on the image will reveal its full 4K resolution as opposed to the resized, browser-friendly version.
On a camera with a lower resolution, this would simply not have been possible.
Traditionally, a higher resolution coincided directly with poor low-light performance, and so we were pleasantly surprised to see that the DS-2CD4A85F-IZS performed similarly at night to its 4-Series counterparts, although the default DNR settings were quite high for our scenario, introducing significant blurring. Reducing this setting from 50 to 25 quickly resolved the issue however.
The below is an image of the same scene at night - there is quite a lot of ambient light aiding the camera's performance, but the IR should be adequate regardless.
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Whilst 4K may be overkill at the moment for many residential applications, pricing and accessibility of the cameras is continuously dropping and the number of 4K cameras is continuously increasing.
To put it in context, a few years ago anything above 2MP / 1080p was considered overkill. Now, Hikvision's low-cost, high-performance 4MP R6 series have been overwhelmingly popular amongst all sectors, including residential, and 2MP is slowly being phased out. The same happened to 1.3MP / 720p, which is rarely dealt with nowadays.
4K is only going to become more popular and implemented over the next few years, and based on our experiences with it so far it's quite clear as to why.
