At use-IP we often blog about new products from Axis Communications and include what at first seem to be the meaningless Axis product codes in the product names, such as “Q6032-E” “M1031-W” etc. Well, in fact, the product codes can give you a good overview of the specifications and possible applications of each model. Each character of the product code denotes a certain aspect of the product:

Take the M1031-W for example:

• The “M” lets you know that it is a member of Axis’s affordable range
• The first number “1” indicates the product type, in this case “fixed camera”
• The second number “0” is the series number

All of the above then gives you the series name, in this case the “Axis M10 Series“

• The third number “3” indicates the running no.
• The final number “1” indicates the resolution/no. of channels
• And the letter at the end indicates any extra features the camera may have, in this case “W” for Wireless

There are many different possibilities for each character of the product name and Axis provide a breakdown of each of these on their website.

Please use the links below to access Axis product pages, datasheets and Axis’s full breakdown of product names:

• Axis Product Range
• Axis Communications Product Name Breakdown

 

 

H.264 video compression capability is built into all the latest generation IP cameras from Axis Communications.

Cue the video …

Follow this link to view the full range of Axis cameras and servers.
If you have any questions please feel free to use the comments below or to use our IP CCTV Forum.

The Mobotix Q24 is their latest 3 megapixel hemispheric network camera.

It supercedes the popular Mobotix Q22. The ’4′ is a new designation from Mobotix and represents their new faster processing engine, we will in due course see this appear in other models in the range e.g. Mobotix ‘D’ series dome cameras and the original ‘M’ series cameras.

The hemispheric operating principles are quite difficult to understand from a cold start and we are often quizzed about just what the Mobotix Q24 can actually do.

The classic application is to ceiling-mount this camera in the centre of a room and gain the ability to monitor and record everything that occurs anywhere in the room, with electronic pan/tilt/zoom capability to zoom into any area of interest (either in Live mode or in recorded footage) to see more detail. But, you can also wall-mount the Q24 and view a 180° wide field-of-view in front of the camera OR set the camera to deliver views of three preset selected sections of the overall scene covered.

Those good people at specialist Mobotix trainers The IP Academy have just released a new video introducing the Q24 and explaining a few of these features, it does a far better job than my words above seem to …

Mobotix Q24 explanation video from The IP Academy

Hard disc drives continue to get larger all the time, especially when you need them to record megapixel CCTV cameras 24hrs per day.

As unlikely as it seems, we are now headed towards 2 TeraBytes on an SD card!

We’ve covered this topic of MegaBytes, GigaBytes, TeraBytes and PetaBytes before, but we realise that it still confuses people, so we just thought it might be worthwhile mentioning Google’s inbuilt converter and calculation functions for those that aren’t already aware of them.

If you want to know exactly how MegaBytes compares to GigaBytes (or whatever), just type your query into Google’s search box in the following format:

500MB in GB

Google’s first ‘search result’ will be:

500 megabytes = 0.48828125 gigabytes

You can use this for any conversion using:

KB = KiloBytes

MB = MegaBytes

GB = GigaBytes

TB = TeraBytes

PB = PetaBytes

It also works for other conversions:

4 pounds in kilos

4 pounds = 1.81436948 kilograms

2 feet in cm

2 feet = 60.96 centimeters

Google will also tell you the current time in most World Cities:

time Brisbane

10:18am Wednesday (EST) – Time in Brisbane, Queensland

Brisbane, California

4:18pm

-1 day

PST

Hope that’s handy to know?

What does IRE mean when quoted with Lux light levels for CCTV cameras?

We’ve noticed that many people seem to be a little baffled by this mysterious occasional mention of the term IRE, so we thought we’d just write a quick article to explain it in lay terms for you.

There is a good technical explanation over on Wikipedia, but as often happens it is a bit too technical if you are starting from the point of having no idea!

IRE stands for Institute of Radio Engineers, but that’s not important, you want to know what it means.

Well, keeping this within terms easily understood by lay-men:

The squiggly line above represents a composite video signal.

We refer to a good signal as being 1 volt peak-to-peak.

The Institute of Radio Engineers came up with the term IRE to represent the composite video signal in percentage terms i.e. 100IRE equals 100%, a full (good) signal.

Now the buyer beware bit. Just about the only time you see IRE quoted is when a manufacturer is trying to apply specmanship i.e. they are claiming that their camera can ‘see’ in very low light levels, but in fact it only does so poorly, and produces a less than good composite video signal.

For example 0.05 Lux (30IRE) means that in light levels measured at 0.05 Lux the camera will produce an image, but it’ll be a poor one, with a composite video signal level at only about 30% of what it should be. Effectively this would be a fairly useless image, and perhaps the camera is only really useful down to a higher lux level of say 0.5 Lux …

Of course, due to our human tendency to ignore the bits we don’t understand, it makes for quite clever marketing really; most folk just read the specification, see the incredible ‘see-in-the-dark’ capability indicated by the very low lux light level claimed in the specification and proceed to buy the camera.

To gain a better understanding of relative lux light levels take a look at our free chart.