600TVL - meaning in term of computer resolution

arekm · Post by **arekm** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:19 pm

Hello.

I'm trying to use 600TVL camera with bt878-based PC card. What is max resolution this camera can handle?

Does 600 TVL means 600 PAL-like lines so the max resolution would be 600x576?

ps. bt878 card announces max resolution it can handle as 924x576.

W. · Post by W. » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:35 pm

http://www.jkor.com/peter/tvlines.html

thelight · Post by **thelight** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:14 pm

Reading all that I still dont think im any the wiser

jameswilson · Post by **jameswilson** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:30 pm

W. · Post by W. » Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:59 am

jameswilson wrote:lol

not funny

in short, there is no reason to pull higher resolution images from camera than it can provide. "600 TVL" is not descriptive enough to give any educated opinion on what resolution images you will possibly get from that camera.
my English is too deficient to explain it any better, so I will restrain myself from any further comments.

Lee Sharp · Post by **Lee Sharp** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:03 pm

The digital resolution you get is dependent on your capture card, and the analog standard you use. (PAL vs NTSC) Just about any camera is going to make a higher resolution picture than you can capture. How good that image looks, however, is not something that is easily put in a spec. You just have to see it.

m1ke · Post by **m1ke** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:10 pm

Reading all that I still dont think im any the wiser

Well I think what its saying is that TVL (TV lines) is an (old) analog way of presenting the image quality of a system. Basically if you displayed a test pattern of say 600 black & white vertical lines on a TV monitor & when you looked (looked being subjective) at the screen you could just about decipher the 300 black & the 300 white vertical lines from each other - you could say that that monitor had a 600TVL horizontal resolution quality.

The confusion I think is because everyone tends to think of 'resolution' in terms of PC monitors like 1280x1024 or 640x480. This is a simple physical pixel count & is quite different to TVL because TVL just takes into account actual visual image quality - what you can see & decipher on the screen. It is very subjective, as what one person may deem a reasonable image is not what another person does. TVL is really just a guide not an absolute value.

Hope this helps,

Mike.

Post by **cordel** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 5:22 pm

m1ke wrote:
Reading all that I still dont think im any the wiser
Well I think what its saying is that TVL (TV lines) is an (old) analog way of presenting the image quality of a system. Basically if you displayed a test pattern of say 600 black & white vertical lines on a TV monitor & when you looked (looked being subjective) at the screen you could just about decipher the 300 black & the 300 white vertical lines from each other - you could say that that monitor had a 600TVL horizontal resolution quality.

The confusion I think is because everyone tends to think of 'resolution' in terms of PC monitors like 1280x1024 or 640x480. This is a simple physical pixel count & is quite different to TVL because TVL just takes into account actual visual image quality - what you can see & decipher on the screen. It is very subjective, as what one person may deem a reasonable image is not what another person does. TVL is really just a guide not an absolute value.

Hope this helps,

Mike.

That hits the nail on the head. TVL is just that, if you present a chart in front of the cam, how many lines you can see before it becomes just a gray image.