CCTV on Buses- Poor Quality?

[Fletcj10]

Now for obvious reasons i'm not going to share CCTV from my employer however as someone that looks at CCTV from time to time (part of my job) even on the new buses i'm talking Yutong U11DD and 24/25 Wright Streetdeck's etc why is the CCTV well "bad" -

(see this video for reference i know its from 2015 but the quality really hasn't changed) & for anyone that's seen CCTV from buses will know what i mean by quality, except for front view on newer buses i must add but the the way camera's are these days surly it can't be more expense or hard to have maybe i don't know a HD camera on the buses??

Anyway i'm waffling but does anyone know why CCTV is more blocky then smooth? is it price? is it their isnt that tech for buses i don't know?

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

It's the file compression

 

[brightonbususe]

Probably storage limitations. Most modern deckers have something like 10-15 cameras, footage is stored for 30 days and they're filming 24 hours a day, so at decent quality that's probably around 20tb of video just for one bus. So I guess they compress the video, reduce the framerate etc and this is what we're left with; which is probably still good enough to identify people.

 

[Fletcj10]

Probably storage limitations. Most modern deckers have something like 10-15 cameras, footage is stored for 30 days and they're filming 24 hours a day, so at decent quality that's probably around 20tb of video just for one bus. So I guess they compress the video, reduce the framerate etc and this is what we're left with; which is probably still good enough to identify people.

True, didn't think of it like that! Thanks!

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

Question; On many modern trains there is a button that the crew can press if they become aware of an incident on board which boosts the quality of the footage for a set period of time, so that the perpetrators can be more easily identified etc.
Do any bus systems feature a similar thing?

 

[pokemonsuper9]

True, didn't think of it like that! Thanks!

It will almost certainly be storage, high quality cameras are easily obtainable (it is more effort to get a lower quality one), but storage is a significant expense, especially when you've got a dozen cameras on a fleet of thousands.

While I would probably suggest having the most recent 30 minutes (or thereabouts) in a higher quality, so that if the cameras are damaged, destroyed (therefore preventing any footage overwriting the 30m block), or otherwise the footage is wanted, it can be preserved in full quality.
Similar to this is several types of car dashcams permanently record, but delete the oldest recordings to store newer ones, with an option to "protect" or otherwise save the last ~30 seconds and prevent it from being deleted.

Obviously buses will spend far more time travelling than a car does, and has several more cameras.

 

[Mwanesh]

Question; On many modern trains there is a button that the crew can press if they become aware of an incident on board which boosts the quality of the footage for a set period of time, so that the perpetrators can be more easily identified etc.
Do any bus systems feature a similar thing?

Drivecam has the function .You press the button the office can see straight away what has happened

 

[RJ]

I use CCTV systems from at least 4 different providers across my fleet, seem to get on ok with image quality across the board.