Are you currently using a CCTV camera to monitor your home or business and thinking of upgrading your cameras to 4K? Do you need to buy a 4K camera or should you stick to your current setup? What are the necessary actions that you should take if you need to upgrade your surveillance system? This article will try to answer all the questions as well as give you a comparison of the different camera resolutions.

Comparison of CCTV cameras of varying resolution

4K Ultra HD security cameras

These cameras have a 3840*2160 resolution with over 8 million pixels. They are also known as 8MP or 2160p security cameras. 4K cameras may not fit into your budget. Neither are they very common. But these cameras can greatly enhance the quality of your surveillance.

1440p Super HD security cameras

These cameras are also known as 4MP or 2K cameras. They give a resolution of 2560×1440. They have over 3.6 million pixels per image. These are mainstream CCTV cameras and quite popular as they give much better output than 1080p and 720p cameras.

1080p Full HD security cameras

These security cameras have a resolution of 1920×1080. These camera images have over 2 million pixels per image. They are widely used for general purpose video surveillance. These cameras may fail to capture minute details from a distance.

720p HD security cameras

These are the basic HD cameras offering a resolution of 1280×720 and a little less than 1 million pixels per image. The rising demand for higher resolution cameras have made the demand for these cameras fall in the recent times.

Comparison of various aspects of HD cameras

1. Image Quality

The higher the resolution, the more details you will be able to capture. Therefore 4K cameras will give you the best image when compared to 1440p, 1080p and 720p cameras. If you want to capture details like number plates, you will have to use either a 4K camera or a 2K camera. 1080P and 720p cameras may not have number plate recognition feature.

2. Field of View

Higher megapixel cameras often come with wide angle lens. This means that a 4K camera will have wider field of view when compared to a 2K or 1080p camera.

3. Bandwidth & storage consumption

The higher the resolution the more will be the memory consumption. In the legacy H.264 encoding, 8MP cameras will consume more storage and bandwidth than 4MP or 2MP cameras. But with H.265 encoding one can reduce memory consumption by up to 50%. So this makes using 8MP quite cost effective. Even then if you are planning to upgrade your camera to 8MP you should consider upgrading your storage as well.