I spent quite a lot of time today, fiddling with a new piece of kit I have got ( a special birthday present….. when asked what I wanted, I have said money towards a 16 channel splitter….. you can imagine the response!) I got it at the end of last week, opened it and got the instruction manual out…. read it… read it again… and it made no sense at all! Who writes these manuals???
Anyway, this bit of kit lets you look at up to 16 cams and display then as a 4, 8 or 16 and a selection of combinations in between. To live stream, though you need about 25 fps, so I would not really want to show more than 8 or 9 at once as with a total of 200fps, it would not stream properly.
The spec of this kit (for anyone interested!) is:
Features
16 image split display, 8 image split display，Quad image display
Each image quality can independently adjust。
The image can auto switch each other
2 PIP functions and 1PIP function, each PIP position can be adjustable and display channel number can be edited
Dual Split function，each picture position can adjustable and display channel number can be edited.
ZOOM function，A zoomed area can be moved while zoom function is invoked.
High Quality image freeze function，more than one image can freeze in different channel.
Each channel number can be edited
Screen position and the length time of alarm can be adjustable.
With IR remote controller
Support PTZ control function and RS232 controller
Power supply: DC：12v/2.5A
Specifications
Video system
NTSC/PAL
Image Refurbish
PAL：25 f/s；NTSC：30f/s
Total Rate
200f/s (PAL) ; 240f/s (NTSC)
Resolution
PAL：720×576；NTSC：720×480
Video input
16 channel video signal input ,1Vp-p,75Ω
1 channel recording playback video signal input, 1Vp-p,75Ω
Video output
1 channel master monitor output, 1Vp-p,75Ω
1 channel assistant monitor output, 1Vp-p,75Ω
Audio input
4 channel input（RCA）
Audio ouput
1 channel output（RCA）
Control port
PTZ and RS232 controller
Auto switch
0~99sec
Event record
60 groups
Alarm out
No
language
English
Video adjust
Brightness ,Contrast, Saturation, Hue, Sharpness can be adjustable
Power Consumption
7.2W(600mA)
Power Supply
DC 12V
Operation Environment
-10℃~ +60℃
The ‘PIP’ function, is ‘Picture in Picture’ where you have a background image, with another smaller window. I tend not to use this as the smaller windows usually obscure an important part of the main image. The other screen split options were pretty good though and you will see these on my live stream over the coming weeks. You can then show different combinations of 4 cams and 9 all together which are a bit small on the screen, but usable I think.
The challenge came to wiring the whole thing up so different combinations worked without doubling up on multiscreen and so night cams could show individually as a quad, and the cams that sometimes showed both day and night could do so…. etc etc… turned into one of those mathematical type problems…. ended up drawing it all on a piece of paper to look at all the different combinations with all the different cams – it took some time. I do actually have 16 different cameras… I was not planning on using all 16, but to achieve the combinations I wanted, I needed to. I then ran out of BNC to phono adaptors – these let you plug your camera into the splitter… A trip to Maplins resulted in 4 extra ones, but still need a few more to really fine tune the system.
The great advantage now is that I don’t need to keep plugging and unplugging cameras, which is what I was doing before. Once I get the extra connectors, I will be able to have a quad view of night cams. At the moment, I am scrolling between them.
I also took the opportunity to have a tidy up cable-wise under my desk… still a spaghetti junction, but a little less of a messy one!!
Comments