Add more image processing to stream (brightness / contrast)
Hi Ben
First of all, what a great product! Congratulations!
Would it be possible to add more image processing functions to SecuritySpy? In addition to flip, mirror and rotate, it would be great to be able to adjust the brightness and/or contrast of video streams.
Background: I have a camera, which is installed in my cellar where we keep our cat litter boxes (it's the Sh*Cam :-). It's mostly running in IR mode and I get a decent, but not great video stream. The front is too bright and the back, where the boxes are, is too dark. If I could adjust the brightness and contrast, it would work great. I have done that by pre-processing the stream with VLC (rotating and adjusting brightness) and then point SecSpy at the VLC-processed stream, but it would be great to omit that step and have the image processing be done by SecSpy directly.
Cheers,
Stefan
Switzerland
First of all, what a great product! Congratulations!
Would it be possible to add more image processing functions to SecuritySpy? In addition to flip, mirror and rotate, it would be great to be able to adjust the brightness and/or contrast of video streams.
Background: I have a camera, which is installed in my cellar where we keep our cat litter boxes (it's the Sh*Cam :-). It's mostly running in IR mode and I get a decent, but not great video stream. The front is too bright and the back, where the boxes are, is too dark. If I could adjust the brightness and contrast, it would work great. I have done that by pre-processing the stream with VLC (rotating and adjusting brightness) and then point SecSpy at the VLC-processed stream, but it would be great to omit that step and have the image processing be done by SecSpy directly.
Cheers,
Stefan
Switzerland
Comments
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Hi Stefan,
Glad you like the software, and thanks for the suggestion.
While it's a good idea in principal, adding any function to change the brightness, contrast or any other image adjustment, would require SecuritySpy to decompress and then compress the video again in software, which uses significant CPU time and degrades image quality.
Ideally, to keep computer CPU usage low and to preserve image quality, you want SecuritySpy to be saving the video data from the camera directly to disk, with no software recompression.
And in general, modern cameras do a good job at producing a well-balanced image, especially if you go for a camera made by a quality manufacturer (Axis, Canon, Sony etc.), though what you describe is typical of IR night-vision, where the foreground is very well-lit by the camera's IR lights but the background remains very dark. Making the background lighter would probably just amplify the noise without producing any useful detail. I think if you really need detail in the background then it's best to install one or more IR LED illuminators in the room, which are inexpensive and easy to install. -
Hi Stefan,
I agree with Ben on the recommendation for IR LED illuminators. They are widely available on Amazon and eBay and for your particular setup it doesn't sound like you're going to require an expensive crazy illuminator. Something like the illuminator (or even less powerful than what was reviewed at the link below) would likely produce a much more satisfactory image quality for you.
Tri-Illuminator Review:
http://www.networkcameracritic.com/?p=2434 -
Thanks for the comments and suggestions, Ben & cstout.
I will use the VLC route. After all, that's what computers are for, to burn CPU cycles. I get a satisfactory solution with the image processing option and don't have to buy any more hardware.
Happy New Year!
