General Idea: On-screen Display (OSD) or Image Control
Tags: On-screen Display, OSD settings, image control, camera image quality, adjust brightness, adjust contrast, adjust saturation, adjust hue, DVR camera settings, NVR camera settings, PRO camera OSD, NHD camera image control, camera exposure settings, white balance adjustment, IR-cut mode, day and night mode, backlight compensation, wide dynamic range, WDR settings, camera fine-tuning
On-screen Display (OSD) or Image Control lets you fine-tune the image quality of your camera if the default setting is not your kind of thing. You may think of it as in-depth settings of your well known Hue, Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast settings that most TV has; but for cameras.
Type of Camera
- PRO (DVR camera) - it uses a siamese cable to connect to the camera. It was called 'siamese' because it has 2 connectors on each end: BNC (for video) and power
- NHD (NVR camera) - it uses an Ethernet cable to connect to the camera. These are PoE cameras (Power over Ethernet) hence there's no need for a power connector.
How to Access the OSD or Image Control
PRO and NHD are the first 3 characters of your camera's model number.
Choose which camera do you have:
PRO cameras
To access the OSD of your PRO camera via the DVR's interface, you can select a channel first until the camera toolbar appears. Then:
- Click the PTZ icon
- Click the center button in the PTZ controls
Use the arrow keys for navigation and the center button for selecting an option.
To exit, right click on your mouse.
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NOTE: Not all PRO cameras have OSD in it as some are just plug-and-play.
Also, on older camera models, press the UP / DOWN arrow to navigate to the EXIT option, then press the center button to select the option.
To learn more about OSD (On-screen Display), check this manual.
NHD cameras
Here's how to access the Image Control on your NHD camera via the NVR's interface.
- Go to Menu then Display
- Select Image Control
- Click on the gear icon of the channel you want to configure
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To learn more about Image Control, check out Display: Image Control on your NVR's manual (select your NVR from the list, then download the manual from the Manual tab).
What Does Each Setting Do
- Exposure - can affect brightness, motion blur, shadows, and highlights.
- Shutter - directly affects motion blur and brightness. If the value is low, you will get less motion blur but a darker image than the previous setting. If the value is high, it will increase the brightness but may result in motion blur on some speed.
- Brightness - as the name suggests; everything will be brighter if the value is high.
- WDR - Wide Dynamic Range; balance the shadows or dark areas and lowering the brightest area; used to avoid losing details due to too much darkness or brightness.
- Backlight - increases the exposure or brightness of a selected area; used for areas where the sun or light is causing the subject to be dark or as a silhouette.
- White Balance - controls how warm (towards orange color) or cool (towards blue color) the image should be, or just leave it on Auto.
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IR-Cut Mode or Day & Night - mainly lets you choose:
- Auto (automatically switches to black and white if it is dark)
- Color (stays on color and won't use IR during dark)
- B&W (stays on black and white while using IR); more options are available depending on the camera model.
- Noise Reduction - smoothens the image, therefore, losing details in the image (may look like low quality is overdone).
- Mirror or Flip - flips the image horizontally, vertically, or both (equivalent to 180-degree rotation).
- Defog - reduces the haziness of an image; makes the image a bit sharper.