General Idea: On-screen Display (OSD) or Image Control
In this article, you will learn some of the most useful On-screen Display (OSD) or Image Control settings that may 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.
What type of recorder do you have?
- DVR - 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
- NVR - 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.
To access the OSD on your DVR (such as DVR8-5580), 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.
NOTE: 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.
To access the Image Control on your NVR (such as NVR8-8580):
- Go to Menu then Display
- Select Image Control
- Click on the gear icon of the channel you want to configure
To exit, right click on your mouse.
To learn more about Image Control, check out Display: Image Control on your NVR's manual.
Check out these key terms used in CCTV camera settings
- 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.