Protos 4, a new range of 36 mono, mono/colour and day/night cameras, will be unveiled at IFSEC 2005 by Vista, the UK brand of electronic security equipment.
Andrew Pigram, Vista Brand Director,says: "Following in the footsteps of Protos 3, the UK’s most successful camera range, Protos 4 offers the end user a vast array of choice from standard resolution mono cameras through to true day/night cameras. For installers we’ve introduced an array of new features that make Protos 4 amongst the easiest cameras to install and maintain. We are very confident that Protos will remain the UK’s best selling CCTV camera."
Protos 4 comprises 18 cameras each available in 12/24V or 240V power supply options. The range comprises mono, mono/colour and day/night cameras available with half inch or one-third inch SuperHAD or ExView chips and offering standard (330TVL colour, 380 TVL mono) resolution and high (535 TVL colour, 570 TVL mono) resolution image quality. Six cameras in the range offer day/night capabilities due to a mechanical filter within the camera to ensure 24 hour surveillance, providing colour images during the day and black and white images at night when used with IR lighting. "This is a significant technical improvement for Protos that will encourage installers to choose a true day/night camera to avoid the lack of sensitivity seen with an ordinary mono/colour camera where IR lighting is used … We consulted widely on the development of the Protos 4 range, and received over two hundred very useful feedback returns that fed directly into our product development process. We are determined to develop products that are easy to install, of high quality and reliable and meet the needs of end users regardless of size or application."
Vista point to the DVR function mode available on all six ExView HAD chip cameras in the range. The DVR mode makes optimum use of the digital video recorder’s disk space by enabling smaller file sizes to be recorded without loss of image quality. "It is tempting to sharpen the captured image around its edges but this increases noise and movement in the image which the DVR then struggles to compress", says Andrew Pigram. "The Protos 4 DVR mode compensates for this, thereby balancing the needs of the end user for a sharp image with the technical constraints imposed on image capture by the DVR.”
A second example of responsiveness to installers, according to the firm, is in the use of rotary switches rather than dip switches on cameras at the higher end of the range. "Rotary switches are much easier and more logical to configure especially if you’re standing at the top of a ladder in the open air," claims Andrew Pigram. "It’s also considerably easier to swivel a rotary switch through 0-9 than remember the binary order for a dip switch." A service jack on some models is to enable engineers to plug a monitor into the back of camera to check its configuration and positioning rather than having to unplug the coax connector that might disturb the cameras settings in the process.
