how to view 1080p camera output on 1024x768 monitor

harrytherid

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HI all,

The title just about says it but I have a nice 8 inch 1024x768 (VGA) native resolution monitor which I wish to use as a monitor for a reversing and rear view camera in my motorhome to replace the old low resolution setup (460 lines if my memory serves me right). It seems that the best cameras I can get are 1080p which are not compatible with the analogue monitor. I am told that I should have a 960H which, according to my research, gives a significantly lower resolution. Any ideas ? The monitor has phono and VGA sockets.

Harry
 
So a 720 camera (digital) with a digital to analogue converter which the appropriate connections in the converter? Any digital camera that can be set to output 720 even if it is 1080P capable should do.

The conversion to 720 analogue would presumably work with the monitor. May be a black line top and bottom but the full 720 lines should show I would think.

To get more height pixels you need to convert a digital picture with the higher resolution to analogue to feed into to the monitor and display the pixels with no scaling (don't think analogue monitors can scale anyway - the picture size changes from memory).

Also when you say native resolution you do mean maximum it is capable of displaying I assume?

By the way a 960H camera is indeed widescreen analogue but for some reason (bigger number looks better maybe) the number is the minimum number of pixels width wise. Also the use of the width pixel number identifies it as widescreen in the ancient analogue world - the 480 height wasn't able to increase way back then :)

The resolution is 960x480 so it will work with your monitor with maybe better resolution in width (you don't state current width) but identical height resolution.

Edit - of course there may still be an issue since 720P camera resolution would mean 720 pixels height but would mean 1280 horizontal pixels width - also more than your monitor can display. Somewhere you would need a facility to change the analogue resolution or a camera that can output your monitor resolution - and that could be trickier
 
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Thanks outoftheknow,

What a lovely full answer. Ah so it is a digital to analogue converter I must look for. I have been trying to find resolution converters and, of course, failing.

So what you are telling me, I think, is that I need 1080p cameras (not much more expensive than 720p), a digital to analogue converter with BNC in and phono out (camera BNC out and monitor phono in).

The snags might be that I get a laterally squashed picture to match an un-squashed vertical (scaled if I understand you correctly) or with a bit of luck I will get the correct aspect ratio but with the spare pixels lost all round (un-scaled).

Yes by native resolution I mean what I take to be the design resolution i.e. 786432 pixels showing an aspect ration of 4X3.

Yes the existing is the measly 640 wide by 480 high (4X3) and is nowhere near good enough though much of the trouble is that there is no IR cut so in poor light the picture is even worse as the colours go all over the place.

I shall await your reply before shopping.

Kind regards, Harry
 
you might be better off looking for a dashcam with always on AV output
forget the VGA in on your monitor i think you will struggle finding a workable solution using it
 
I think you only need a 720P camera. That gives you digital 1980x720 resolution picture. Digital to analogue converter will give you an analogue 1280x720 resolution. I doubt your monitor will scale anything so you will have a picture that has narrow black lines top and bottom - 768-720 divided by 2 pixels wide. Then there will likely be overscan left and right - 1980-1024 pixels divided by 2 not visible each side.

Ideally of course you need an analogue camera that outputs 1024x768. Not sure they exisit though. The monitor would normally be attached to a video card and drivers that adjust resolutions. The cameras you are looking at probably don't have the capability :(

Most reversing cameras are around 480. Finding what the HD ones resolution is seems to be more difficult thAn accessing nuclear codes! Many say 720P but the screen in 4:3....

It may be easiest to get a kit so the screen is matched to the camera ..... :(
 
Thanks cosmicma,

I already have a working 480 (I think that's what it is) TVL system but it just is not good enough. When my wife's bike is strapped to the back it generates what I recently realised is an optical illusion at that low resolution that has caused me to back into several rocks and such. The mess to be repaired each time is quite distressing. I really do feel the need to improve it.

Is outoftheknow incorrect in his assertion, in your opinion.

And to outoftheknow, so far I have failed to find a video digital to analogue converter. Plenty of audio versions but, so far not Video.

Harry
 
I don't think I was asserting anything :) generally I think I am saying the same as @cosmicma - you want to use a screen you have and it isn't easy. The suggestion to use the dashcam with the always on AV output is a good one or don't use your current screen and get a kit if you don't want a dash cam - although those are good things to have nowadays :)

Edit - also strapping bikes on the back is likely to cause issues to vision from any reversing camera? Can you fit a roof mounted bike carrier?
 
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Thanks for the reply outoftheknow. My use of the word assert may have made it sound too strong, and indeed it can be read that way so sorry. No I was just referring to the fact that you had made a valid point.

The bikes on the back issue is just one of those things and has to be lived with. I would have the greatest difficulty getting a bike up on the roof and there are plenty of bridges etc we are unable to get under as it is. The number of times I have lost my one foot high DAB aerial to overhanging branches etc. hardly bears thinking about.

It seems you are telling me that the digital to analogue converter is not a viable option. It sounds, also, as though you are telling me I have wasted my money buying that monitor.

I don't see what a dash cam would do (apart from be a dash cam of course). Maybe if I describe the situation in more detail. The rear outside wall on which the two cameras are mounted is just about 22 feet from the windscreen. Between the two there is a wall with a door in it and even if driving with that door open were an option it would be no use for rear view. As a result, I have one camera looking straight back over the bike and which I use as a rear view mirror. There are wing mirrors as well, of course, but you would be surprised at how many people will drive right behind one in such a position that they do not show in either of the wing mirrors. The other camera looks down to ensure I don't hit anything when reversing. Without a bike it sees just about OK though even then a better camera would be good. With a bike there is a gap between the bike and the back bumper which the camera looks through. At home I have a piece of white plastic fixed to the ground which enables me to park very precisely which is important on my drive. Elsewhere, things like rocks can, with the low resolution and in the wrong light, look like the ground and I am at risk of running into them. All of this is compounded by the fact that my wife is very poor at seeing me back and can't get in and out very quickly anyway.

So as you might imagine I am quite keen to improve the resolution of my system.

Harry
 
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TVL describes analogue 'resolution'. 1000 lines means you would be able to see 500 light and 500 dark vertical lines across the width of the screen equivalent to the height of the screen. Not all the way across the whole width. 960H is widescreen. For PAL that is 960x576 and for NTC it is 960x480 (quoted earlier).

CCTV cameras are more designed for recording so you match those standards with the recorder and that has the ability to play back on screens. The connectors on the camera cable will probably need to be changed to suit your screen inputs.

You 'should' get an image 960x576 pixels on the screen so black all around to a degree unless the monitor scales.
 
Yes thanks, I was thinking the V stood for video not vertical. It sounded good, though. The camera and screen have matching inputs already as well as the screen having a VGA input; so that's not a problem. Maybe that 960X576 is the best I am going to do. I shall keep looking for a little longer though, You must be getting fed up with me.

Harry
 
I don't see what a dash cam would do (apart from be a dash cam of course).

Harry

a dash cam ( usually 720 or 1080p ) with AV output would give you a full standard definition video signal for your monitor of choice for not a lot of money
the picture quality tends to be better than a low cost low resolution cctv or reversing camera
the biggest issue if your mounting it on the outside of the vehicle is weatherproofing it as most dash cams or not weatherproof but it would be ideal to mount on the back window with an AV lead hooked up to your monitor.
they tend to have quite a wide angle of view so can be positioned quite reasonably

with an 8 inch monitor the resolution will not be as important as the overall video quality or clarity unfortunately most cheap cctv domes regardless of what resolution they boast offer neither and this is why i suggested a cheap dash cam which tend to offer better overall quality and clarity but i think you will be spending more than a tenner to achieve it

your best bet if you are looking at fitting a cctv dome is to go pay a visit to maplins or somewhere similar and have a look at whats on offer for the kind of money your willing to spend to see what type of camera would suite your needs
 
Yes thanks, I was thinking the V stood for video not vertical. It sounded good, though. The camera and screen have matching inputs already as well as the screen having a VGA input; so that's not a problem. Maybe that 960X576 is the best I am going to do. I shall keep looking for a little longer though, You must be getting fed up with me.

Harry
In case you hadn't found it TVL means TV Lines :)
 
Wow, thanks Cosmicma and outoftheknow. Am I getting confused or what. I have yet to investigate dashcams though I can not understand that if dash cams can do it why can't cctv cameras? Still if I can make a dashcam do the job then perhaps it will be the way to go. It is not beyond me to make a suitable weatherproof housing even if it means rebuilding the dashcam. The plot thickens. As for TVL that is what I thought it meant originally so I am even more confused.

Harry
 
TVL is confusing. It is not the number of lines the screen can display in either direction. It is analogue terminology and is the number of distinct dark and light vertical bands the display can show but only measured across to the same width distance as the screen height. So for example, say the screen is 12cm width and 9cm height, 1000 TVL would mean there were 1,000 distinct dark and light bands (500 each) displayed in 9cm across the width of the screen. Please ignore the screen size numbers here. Just an illustration of what TVL means.
 
Ah, thanks outoftheknow, So effectively it is the number of lines in the vertical plane. This is interesting as I have seen TVL quotations of higher yet but thinking what I did I bypassed them as irrelevant. I shall look again. It is still not yet time to give up, I feel. I have been looking at these dashcams that Cosmicma is talking about but in general I have reservations about all I have seen so far.
Harry
 
Ah, thanks outoftheknow, So effectively it is the number of lines in the vertical plane. This is interesting as I have seen TVL quotations of higher yet but thinking what I did I bypassed them as irrelevant. I shall look again. It is still not yet time to give up, I feel. I have been looking at these dashcams that Cosmicma is talking about but in general I have reservations about all I have seen so far.
Harry
Be careful - it is not effectively the number of lines in the vertical plane. The lines are vertical and measured from left to right but only the distance equal to the screen height. The vertical plane to me means all the way across the screen and that is not what it means if that is what you were thinking.

1000TVL is pretty good for analogue - next step up you are into digital and measuring by pixels really. The analogue CCTV cameras are pretty much all discontinued by the big manufacturers. The many you see on sale now are cheap mostly Chinese cameras feeding a market determined to hold on to what is inferior technology compared to modern cameras.
 
Great, I would be happy to go digital but on what do you view the output of these cameras, or having got something potentially on which to view it (a TFT flat screen like I have) how does one make the two compatible. This is my problem!

As to Plane:- In my Oxford English Dictionary it is a flat surface on which a straight line joining any two points would wholly lie. The direction or scale of that surface is immaterial, flatness does not necessarily imply parallelism to any particular axis.

Cheers, Harry
 
I'm not worried by what vertical plane means to each of us - that's why I was trying to explian what TVL means without using the word plane :)

Anyway the compatibility issue throughout is that you are looking at a seperate monitor and a CCTV camera to do the job of a reversing camera. CCTV cameras feed a recorder and that has the approprite technology in it to record the image at the optimum size the camera produces, then the recorder has a video output to suit the camera input and if the maker wants to they can add outputs of 'lesser' or alternative technology or connectors.

You should decide which tech you want to use - high resolution kits for the car are availble as are high resolution CCTV (Full HD) cameras and monitors that are matched if you don't use a recorder (like in the car). This all assumes you decide using your mismatched screen is too hard :)

As suggested a dash cam would record and some have an output you can match a screen too as well.

If you have a camera that outputs digital video and want to use an analogue input screen you need the digital to analogue converter/cables I already mentioned.
 
Thanks again,

The factory fitted reversing camera in my motorhome is the one I have the main problem with, in that its resolution is too low (always was). I added another camera to the system which looked identical to the original, and had a similar specification, to use as a rear view camera to fill in the enormous blind spot (big enough to hide most small commercial vehicles).

Just after the warranty ran out the first one began to mist up so I replaced it with one that exactly matched the second one. That one is 10 years old now so I figured that things must have moved on and thought I could buy a better resolution monitor and a pair of matching cameras. So I bought the highest resolution 8inch TFT monitor I could find (1024x768) It had to come from (oddly enough) Australia. I figured I would wait until it came and I could read its instructions and make enquiries as to the best camera to suit that monitor, before buying the cameras. That is the situation I am now in.

Now most of the 1080p cameras have a BNC output. My monitor has a BNC input and I can not get my head around why I can not plug the one into the other and get a picture of at least up to the 1024X768 but people keep telling me I can't.

This brings us to the digital/analogue converter, which would seem to me to be the way to go if that direct plug in is not possible. I remember you telling me about digital to analogue converters and I thought "Great". However, when I looked for such I kept coming up with digital to analogue AUDIO converters but not VIDEO. If you know of a digital to analogue video converter can you please direct me to it.

Harry
 
CCTV cameras often send their own flavour of digital video via BNC. This is based upon Serial Digital Video, but has just enough differences to stop it working with an SDI - analogue converter. (An HD-SDI - analogue converter is the thing you are searching for to convert your signal, but it is not what you really need by the way)

Have a look at a high resolution system from these chaps: Premium Reversing Camera Kits - Highest Spec... They offer a 700 line camera with an output that will plug into your monitor. Their systems use a similar screen to the one you have. They also offer dual camera systems, which would help with your blind spot problem as well.

Now, the important bit...
Resolution is less important than the lens angle and the camera's ability to cope with changing light levels. All the in-vehicle camera systems I have seen use analogue connection cameras at no more than 700 lines, as viewed on a 7" monitor, the extra resolution is not really viewable. This goes for the systems fitted to buses for security purposes as well as those fitted to trucks and used to spot other road users. HD is only really required for dash (crash) cams, as they allow the picture to be zoomed in to read number plates etc.

In summary, I think you need to ask some different questions, as I think you will then find the camera you need to solve your problem.
 
I think there may be confusion between resolution, TVL, analogue and digital here.

The cameras will produce either analogue video signals or digital video signals. The cable used usually gives hints as to which it is since most connectors you see are mainly used for one signal or the other.

Initially I presumed you were looking at digital Cameras and you have a monitor with only analogue input connectors so far described. For a digital signal to display on such a monitor there needs to be something to process the digital signal and that can be in the monitor (unlikely where there are no commonly used digital inputs such as DVI or HDMI for example) or in the camera or in between. So you would need to add a video digital to analogue convertor externally and provide the analogue video signal to an appropriate input on the monitor. You are correct in that the video converters are rare due to various licensing restrictions and the fact the decices have the needed processors built in behind the connections you can see. At this point forget resolutions etc - VGA was always capable of higher resolution than Full HD as long as analogue sender and receiver devices sent and received it.

Now it seems you definitely have a monitor with only analogue inputs. BNC is analogue although in a very few cases it might be found in professional video equipment using a very specialised Serial Digital Interface standard. As a consumer you can ignore that on the whole since it sends uncompressed digital video with no controls on recording etc. in the consumer world BNC connectors tell you it is an analogue video camera.

If your monitor has BNC inputs you should be able to plug it straight in and see what picture you get. If those inputs turn out to be RCA that is ok too since all you then need is an adaptor.

This might help as well

How to Connect a CCTV Camera Directly to a TV Monitor

Once you connect the analogue camera to the analogue monitor the displayed resolution will become clear. The monitor may have the ability to display the inputted resolution on all its pixels automatically or manually (scaling). Or it may show the exact pixels it receives so where the monitor has more pixels than the camera produces you get black lines. If it has less than the camera produces you get the bit of the picture it can display and the edges of the picture will not display (overscan).

The link also explains the digital side of HD CCTV cameras and connecting them directly to monitors/screens but that doesn't seem to apply to your setup - it may help explain digital video a little better than me though! :)
 

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