[AG-TECH] Image quality

[Osland, CD (Chris)]

Nothing about your equipment, of itself, should cause any major
image quality deterioration.  Of course, if the camera has been
used before and left pointed at a bright source for a long time,
say in a surveillance role, it could be the problem.  Equally if
someone has set up the monitors for a particular application, they
could be the problem.  If you have a decent AV department around,
you could try to eliminate the camera as the problem by plugging
in a video signal generator instead, with it set to colour bars,
and see how they come out - they should really shine on a PC
monitor.  If they do, then try a different camera.  If they don't,
look at the display side of things.  Make sure you don't have any
excessive cable runs - many cameras don't have very powerful output
drivers and the first thing to go can be colour.  Also check you
are using proper video cable from camera to capture card - an
underspecified cable will lose high frequencies (say above 3 MHz)
more than lower ones, and so reduce the colour information.

Cheers

Chris

____________________________________________________________________
Chris Osland                                               Office tel: +44
(0) 1235 446565
Digital Media and Access Grid                          Medialab tel: +44 (0)
1235 446459
BIT Department                                     Access Grid room tel: +44
(0) 1235 445666
e-mail:   C.D.Osland at rl.ac.uk                                       Fax: +44
(0) 1235 445597
CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (Bldg. R18)
Chilton, DIDCOT, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov]On
> Behalf Of Natalia Costas Lago
> Sent: 13 May 2004 08:43
> To: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> Subject: [AG-TECH] Image quality
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> 
> We have noticed that image color in our videostream seems to 
> have a lack of
> ....accuracy to reality... i've seen other video streams that seem to
> reflect colors better and probably in a more real way. I was 
> wondering where
> in the chain we can fix that. We are using a provisional Sony EVI D30
> camera, pinnacle pctv pro capture cards (i've tried as well 
> with osprey 500,
> osprey 100 and hauppauge wintv go). Our display grahpics card 
> is a nvidia
> quadro nvs and, finally, our display right now is composed of 
> a brand new
> fujitsu TFT and a plasma TV.
> 
> The codecs we are using are h261 (i think h263 cant be used 
> with AG2.1.2 so
> far, is there any date about when will it be available?).
> 
> Can anyone give us a piece of advice where we can improve our 
> video quality?
> 
> Kind regards and thank you in advance.
> Natalia.
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------
> Natalia Costas Lago
> email: natalia at cesga.es
> 
> Centro de Supercomputacion de Galicia (CESGA)
> Avenida de Vigo, s/n Campus Sur
> 15705 Santiago de Compostela - SPAIN
> Tel:   +34  981 56 98 10
> Fax:  +34  981 59 46 16
> http://www.cesga.es/
> 
>