I am looking at adding a camera to my system, and have come down to a couple of choices. But they have different chips, one is a Sony 1/3 SuperHAD and the other is a Sony HQ1. I would like to know what the difference is between the two. The camera is to cover my driveway and front yard which are pretty dark so I would like one that is good in very low light. Both camera are equiped with IRs.

The camera that I am leaning towards has the HQ1 ccd, with a signal to noise ratio of 52 which appears to be one of the best that I have seen but if it is not very good in low light I will not be very happy.

Thanks,
GB

I think you may be falling foul of unclear or poor marketing and specifications. Firstly, SnR on its own is not a good indicator of sensitivity, so the camera with the best SnR may not be the most sensitive.

Also I think that HQ1 is a DSP and not a CCD so you can't compare the two.

Ok thanks, so which do you think is better in low light with a IR camera, the HQ1 or a Super HD?

It's not possible to say. SuperHAD is a type of CCD whereas HQ1 is a DSP not a CCD so it is like comparing apples with oranges.

Anyone that says HQ1 CCD (and many do) has it wrong.

Cameras have a CCD and a DSP. The CCD is the chip that you know as the sensor, this bit captures the light and it is fair to say that Sony make the best ones (in general cctv anyway) and the DSP is the processor that does the rest. The bigger the CCD the better it is at low light, the sizes are 1/6, 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2" with 1/2" being the most sensitive. Sony make a number of ranges of CCD, SuperHAD, HyperHAD, ExviewHAD and a new one I don't know the name of. The sensitivity goes up as I've listed them. Now this is a bit of a sweeping statement but the CCD goes a long way to determining a cameras low light performance. So if you have two cameras from two reasonable manufacturers that use the same CCD then they will perform about the same. I'm sure that will cause some arguement but it's my opinion.

Any way if you have one spec saying HyperHAD then you know the CCD in that camera (and it's an ok one) but if the other camera says HQ1 CCD then I think they have it wrong and HQ1 is the DSP that gives 520 TVL. It may use a HyperHAD ccd but then again it may not.

I just want to know if one is better than the other with respects to low light situations.

The HQ1 is in the specs of a couple of the cameras that I have looked at and wondering if it worth considering.

Thanks

I have some cameras set up with the Sony Super HAD and HQ1 chipset, pm me and I will let you view them

HQ1 has nothing to do with low light performance. It is a DSP that gives better resolution (520TVL). If you want to compare sensitivity you need to find out what CCD the HQ1 camera uses.

CameraGimp...Thanks now I understand.

dopalgangr...do not have enough posts to PM.

I got your pm I gues you have enough posts now :lol: