CCTV Glossary P to T

PAL

Phase Alternate Line - Video encoding standard for Europe.

Power Over Ethernet (PoE)

Power Over Ethernet is a method by which power is transmitted over a CAT-5/6 cable. This is often used with the installation of IP Cameras saving time/money by reducing cabling. An IP Device would need to be fitted with a PoE RJ45 port to use this functionality.

Peak to peak

Video Signal measurement from the base of the Sync pulse to the top of
the white level. A full video signal should be one volt.

PTZ

Pan Tilt Zoom - a camera which can be controlled via Joystick or DVR
and moved up/down, left/right and zoomed in/out.

Quad Splitter

A CCTV device used to display 4 cameras on one monitor.

Resolution

The number of horizontal lines a system can display.

Digital Resolution (e.g. 720 x 576)

720 = number of points in each row that make up the picture

576 = number of rows

RG59

A type of CCTV Coaxial cable used to transmit cctv camera video signals
to a CCTV System.

Sensitivity

The sensitivity of a camera is often configured on your digital surveillance
system. Motion Detection based recording uses relies on the sensitivity of the
cameras to trigger recording

Telemetry

Control of PTZ cameras is provided using Telemetry Control. This signal
is sent down 'twisted pair' cable or along the same coaxial cable the
video signal is being sent down. Typical Telemetry signals are RS-485
or RS-422.