Introducing ColorVu Cameras

The color of an intruder’s outfit. The shade of the perpetrator’s car. When it comes to tackling crime, being able to record accurate color video often captures vital evidence that can transform the progress of an investigation.

However, in dark locations or when night falls, the vast majority of conventional surveillance cameras lose their ability to render color, relying instead on stark supplementary lighting or infra-red to mimic the effects of day.

The problem is, this completely changes the quality and accuracy of the color image, which makes it far less reliable for security purposes.

The solution: Hikvision’s ColorVu technology
Hikvision ColorVu Cameras are purpose-built to capture reliable, detailed chromatic video images in even the darkest of settings. This powerful ability comes from two market-leading capabilities that were first developed by Hikvision and our technology partners, and which can only be found together in our cameras: advanced lenses, and high sensitivity sensors.

Unlike conventional lenses, ColorVu lenses are equipped with a super-aperture, reaching up to F1.0. This technology allows four times more light to enter the lens than a conventional camera with F2.0, for optimized image brightness. 

Figure 1. The unique ColorVu aperture. The amount of light entering the F1.0 aperture is four times that of F2.0.

The lenses also feature Broad-Band Anti-Reflection (BBAR) Coating and Extra-Low Dispersion (ED) optical glass, to reduce light flare and efficiently reproduce an image’s sharpness and color saturation.

ColorVu high sensitivity sensors, meanwhile, employ a new light-collection structure that vastly improves the utilization of available light. This does a much better job of rendering natural-looking light and color in dark locations.

Not your standard supplementary light
Naturally, there will be some scenarios – such as inside an office or a retail premises – when some supplementary light is needed. However, the standard white light used within most video cameras will never recreate natural-looking nighttime video. What’s more, this kind of light generates significant pollution, and can be a disturbance to anyone in the vicinity.

To resolve this, ColorVu cameras are equipped with warm, organic supplementary light. This delivers a more balanced picture, richer colors, and an overall rendering that’s much more realistic.

Bringing it all together
It’s bringing all of these elements together – the super aperture, advanced sensors, organic supplementary lighting and digital noise reduction – that enables ColorVu cameras to capture a rainbow of colors in the darkest of environments.

Key ColorVu features

• 24/7 chromatic video recording
  in low- and zero- light environments.
• F1.0 super-aperture lenses
  to capture four times the light of standard F2.0 video camera lenses.
• High sensitivity sensors
  to improve the utilization of available light for a better quality image.
• Warm supplementary lighting
  guaranteeing colorful imaging without light pollution or any harsh discoloration of the object being illuminated. The luminance is adjustable on a scale of 0-100.
• Self-adapting Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) algorithm on ISP
  reducing image noise for high quality image reproduction