The cameras and doorbells from Ring can often record in full HD (1920x1080p), with a few exceptions. While this is advantageous, Ring cameras also use a wide-angle lens that captures a significant amount of film — at the expense of overall detail quality, of course.
While you may zoom in on Ring recordings by using a two-finger squeeze, the overall quality of the recording will suffer due to the reduced overall detail (especially at night). In most cases, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make out license plate numbers on automobiles.
If you like video, please look at the YouTube instruction for this film, included below. If so, kindly keep perusing!
Ring camera and doorbell recording quality
The Ring was one of the first smart doorbell manufacturers to bring a product to market, debuting the Ring Video Doorbell 1 in 2013. It was filmed in 720p, 1280 x 720 pixels, and is considered “HD ready.”
Since then, Ring has developed a variety of smart cameras and doorbells, all of which record in ‘full HD’ 1080p, which is 1920 x 1080 pixels, all of which are compatible with Apple iOS devices. While the difference may not seem significant, full HD can capture more than double the number of pixels as 720p.
When I notice “pixels,” I typically refer to the degree of clarity and detail captured. For example, 1080p will record a higher level of information than 720p.
Using my 1080p Ring Doorbell Pro as an example, here are some video grabs taken from the device:
As you can see, they have captured a high amount of detail, which is very astounding for a doorbell! Ring cameras, on the other hand, capture the same amount of detail.
Ring gadgets record when movement is recognized, and they might record a video cut going on around one moment. Another choice is to be interested in a live view meeting, which allows you to watch what’s filmed in real-time and lasts up to 10 minutes. Finally, when a Ring Doorbell is activated, it will record the sound of the doorbell. No Ring gadgets offer the capacity to record every minute of every day, in any case.
While the amount of detail supplied by Ring’s devices is pretty high, anything taken more than a few yards distant from the device will not be of exceptional quality, according to the company. It would be impossible, for example, to acquire the license plate number of a vehicle parked directly in front of me since the image would be too hazy.
As a result, I wanted to go through the many zoom choices available to you and see if any of them might give you beneficial information when you need it.
Zooming in – Ring app
· When watching recordings in the Ring app (or if you’re in live view), you might zoom in and out by squeezing the screen with two fingers. To put it another way:
· For a closer look: Bring two fingers together and then pull the fingers apart as if you were looking through a magnifying glass.
· To zoom out: Spread two fingers away from each other and then bring them closer together.
As you can see, the image quality varies depending on how close you zoom in. Since the camera is in night vision mode, everything shot at night will be grainy and obstructed in any case, and zooming in will never be very helpful.
On the other hand, the daytime zoom is superior — I can tell that the parked van belongs to some window firm based on the emblem and the word “WINDOWS” on the side of the vehicle. Heck, I can even make out that the company’s name is… wait… “[Word] of [word] WINDOWS.” Okay, that’s not that helpful, to be honest.
The reason why zooming in is never completely satisfactory is because Ring devices (as well as virtually all of its competitors) are only equipped with a single camera lens: a “1x” wide-angle lens that is fine for items close to the lens but not so good for objects far away from the lens.
This is fairly amazing when you realize that it is all done with a doorbell, and I can make out the words “of” and “WINDOWS” from a vehicle parked up 20+ meters (64+ feet) away!! Ten years ago, doorbells just created a ringing sound when touched, indicating that the present status of smart doorbells and cameras is much more sophisticated.
However, this knowledge is useless if you have been robbed or seen anything suspicious. You wish to get license plate numbers or further information from a recording to provide to the authorities as evidence.
Because Ring’s digital zoom of 8-10x isn’t very practical, may studying things on a computer be more beneficial?
Zooming in – computer
The 1080p accounts from your Ring cameras and doorbells might be seen by visiting Ring.com (or by downloading the Ring app). Although they are higher resolution than when seen on a mobile phone, the quality of the images remains the same, with 1920 x 1080 pixels being the resolution.
The same can be said when watching the footage on Ring.com, where zooming is not genuinely a choice – it is just not available. Instead, you must download the movie by selecting it using the right-click menu and then selecting “Save target as.” This will download it to your computer, where you can then play it again using the video player built into your computer.
If your video player has a zoom option, use it by zooming in on this page. However, if this is not the case, try using VLC Player is completely free and has a digital zoom feature.
You may activate ‘Interactive Zoom’ by traveling to the following locations: • Tools… may be found in the menu bar.
• Filters and effects are available.
• Video Effects & Transitions.
• Geometry.
• Zoom in and out with your mouse.
• Select ‘Save’ from the drop-down menu.
When you play your video, a window will open in the upper left corner, enabling you to drag the white box to indicate what should zoom in in the main video area.
This is a reasonable amount of magnification — perhaps a 6-8x digital zoom, comparable to the zoom available via the Ring app on a mobile phone.
You won’t suddenly start seeing an increased degree of detail since you’re still just using the digital zoom (i.e., software-based) technique. It’s not like a high-end camera or the newest smartphone with a zoom lens (also known as a telephoto lens) and can capture video recordings that are physically zoomed in.
You may try to put the film into movie mode’ and see if you can improve any of it in a picture editor. As a result, I took a screen capture (by hitting the ‘Prt Sc’ keyboard button) and pasted the image into a text documentPhotopea – a fantastic, free, browser-based picture editor that is well worth your time. Naturally, you may use any picture editor with sharpening and enhancing features to get the same results.
In the example above, I removed just the portion of the film that I was interested in, and then I proceeded to Filters -> Sharpen -> Smart Sharpen to enhance the image. This allowed me to experiment with various settings in an attempt to enhance the image quality.
You can see that I couldn’t discern the actual business name. Still, it’s a significant improvement over the previous image, which is particularly impressive when you (remember) that this vehicle is parked up to 20m/64′ (or even farther) away.
Summary: There will always be a limit to how much information you can see in Ring’s video recordings, regardless of how good they are. However, although movies (and television series such as NCIS) sometimes depict camera technicians zooming in and extracting a tremendous amount of information from a single fuzzy film, the truth is slightly different: it is not possible to miraculously achieve excellent quality from any area of a video.
Nest Hello’s zoom compared.
Nest Hello is the closest competitor to the Ring Doorbell, and they have a dedicated help page on their website, zoom, and enhancement features.
Like Ring, Nest Hello is equipped with a single “1x” wide-angle lens (no telephoto or zoom lens); therefore, it must rely on 8x digital zoom to capture images.
Nest Hi, then again, has a helpful capacity: improve. It is possible to designate a portion of the doorbell’s view to concentrate on, and any recordings made after that point will be zoomed in on that portion of the view and automatically improved.
While you can’t zoom out of recorded clips after they’ve been recorded (you can only cancel the enhanced mode, and then what will zoom out future recordings again), this is a useful feature because it allows you to get more information about specific areas that you are interested in learning more about.
All of this is made conceivable because of Google’s cutting-edge picture AI, which is the same type of technology that is used in Google Pixel phones to enable very high levels of ‘zooming in’ even with a single “1x” lens on the phone (such as with the Pixel 3).
However, although it is said that you cannot improve pre-recorded movies, if you see a suspicious car parked nearby, you may always briefly zoom in and enhance this region to gain a higher level of information.
Similarly, if some of your doorbell videos are blocked by a wall or siding, the ability to zoom out and view the important areas of your outside is a convenient function. One that Ring, sadly, does not provide.
