Why is it that TVs and computers can have crystal clear pictures but bank and other crime-fighting cameras can barely make out an object is human?

It's call night vision monitor camera (they take 540000 pictures an hour). If you use a flash the thief might steal the camera too and lose your monitor. A Motion senor light might be an alternative to get a better picture without alerting anyone you are being monitored.

@Whiskers: A few reasons:

* Mostly because the security industry is stodgy. A lot of companies are still selling overpriced "coax" / "analog" cameras based on the '40s and '50s NTSC technology of that old television you gave away years ago. In some cases they're sold as "super-high" resolution, which might mean 650 horizontal lines, interlaced (more like 325). That compares poorly to the 1080 horizontal lines of your HDTV.

* TV shows and movies have camera operators who zoom in on the interesting parts. Security cameras usually don't. They're set up in a fixed direction with a wide zoom to cover the whole property. This exacerbates the low resolution. The photo here was probably cropped from a larger image.

* Unfavorable lighting. TV crews carefully arrange the lighting for each shot. Security cameras mostly work with what's there. In low light, they have to choose between noise and motion blur. In direct sunlight, they get bad glare. When there's portions of light and shadow, they might capture one well, and it probably won't be the one you want.

There are definitely better cameras on the market than the ones this place was using. You can buy full HD cameras at $300 for a pair. Web Link In a few years, they'll probably have good HDR cameras at the same price.

@dc: "Night vision" means "infrared". These cameras run at the usual frame rate. I'm not sure where you heard 540000 pictures per hour. They usually have their own infrared light source, which also produces some visible red light. (The one I mentioned above has a ring of red dots around it when in infrared mode.) They don't have to be hidden. The video is usually not stored on the camera, so if the thief takes the camera, you'll likely keep the nice close-up of the thief's face.

Typo correction 15 fps x 60 sec 60 min = 54,000 images to store each hour the problem is without extra light the IR pictures are still low resolution