Robbed!

[sda]

My neighbors across the street got robbed yesterday.

I was home all day and didn't see anything, so they may not have come in from the front. Another neighbor said she noticed a suspicous car a couple of days ago, but didn't take down the license. If I had some cameras, at least I'd be able to review the last couple of days and see what was going on out in front of my house.

Can somebody point me in the right direction(s) for setting up a video surveillance system?

I can get a 4 camera DVR system (Q-See) for $500 from costco.com that appears to do "a lot".
The cameras don't look to be PT and probably not Z either, but not sure if I care.

Or can I put together a similar/better system for a bit less/more money?

Or? Or?

 

[electron]

My concern would be the quality of the cameras, but Costco's return policy is supposedly really good, so might be worth a shot.

 

[dBeau]

Or can I put together a similar/better system for a bit less/more money?

Or? Or?

I'm far from an expert in the area, but I set up a couple of cameras more to "keep an eye on things" than to really try to catch anyone being evil. I am a big fan of ZoneMinder. I bought an 8 channel video card and put it in an old machine I had lying around... 2.5ghz celeron with 1gb of ram and 250gb for disk. I'm currently running four cameras and it seems to keep up... unless the weather is really bad. ZoneMinder does great job of motion detection and only saves video clips when there is motion. It's very configurable. The cameras I chose were about $200 each. They have built in IR. For the most part they work great (1/3" Sony CCD). My biggest problem is weather related. When it rains or snows at night the IR shines on the weather an fills the image with motion. ZoneMinder then records it. If the IR were not on the camera itself, but 10 or so feet off to the side, I suspect it would work much better. Under good conditions, you can make out a face at 15-20 feet and car's make and model at much further. Before going with the $200 cameras, I tried some really cheap ones just to see how bad they were. They were bad... blury with weak IR. For inside, they might have done the trick. I know you can spend a *lot* more on a camera than $200. I decided that it wasnt worth it to spend less.

 

[damage]

I can get a 4 camera DVR system (Q-See) for $500 from costco.com that appears to do "a lot".
The cameras don't look to be PT and probably not Z either, but not sure if I care.

if you wait til 3/2 that system goes on sale for $299...

 

[123]

If you don't have a home-security system in place, you may want to invest in one prior to acquiring a video-surveillance system. The priority ought to be to deter and thwart a burglary. Preventing the crime is much more productive than acquiring video-evidence, expecially for typical residential applications.

On the other hand, if the goal is to simply satisfy your curiousity then the (discounted) Q-See system may be all you need. Consider it an inexpensive ticket to the wide-world of video-surveillance ... kind of like that first, inexpensive telescope people buy because it claims it'll provide "amazing views of the stars, planets, galaxies and more!".

 

[electron]

I have to agree that an alarm system would be better. In order to actually recognize someone / something on camera, you need a pretty decent dvr system, with some really good cameras (unless you have access to the magic magnification add-ons the CSI television series uses).

 

[personalt]

the problem with the cheap system is low light conditions. I put togther some IP cameras for a construction site. in good light the $150 camera wasn't a lot different from the $500 camera. However it weak light the cheaper camera was horrible.

unlikely you are going to pick up license plates with anything you are talking about here.... but if you can get some good light a cheaper set might not too bad as far as what you can pick up..

I run milestone xprotect with ip cameras but the software alone is more then that system... But my main goal was being able to view all 5 cameras in sync so I could see when a worker walked from one floor the other without switching playback.

webcamproshop.com has some nice cameras.

My neighbors across the street got robbed yesterday.

I was home all day and didn't see anything, so they may not have come in from the front. Another neighbor said she noticed a suspicous car a couple of days ago, but didn't take down the license. If I had some cameras, at least I'd be able to review the last couple of days and see what was going on out in front of my house.

Can somebody point me in the right direction(s) for setting up a video surveillance system?

I can get a 4 camera DVR system (Q-See) for $500 from costco.com that appears to do "a lot".
The cameras don't look to be PT and probably not Z either, but not sure if I care.

Or can I put together a similar/better system for a bit less/more money?

Or? Or?

 

[Brightan]

I have a Q-see system and although it is a great value for the money, you still get what you pay for. I have been disappointed with the motion sensing ability as there are many times that it fails to trigger on the most obvious things, cars driving onto the driveway, people standing at the front door etc. In the summer the IR lights attract all the bugs and the motion sensing triggers almost continuously at night. At the same time, they recently had a 16 camera DVR system on sale for $1200...pretty darn inexpensive and I can still have a web browser on my computer and watch all the camera's at once and also check them remotely as well. So, the bottom line is, well, you decide...
(one more thing, their newer models might be better at the motion sensing part, I don't know)

 

[ano]

People usually get excited about the James Bond value of cameras, and sometimes they forget about the reality. First, at least some crimes happen at night. Is your cameras going to capture enough information about a car or person walking by at night to be useful? Certainly a $50 camera isn't. Second, most of these cameras are wide-angle, so one can cover a large area. The downside, the image looks further away so its even harder to make out details. Third, what resolution is the images saved at? If its not very high, you won't be able to magnify the area of interest after the fact. Fourth, what about motion triggering? If you think there is a crook detector, and moving crooks trigger it but not moving trees, your wrong. The fact of the matter is it rains, snows, and is windy out, so things are moving all the time, and crooks don't move as much as you think. Good luck trying to separate the two with a cheap system.

And there is six. Lets assume you have fantastic pictures stored at a great resolution. Realize that you may have to search through hours if not days of pictures to find the one that you want. It's tiring, and more often then not, when you find it, you'll find that the split second your camera took a picture, the crook happen to be looking away and you have no face.

So, I say, buy an alarm first, and only spend money on cameras if you have every other type of preventative measure (like a low deductible insurance policy) and you have lots of money to burn. Even then, cameras are much better at watching I high value target, like your car, then they are monitoring EVERYTHING where you don't know where the crime will occur.

Also, here in Arizona, those cheap outdoor cameras only last about two years in the heat before they need to be replaced.

 

[sda]

Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback. I've already got an alarm, so the cameras would supplement the alarm as an additional incentive for the crook to go rob somebody else that's an easier target. If somebody really wants something, they're going to take it and it doesn't matter what kind of security system you have.

I agree you get what you pay for. For $300 it'd be worth experimenting with. At the very least I can mount a camera at the front door to see what idiot can't read the "no solicitors - this means you" sign.

"webcamproshop.com has some nice cameras."
Maybe, but the first coouple of links under "IP Camera" (Axis 233D, etc) that I clicked on the links this morning get "page not found".
I get tired of that on company websites. If a website wants to sell me something, they could at least check their work.

 

[spintop1]

Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback. I've already got an alarm, so the cameras would supplement the alarm as an additional incentive for the crook to go rob somebody else that's an easier target. If somebody really wants something, they're going to take it and it doesn't matter what kind of security system you have.

I agree you get what you pay for. For $300 it'd be worth experimenting with. At the very least I can mount a camera at the front door to see what idiot can't read the "no solicitors - this means you" sign.

"webcamproshop.com has some nice cameras."
Maybe, but the first coouple of links under "IP Camera" (Axis 233D, etc) that I clicked on the links this morning get "page not found".
I get tired of that on company websites. If a website wants to sell me something, they could at least check their work.

I actually bought that system at Costco (price you mentioned makes me think it's the same unit). I returned it about a week later. The DVR was OK and easy to setup, the cameras were not. I ran the unit for that week and found the camera quality was very poor at night. During the day, in low light, not much better. my 2 cents....

 

[beelzerob]

If nothing else, maybe your home video system will give us something to watch later!

 

[Neurorad]

If nothing else, maybe your home video system will give us something to watch later!

Pretty wild video!

The 'homeowner' probably stole some drugs from those guys, and they wanted it back.

 

[IVB]

Jeez, i bet your wife is happy you moved away from AZ now...

 

[beelzerob]

Jeez, i bet your wife is happy you moved away from AZ now...

Oooooo ya. From Tucson no less. We watched the video trying to see if we recognized the place...it was actually less than 5 miles from where we lived before moving.

That's why when people here from PA talk about moving to AZ (which is the overall trend), I just start laughing uncontrollably...