Looking to install surveillance cameras

HTN

Experienced Member
Joined
2 September 2007
Messages
862
Location
FL.
Any recommendations for a reliable system? Looking to beef up on security around the house. Saw some at Sam's Club... not sure how clear these things are at night. Also thinking of stopping by the a local shop, but don't want to purchase something too extreme.

Any thoughts?
 
I posted some thoughts here. Since then there have been some DVR offerings from the cheap vendors that are piquing my interest, but I'm waiting for some reviews before jumping in. The DVR that I have my eye on is around $1600. Prices are coming down fast thanks to the technology becoming more mainstream. Good cameras are getting cheap too. Stick with D1/4CIF DVRs if you can (recording resolution, not "preview" resolution), and make sure that's at 30 frames per second on all channels. I saw a 16-channel DVR that advertised D1 resolution, but only for 60fps split across all channels.

The CCTV system is only a part of good security. Many thieves will cut your cable before breaking in (breaking the link to any offsite video storage), and then they'll be free to destroy the recorder once they're in. Make sure you keep the DVR in a secure lockbox to buy it some time.
 
I saw some advertised on Costco online also.
 
+1 Costco online...Lorex makes a great system with DVR which you can even monitor remotely through the internet anywhere in the world. Why the extra security? So I can be sure I shoot the right guy:biggrin:
 
Last edited:
Daedalus... You seem to know what you're talking about. These are the concerns that I have, but don't really know where to began. I will research the products you mentioned. I am also concern about the pros that would know the wires to cut etc.

NSXAMG996TT...Your last thread got me to think about the extra security.

I've always been extra careful about security measures, but now it's time for extra extra measures.

Please keep it coming. Any other suggestions????
 
Define what your wants and needs are. If you want to record 24/7 just to have a video after the fact when something happens, then things like "pre-recording time", motion sensitivity and area selection aren't important. If you have narrowly defined focus ranges and fields of view (you just want to cover entrances and confined areas), then you may not need high-res cameras/recorders and fast frame rates. But if you have a lot of area to cover, and you want to be able to read license plates and see facial features (not just "facial recognition"), most Costco/Samsclub systems will not cut it. If you walk through the aisle at Costco and see the security camera setup with the image feed on the monitor, don't think that the image you see on the screen will be the same as the image played back from the hard drive; the recording typically loses about 75% of the resolution.

Cameras are kind of cheap, and they use a lot of the same CCD sensors. They're almost a commodity unless you're getting into the pan-tilt-zoom world. If you buy a camera and don't like it, you can probably find a use for it somewhere, and you're only out maybe a couple hundred bucks. But if you buy a DVR and you don't like it, you might be out a lot more than that. My recommendation is to get familiar with the various features offered. You can find videos online that compare differences in frame rates and resolutions. Also, look up DVRs you're interested in and find the spec sheets and owner's manuals. I've gone through the manuals of 4 DVRs in the past couple months as I try to make a decision on my DVR upgrade.

www.cctvforum.com
Kind of a slow forum, but there are some experts there. Just be careful about noob questions, they'll flame you like any other forum. ;)

www.shoreviewsecurity.com
I bought a couple cameras from this guy and I'm considering one of his DVRs. He seems like a real stand up guy. His site will probably answer some of your questions regarding selecting a DVR.
 
Last edited:
Daedalus...Thanks a bunch and also on the noob tip. LOL

I will check it out.
 
Daedalus:
Good info.

I started with the Costco setup and found that the IR does not work unless your real close, and like you said the resolution was terrrible.

So I found a customer of mine who does this type of stuff and he has installed Panasonic dome cameras with 520+ lines. and a Honeywell DVR, both seem to be high quality. BUT... a week ago I notice a broken bench next to my dumpster sombody left me as a gift. I checked the video and got every angle of the truck, but the resolution still was no good, could not get the liscense plate. :mad:

My question to you is: in the other thread, you commented on the pan-tilt-zoom, do you have to do the zoom manually to get the thing you are looking for?
Do they have better resolution no matter what?

-> I am looking for a solution so I can catch the bad guys.

cameras 005.jpg
cameras 006.jpg
 
Daedalus:
Good info.

I started with the Costco setup and found that the IR does not work unless your real close, and like you said the resolution was terrrible.

So I found a customer of mine who does this type of stuff and he has installed Panasonic dome cameras with 520+ lines. and a Honeywell DVR, both seem to be high quality. BUT... a week ago I notice a broken bench next to my dumpster sombody left me as a gift. I checked the video and got every angle of the truck, but the resolution still was no good, could not get the liscense plate. :mad:

My question to you is: in the other thread, you commented on the pan-tilt-zoom, do you have to do the zoom manually to get the thing you are looking for?
Do they have better resolution no matter what?

-> I am looking for a solution so I can catch the bad guys.

View attachment 52409
View attachment 52410


I am getting ready to install some cameras where we store our dumpster for the same reason. We just had some a-hole throw hazardous waste in the roll off dumpster and it cost me 800 bucks to have it disposed of properly. :mad:
 
If you get a good camera and a D1 recorder, you need a license plate to be about 1/10 the width of the screen for it to have enough pixels to be able to read it. Thus if a license plate is roughly 1' wide, you need about a 10' wide or smaller field of view at the distance the plate is at. And this is also assuming you've got a pretty decent focus at that distance. You find out real quick how this stuff isn't anything like the movies...much closer to the crappy 7-11 security videos you see on "World's Dumbest Criminals". But with D1 you can get a lot better. What I don't know yet is how fast a car can be moving and still be able to read the plate with a 10' FOV. Obviously the higher the frame rate the faster the car can be moving and still be readable, thus I'm shooting for 30fps in my next recorder.

Honeywell is a solid brand within the industry, but my obvervation is that the industry is changing fast and Honeywell is not prepared for it. The domestic companies are like Detroit in the 80s--they've gone too long without any real competition, and their customer base was large businesses and installers with deep pockets. Current technology (e.g. TI h.264 encoding) has changed the game, along with a kind of explosion in the number of manufacturers overseas that are finally getting their forumulas right. Video compression allows you to capture TV quality video on 16 channels at 30 fps, and with file sizes that are small enough to be usable without needing a bank of $300 hard drives. And I couldn't believe the last manual I read was in near-perfect English, with real slick graphics...from a Chinese vendor. You couldn't find that even a year ago. I'm sure Honeywell and the other domestics put out great stuff, but I don't know that the quality warrants the prices they charge. My cheapy DVR from Costco, for all its faults, still runs as well as it did the day I bought it 3+ years ago (for $500 more than what it costs now, btw).

You can get cameras with some pretty decent IR power. In my limited experience divide the advertised distance by 2 or 3 to get a more realistic number. Thus if they say they have IR out to 120', it might be good to 40-60'. I've solved the light problem by just buying LED security lights that are on all the time at night. The bulbs use 5 watts each, and 4 of them light up my property behind the house. Not real bright, but plenty for gathering video. Altogether they'll cost $12 a year in electricity to keep lit. I still have my halogens with remote motion sensors for extra illumination if needed.


The PTZ cameras offer a few benefits and niceties. If you're at the monitor you can zoom around and check out your neighborhood. You can program a path for the dome to follow, which can be done within the dome unit itself or from the DVR unit, depending on how advanced they are (not all have this). But this invalidates any motion activated recording on the DVR. You would only sweep an area if you're on full-time record. If you use the PTZ in one place only, then it has the flexibility of being adjusted from the DVR as you look at the screen. You can dial in the pointing and the zoom perfectly within a few seconds. With a fixed camera you have to play with it manually by hand. Adjust the pointing, adjust the zoom, adjust the focus, check the picture inside, then try again and again till you get it just right. Another nice thing about PTZ cams is they are auto-focus, so instead of being at a fixed focus distance, they will change focus to whatever's the biggest thing in the FOV. Another thing is they're a good deterrent. If a PTZ camera has a smoked cover, you can't see the camera, so people know there's a camera there, but they don't know which way it's pointing. A fixed camera can be defeated by going around it.
The downside of PTZs, besides cost, is that they don't typically have IR illuminators, so they can't be used in really dark areas without supplemental lighting.
Some PTZs have motion tracking...if something moves into the FOV the camera will track it automatically until it moves out of the sight. They're expensive, and pretty new so I don't know much about them.

On those cameras in the pic, I'm surprised they didn't install any sunshades. Is the sun not a problem at certain times a day? Looks like a pretty clean install with no wires running up the wall. The installation is the hard part. Once you have your wires routed, you can change the cameras pretty easily as long as they have the same connectors.
 
Back
Top