Vandals

[Squintz]

I woke up this morning to a horrible sight. Half the neighborhoods cars had been spray painted. Thankfully I was spared but it just made me realise that I need to get a DVR and I need to get it now. I actually have the money this time. I am going to need a night camera also. Any suggestions?

 

[rfdesq]

Everfocus www.everfocus.com makes some nice DVR's.

 

[HAL_MAN]

http://www.kcusa.com makes a very affordable Linux based dvr solution. Also have a nice selection of Cams.

Regards,
Shawn Walsh

 

[Squintz]

Thanks for the links guys.

I need something that has at minimum 4 channels but I would prefer 6 or 8. The main requirement is constant recording preferably 48hrs worth. The next thing I would want but don't need is the ability to view it via the web and PTZ. I definately want it to be stand alone.

Hopefully I will find something soon.

 

[electron]

Didn't Martin have a good sale going on , I think he posted about it recently.

 

[Squintz]

I did not notice at first but someone just showed me that they got my car also. There is a streak of paint going across the back. I did not realise martin was selling DVRs too. I will give him a call.

 

[IVB]

Keep in mind that security cameras won't prevent theft, only catch the perpretrators and hopefully deter future theft. You should also do stuff like motion sensor lights and/or setup a neighborhood watch.

My wife actually just started a neighborhood watch if you need any assistance there.

 

[chaseru]

I just installed cameras in my home under construction early due to some jerk stealing some tools. I was going to buy a DVR, but then I thought, what if someone breaks in and steals the DVR?

Instead, I used one of my old PCs to act as a video server and then used a remote PC to record the video feed. The thief may steel my cheap PC but I'll get his mug shot before he does. I did have to order cable to get internet access.

I've already recorded an attempted break-in.

 

[Digger]

I have a friend that is a professional security product installer. He had an installation with both an alarm system and camera's (a small smoke/candy store). They kept getting break ins and seeing the guy but not able to identify him. He seemed to be very confident he would never get caught.


One tiime there was a clear shot of a cop car across the street (at a firehouse) and the guy breaks in and takes the lotto machine and a few other things and you see the cop run across the street from the firehouse when he gets the call. The bad guy jumps in his car and takes off and you see the cop running back across the street to his patrol car to chase the guy. It was hilarious to watch over and over again.

I dont think they ever caught him............ but it may make America's Funniest Home Videos some day!

Needless to say I dont think the cop was the "Top Cop of the Month".

Camera's are great but they arent always the solution.

 

[ano]

I think people sometimes don't fully understand the complexities of actually catching a bad guy doing something bad. We see these videos on YouTube and think its easy to catch crooks. In reality, its very hard.

If you have a big area to cover, you need many cameras. A wide angle lens isn't going to give you the details you need. There there is the problem of night, having a high enough resolution, not having the camera distroyed by the bad guy, and maybe the biggest problem, how to find the one or two frames with the crook, from the millions of other frames.

I had two camera into a timelapse VCR in my previous house, and had several crimes, but never caught anything on camera. Either it was too dark or far for the camera to see, or I could never find the incident in weeks of months of tape when I didn't know exactly WHEN it occured.

Technology is getting better, but the fact of the matter is to catch a bad guy on tape with a non-human monitored camera, and hope to have a good enough image to catch the person is pretty hard. I'd either spend a bunch of money to get the best stuff, or don't bother and just add some additional outdoor lighting, motion detectors, etc.

 

[jeffx]

If I had the money, I'd buy a Geovision. Since I don't, I have an older P4 2.4 PC (bolted to the wall in a secure closet) with a Kodicom clone card, 8 inputs. Almost as good.

 

[Squintz]

I got the EverFocus EDSR1600/500 that Martin advertised in his forum on March 20. Its a 16 Channel Duplex.

http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showto...t=0&#entry62327

I also got this night camera with an 8mm lens which I am told is a fairly narrow field of view.

http://automatedoutlet.com/product.php?pro...7&cat=27&page=1

Cameras seem to be cheap so I will probably mount two at the front and two at the back eventually.

 

[Squintz]

Here is the news story of the crime and video. It was like 47 cars that got hit.
http://wjz.com/topstories/local_story_093113425.html

 

[robolo]

Regarding DVRs I have been really happy with a Linux box I set up from an old computer and ZoneMinder, a free linux DVR program. You can set up zones in the image that when triggered will record a sequence of frames. That way you avoid hours of video to review. It works with both IP cameras and direct connection cameras and you can access live and recorded images over the internet. The web site is zoneminder.com. Required a little tweaking to get setup but has been rock solid for 6 months.

robolo

 

[CollinR]

I think people sometimes don't fully understand the complexities of actually catching a bad guy doing something bad. We see these videos on YouTube and think its easy to catch crooks. In reality, its very hard.

If you have a big area to cover, you need many cameras. A wide angle lens isn't going to give you the details you need. There there is the problem of night, having a high enough resolution, not having the camera distroyed by the bad guy, and maybe the biggest problem, how to find the one or two frames with the crook, from the millions of other frames.

I had two camera into a timelapse VCR in my previous house, and had several crimes, but never caught anything on camera. Either it was too dark or far for the camera to see, or I could never find the incident in weeks of months of tape when I didn't know exactly WHEN it occured.

Technology is getting better, but the fact of the matter is to catch a bad guy on tape with a non-human monitored camera, and hope to have a good enough image to catch the person is pretty hard. I'd either spend a bunch of money to get the best stuff, or don't bother and just add some additional outdoor lighting, motion detectors, etc.

I agree and disagree with what you say.

This is where I fit in, experience helps alot in designing a system that WILL produce evidence.

It's often not the easiest setup.
It's even less often the cheapest.


By far the majority of my customers had something else first when they called me.
Common design problems:

poor / no focus
inexperience / inabilty to design for focus
poor product


The act of running the cable and hanging the cameras is not exactly difficult. Knowing what cameras, from who, to install where, and why, is.