It seems more and more people are putting cameras outside and inside their homes in an attempt to secure their property.

Does anyone have any firsthand experience with this?

It seems to me the systems in most homes and even in many stores produce such poor images that about all you can say is, "Yep, there is a video documenting the crime event, but it is not very useful in terms of identifying perpetrators."

This is kind of surprising given the quality of pictures and video you can get with an average cell phone.

I am just wondering how much cash someone would have to lay out to have a security camera that captured useful images.

Please share any first hand experience you have about quality of video equipment and costs.

Thanks.

(06-03-2016, 08:15 AM)xxlt Wrote: It seems more and more people are putting cameras outside and inside their homes in an attempt to secure their property.

Does anyone have any firsthand experience with this?

It seems to me the systems in most homes and even in many stores produce such poor images that about all you can say is, "Yep, there is a video documenting the crime event, but it is not very useful in terms of identifying perpetrators."

This is kind of surprising given the quality of pictures and video you can get with an average cell phone.

I am just wondering how much cash someone would have to lay out to have a security camera that captured useful images.

Please share any first hand experience you have about quality of video equipment and costs.

Thanks.

You can get cameras for a couple hundred each that have high enough quality for evidence use.

(06-03-2016, 08:15 AM)xxlt Wrote: It seems more and more people are putting cameras outside and inside their homes in an attempt to secure their property.

Does anyone have any firsthand experience with this?

It seems to me the systems in most homes and even in many stores produce such poor images that about all you can say is, "Yep, there is a video documenting the crime event, but it is not very useful in terms of identifying perpetrators."

This is kind of surprising given the quality of pictures and video you can get with an average cell phone.

I am just wondering how much cash someone would have to lay out to have a security camera that captured useful images.

Please share any first hand experience you have about quality of video equipment and costs.

Thanks.

I used to work for a company that installed cameras, and it totally depends on the type of camera vs the usage. For instance, a "bullet" camera is used for longer distances and need to be setup for a specific entrance or lot (good distance, but not real good pan). A "dome" camera is usually used for a hallway or entrance and it has a wider pan (but not good distance). Those are the two more basic type of cameras. 

I am trying out the Cudacam. It's a cloud based camera system, so no running wires and all that. No box for where the video is stored (all online). A little pricey, but great equipment and just love that I don't have to limit myself to however much video a box can handle (usually 500 gigs or so, but that fills up really quickly with HD video recording 24x7). 

Check it out.

My friend just got a nice set up and his neighbors are petitioning. They say it invades their privacy; as one of his cameras is pointed at the street in front of his house and has a motion sensor.

(06-03-2016, 11:50 AM)bfine32 Wrote: My friend just got a nice set up and his neighbors are petitioning. They say it invades their privacy; as one of his cameras is pointed at the street in front of his house and has a motion sensor.

There is no assumption of privacy in public view. Your friend should be fine as long as it isn't point directly in their windows, as then it could get a bit iffy.

Anybody know of some cam that takes high quality HD video, is cloud based,and can be easily hidden in something like say my hot neighbor ladies bathroom (just an example of course)?

The basic principle of "you get what you pay for" applies here. You can save money by getting a complete system from Sam's or Costco or Microcenter, but it's not going to give you a whole lot. 

The two most recent systems i installed used an MPX DVR which gives you the option of using analog or HD cameras and an HD DVR with HD-TVI IR cameras. 

The MPX DVR has analog IR cams on it and gives a pretty good picture, especially at night. It uses bullet and dome cameras--both with varifocal lens. At night, the IRs illumate the area as if it were daylight out but it is in black and white. The HD DVR uses HD-TVI cams with IR and gives a crystal clear 1080p picture at 2.1mpx. You can take a screencap and blow up an image to get a clear view of a license plate over 50 feet away. 

The MPX DVR has 8 channels and a 1TB HDD and runs around $300. The HD DVR has 8 channels and a 2TB HDD and runs about $500. 
The cameras, whether analog or HD run anywhere from $100-$500 depending on what you want. You can get good cameras between $100-$200. 

The MPX DVR uses a cloud based remote connection so there's no need for a 3rd party DDNS or any port-forwarding for remote viewing on a PC or smart phone. Not sure about the Avycon HD DVR as i've not gotten to the remote settings yet. 

Most home owners won't want to shell out the $2,000-$4,000 for what i've described so they go with a package that they purchased online or at the previously mentioned stores and it gives them some security but won't really be too helpful in identifying a face or license plate, especially at night. Most people just like the idea of having visible cameras as that's enough to deter most criminals from any activity around their house. 

I have some old Bunker Hill systems that I used for paranormal research.
They do ok, but I have like 5 dvrs and 40 cams that cover a bit of ground.

(06-03-2016, 09:38 AM)Hoofhearted Wrote: I used to work for a company that installed cameras, and it totally depends on the type of camera vs the usage. For instance, a "bullet" camera is used for longer distances and need to be setup for a specific entrance or lot (good distance, but not real good pan). A "dome" camera is usually used for a hallway or entrance and it has a wider pan (but not good distance). Those are the two more basic type of cameras. 

I am trying out the Cudacam. It's a cloud based camera system, so no running wires and all that. No box for where the video is stored (all online). A little pricey, but great equipment and just love that I don't have to limit myself to however much video a box can handle (usually 500 gigs or so, but that fills up really quickly with HD video recording 24x7). 

Check it out.

That sounds cool but looks targeted to institutional and business use which I took to mean the storage rates were expensive. I couldn't find any info on the website about how much the cloud storage subscription costs - only that you could try cameras for free. Please update us as you learn more about the cuda cam performance and the subscription costs. Thanks!

(06-03-2016, 11:50 AM)bfine32 Wrote: My friend just got a nice set up and his neighbors are petitioning. They say it invades their privacy; as one of his cameras is pointed at the street in front of his house and has a motion sensor.

Yeah, enough people have them outside their homes now I assume I am always on camera - even though I may be indistinguishable from Michael Jordan or Andy Dalton on playback.

(06-03-2016, 08:15 AM)xxlt Wrote: It seems to me the systems in most homes and even in many stores produce such poor images that about all you can say is, "Yep, there is a video documenting the crime event, but it is not very useful in terms of identifying perpetrators."

Call Atlantic City and ask what they use in the casino elevators.

The ones they have are good enough to ruin a promising NFL career!

Hadn't really thought about it until i was at Staples yesterday, but, i saw some ip cams there so i checked my distributor and i can get some IP IR PTZ(or fixed) cams for around $100-$200. Slap a few of those in (since i have about 8-10 spots open on my network switch), slap in a 4TB NAS for storage (ex:Seagate 4TB) at around $125 and you have a nice system (add a power supply unless you have PoE) for less than $600 (4 cameras).

This way is nice because you can start off small--1 or 2 cameras--and build on it (depending on how many network ports you have open) without running out of ports on a DVR or NVR.

(06-03-2016, 11:50 AM)bfine32 Wrote: My friend just got a nice set up and his neighbors are petitioning. They say it invades their privacy; as one of his cameras is pointed at the street in front of his house and has a motion sensor.

I have seen more and more of these on homes around here...    

I just hired a sketch artist to watch my place.

(06-05-2016, 06:32 PM)BengalsRocker Wrote: I just hired a sketch artist to watch my place.

I hate to tell you this, but it appears that Aaron Hernandez is casing your house.

OP: Do you want to be notified when the camera starts recording? If so, why? The reason I say this is police response times in many places are pretty slow on these kind of calls so in most cases the best you can hope for is evidence after the fact. Optex sells a camera called the watchman that take good quality images or video to an SD camera on board.

As someone else pointed out, IP cameras are a good option. You can find ones that work on WiFi and have a pretty good resolution. Many will even activate on motion and alert you over your phone. Nest offers a pretty good one that you may want to check out.

I just put up cameras that do not record anything. I made sure to run some wires from them to make them look legit.

(06-05-2016, 05:45 PM)StLucieBengal Wrote: I have seen more and more of these on homes around here...    

This is the kind of thing my wife has been talking about us purchasing.  Easy to install for the technically challenged?  

(06-06-2016, 10:41 AM)Au165 Wrote: OP: Do you want to be notified when the camera starts recording? If so, why? The reason I say this is police response times in many places are pretty slow on these kind of calls so in most cases the best you can hope for is evidence after the fact. Optex sells a camera called the watchman that take good quality images or video to an SD camera on board.

As someone else pointed out, IP cameras are a good option. You can find ones that work on WiFi and have a pretty good resolution. Many will even activate on motion and alert you over your phone. Nest offers a pretty good one that you may want to check out.

I am not sure I will ever buy one, but I have thought about it. As far as notification, I think I get your point about response time so I am not sure if being notified really is a benefit or not. So, not sure if I would want to be alerted if the camera started or not.

(06-08-2016, 08:27 PM)Awful Llama Wrote: This is the kind of thing my wife has been talking about us purchasing.  Easy to install for the technically challenged?  

Looks pretty easy to spot and disable was my thought when I saw the tv commercial for this one.