Anyone know anything about surveillance cameras? (1 Viewer)

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I have a good friend with some vandalism issues at her house, and she’s interested in getting a surveillance video camera. She called on me, ‘cause I’m her electronics guru. Problem is, I don’t know much about these things, so I’m coming here to HTF so I can appear to know what I’m talking about and maintain my status as the “electronics guru.” . I know these things exist because I’ve seen them, but I have no idea what brands are good, not to mention where to get them.

I think basically we need something that will work in low-light situations – i.e., at night with the yard lit. Hopefully it would be small enough to not be readily noticeable. It would need a video line output that could feed to a VCR.

Can anyone point us in the right direction?

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Keith_R]

I don't know about the cameras themselves. I can say this, be careful it's not illgeal to have outdoor cameras in a residential area where you live. As you may have read in my ongoing thread/rant about how I hate my job my neighbors pulled this camera crap at their house (which double's as their business) except that they were claiming their's was for seeing if UPS arrived and had their's pointed to face the street and houses across from them.

The neighbors in the house across found out about how those cameras were on their house and their kids who play outside and they weren't to happy. Eventually there was a verbal conflict between the two neighbors and they had to switch the posistion of that outside camera so that it faces their driveway and not the street or the other neighbor's house. Regardless, it turns out that cameras outside in a residential zone are illegal where I live and those people are breaking the law. I'd recommend that your friend check to see what the law is on cameras where you live. Also, I've heard it's wise to put up a sign or notification somewhere on your house saying that cameras are monitering it's supposed to be courteous to the neighbor's.

Good luck and I hope ya'll figure out who is vandalizing her property.

 

[DaveNel]

Well I have installed cameras before, They do make cameras for that very thing. Here is another way to actually catch the person in hand also Take a motion light.. The kind people have outside and when it detects motion a light will come on.. Well take the light out of the socket, Replace the light with a socket adapter that you can plug an extention cord into. Then take the extention cord and run it into the house, Hook it to a radio. When someone is in the yard a light wont come on but a radio in the house will come on letting someone know they have visitors in the back yard.

Now back to Cameras. The type of camera you need for this is not going to be cheap for a couple reasons, 1. most outside cameras are pretty high priced 2. Just the lighting will be another factor towards price.

If you do put a camera up, If the cameras not really an infrared camera to see into the dark may pick something up but only like a shadow if that..

But the cheapest affective way is to put a motion setup out there and when somone is in the yard will alert someone in the house and whoever is prowling around in the yard will be more apt to getting cought..

 

[Glenn Overholt]

As for the camera, couldn't you put that on your fence, pointing towards the house? That way you don't have to worry about the neighbors.

Second, why couldn't a motion alarm turn on the camera and an outside light? That way you wouldn't need IR - if you set the light(s) up correctly.

Glenn

 

[Shawn Solar]

First you need to deterermine what range you want to see. Wide range lens like 4mm and 6mm are good at wide range viewing but past 25ft tend to take a nice image rather than anything detailed like a face. Night time viewing can create problems too. If you use an indoor camera with a manual iris you're likley to wash out the screen during the day and black it out at night. Use something with an auto iris and possibly an infared light. such cameras are good for about 20ft and see great at night. They come weatherproof. You'll need to run a coax(rg59 will work) and power(just a regular 2 conductor or 4 conductor phone line) and probbaly splice the power supply. run a modualator into the cable and they can view it on any tv. Probably be around $1000 or less.

Now to record is somewhat pricey for a time lapse vcr. even a costco vcr is a few hundred dollars. Though someone in the area may rent them. You could also hook it up to your computer but that is even more technical unless you have pvr software or something like it. there are programs on ebay that sell for less than $200 but are a little hard to operate but work none the less.

I don't suggest using motion sensors on cameras wih vcr recording as it can take a second or two to turn on and may miss something. Outside conditions are harsh and you may have lots of off/on video. So may as well record 24hr IMO. Unless of coarse you use standard vcr with only 6hr record time and then its nessecary.

Make sure you have a camera sticker on your house that says its under survielance or your vidoe may not be allowed to be used. also as stated before watch where you point it as privacy issues can come into play. Other than that is you have questions LMK

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Thanks everyone for the helpful ideas.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt