Home Security Camera

[tjkubota93]

I don't suppose we will be seeing that deal again any time soon.

Can you even buy black and white cameras anymore?

Costco had a qsee for 199 a month or so ago with free shipping

 

[Mousefield]

About 7-8 years ago we bought a Lorex system, worked well and were happy with it. Came with 6 cameras, recorder and Screen. Had lots of cable to put up 4 of the camera’s at my 24 X 40 shop, you had to pass this to get to our house. Had to replace a couple of the camera plug in power supplies but other than that the system was trouble free. Had some good video of dogs running around the shop and driveway about midnight as well at about 8 at night, a day time video of a large cougar and one night around 3am a full size pickup truck with one headlight drive past the shop and then turn around and leave.
Sold the farm a year ago and in our new house have a Lorex system. It was a package with 8 cameras’, recorder and all the cables, power supplies. I had 5 of the cameras installed on the house and I bought a separate Lorex vacri focal zoom camera that is mounted down our driveway closer to the road. I get very nice pictures, cameras are all motion activated so it saves on hard drive storage.

 

[FTG-05]

Of course you can. All they have to do is leave the IR filter out and turn the color processing off. Most image sensors today, at least the CMOS stuff, has full on board image processing but it can be controlled in a lot of ways including having a B&W mode either through a serial control bus or pin programming for the common stuff and usually color or B&W mode is one of them. Here's one. It's an IP or ethernet camera with IR illumination LEDs and it's 3 megapixel High Definition camera so has useable definition. You could add more illumination to extend the range even further. You could probably find someone who will take the filter out and permanently set it to B&W mode.

Here's one that has high dynamic range too. About 115 db I think although it's not in the specs.
Indoor/Outdoor SUPER HD 4MP Network IP Infrared Bullet Camera with Smart Detection (See Up to 100 Foot in COMPLETE DARKNESS),Infrared Bullet Security Cameras, - CCTVSecurityPros.com

High dynamic range simply means it can cover scenes with dark areas and areas in bright sunlight at the same time. It has more dynamic range than your eyes do so you lose nothing. With 4 mega pixels, it's high def too. It uses an Omnivision CMOS image sensor.

Sometimes dynamic range is more important than sensitivity because you can always add illumination for the dark but you can do nothing about scenes that have a higher dynamic range than the sensor can accommodate. I got the company to develop high dynamic range sensors in order to deal with the automotive market and they found it to be a big hit in security market too.

Dick if I could resurrect this thread plus ask you some simple questions, please.

If you wanted to install a 2- or 4-camera system, what would you pick? High end, high $$$; medium end, medium $$$ and low end low $$$. I'm retired and on a fixed income. for the house cameras, I don't mind running wires in the attic.

Thanks,

 

[PILOON]

If it is any help a friend that is 'well camera' covered in a public storage facility swears by the cost/quality packages offered by Cosco.
One improvement is to use co-ax cable rather than the fragile wire in their kits.

 

[stl]

Had an Arlo system which is now much cheaper at Sams Club. Our house was burned to the ground by an arsonist and I got an alert when he broke in, and had video of him setting everything on fire. By the time police and fire got there, the house was too far gone to save. Arsonist however is in jail because of crystal clear video

 

[MNBobcat]

Hi Guys,

There is not one IP cam on the market that is secure. Not one. So if you're hooking up a CAM make sure its not directly accessible via the Internet. Instead, set it up where you have to run a VPN (virtual private network) to connect to your home network and from there to the cam. If you don't take my advice I can guarantee you that someone will be using your cam to watch you.

 

[TractorGuy]

This is something I've always wanted to do but have been unwilling to invest the time and money in. I am home most of the time since retirement so anyone casing my place would be hard pressed to find a time or pattern I wouldn't be here to catch them.

I mainly want to see all the critters roaming around but the cheap game cameras I've tried were poor photo quality. Video was a little better but the motion detect was so slow if an animal was walking by it would start about the time it was leaving the frame.

More recently I've been playing around with an old cell phone. I installed and app called IP Webcam to it and I can view it on my network or from a password protected web site. The plan is to put it in a bird feeder and add a fan on the battery with a solar charger to try and keep it running. I haven't been able to get the app to email me on motion or sound detect. It will send a notice to my cell phone but I'm thinking that might just be when both phones are on the same network. More often than not it tells me the live video is not available on the web site. I just found the switches to get it to record so I will see if it gives up any footage that way.

 

[PILOON]

My best security system is to have a spare car,
Perps drive down and see a car and they quickly scoot away.

In a community of 75 or so we have had 10 serous events in the last 2 weeks. Brazen perps, no less.

They even lived in one house for a day or 2 and took fridges, stoves and even the bed frame and mattress.
All the booze has gone. (they don't like sweet digestifs)

 

[kenmac]

Well,My house sets back off the road some 350'. I have a gated drive and the rest fenced. If they make it past the gates at the drive hoping by chance someone isn't home. They stand a very good chance of not making it back that 350' to the road