Home Surveillance cameras / systems?

[yooper1]

I have been thinking of getting a home video Surveillance system.

Searching locally has been a waste of time.

Searching the internet is overwhelming.

If you have a system what make, model do you have and what pros and cons are there to look for.

Just a little info of what I want:

- 3 or 4 outdoor cameras (weather proof of course)
- Color
- Night vision
- Clarity (not like those crappy gas station videos used to try and ID a murderer on TV shows)
- the ability to record and then if needed to view / playback recorded video at the same time
- large hard drive....500 gig or more

Not that there is a lot of crime here but I have acquired quite a few toys and would like to keep them

Thanks in advance for any and all replies

 

[wdchyd]

Yooper,

I'll be watching this thread cuz I'm in the market to set up one also......I missed a News TV show that explained buying a camera that senses motion and hook it up to an old computer for pictures/video and it records 24/7......supposedly fairly cheap to hook up......

I sure someone here has all the "Poop".......

 

[jgrreed]

I'm interested to hear what you find out. I too am looking. I'm waiting on a call from an alarm company re: perimeter sensors and possibly cameras.

I too like protecting what is mine.

-Jer.

 

[bearhawk]

check this thread..

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/rural-living/186036-hft-surveillance-dvr-system.html

 

[Angelus]

Look at this forum: http://www.cctvforum.com/

I've been researching a security camera setup for my homeowners assn. The whole setup will be 4 cameras, a PC, and some networking gear. We are looking at Axis cameras because we have about 15K to spend. The guys on the CCTV forum might be able to suggest some good cheaper ones. Our cameras alone are going to cost around $5600. Two are HD and two are SVGA.

Be careful if you get HD. Your storage requirements will go up dramatically. If you go with HD, you might want to consider a network attached storage device for greater hard drive capacity.

All that said, I was thinking about setting up a scaled down version of this on my remote property to protect my tractor and other equipment. But after understanding the costs, I think I will just make sure I have insurance. Adding the equipment to my homeowner's policy will cost around $170 per year.

 

[yooper1]

Thank you bearhawk

That is a good place to start

 

[yooper1]

Thanks Angelus

 

[zzvyb6]

I bought a 4 camera Q-See system from Costco online (was on sale). Color and night vision, 500 gig hard drive. Internet availability and controllability of cameras.

In my situation, I also want to use it for a driveway monitor because I can't see 800' out to the gate and around a curve to observe who or what is there. "Expurts" said I couldn't get a connection via ethernet beyond 300' to my dsl router but guess what? With 600' of underground Cat6 ethernet cable, it comes in just fine. The only problem I had was the instructions were bogus for the web viewing because they ignored the need to allow the systems I.P. address to be passed thru the router. Once that got straightened out, I have a camera on the gate, 1 on the shed, 1 looking up towards the house and 1 just loafing around. Since the system is actually located in a fake doghouse somewhere down the driveway, killing house power won't turn it off. It runs off the barn's main power box. As I recall it was $299 on sale.

Since the router has wireless capability, I can receive the images on a wallyMart el cheapo laptop. It has an HDTV plug so I can show any or all of the images on my large screen HD TV.

There's a single camera system called "The Mole" that Costco sells for $199. It looks useful for some of my needs, too.

 

[stratton]

You can buy a kit with everything you need or you can piece it together like i am doing. Basically you can now buy one box the size of a stero reciever called a standalone. This will do everything for ya. It acts like a multiplexer, dvr, and a control panel. For self installation use rg59 Siamese cable. This runs the power and video(coaxial) in the same cord. Makes it easy to run wire in walls. You can buy 500' for a little over 100 bucks. This cable is terminated with whats called a BNC connector which you can buy online or in radio shack. Since all the cables will come to the standalone system the power cords also can be added to a power supply box that is a piece of cake to wire. The whole process is pretty easy. You can mix match to get what you need and still be affordable. You can then plug the standalone box to your router with a cat5 cable and you are online. Check, rewind, scan, or whatever from your laptop.

 

[NSBound]

You can buy a kit with everything you need or you can piece it together like i am doing. ....

Sounds interesting - do you have a system name or better yet a link to a web site?