CCTV system help

mutley74

after some incidents on our house drive i decided now need to fit a CCTV system. guess i would need 2 cameras which can record at night even (we had sensor lights avail) and record on to a memory card. Due to distance between TV and front of house i dont think it would be easy to have view on TV access.

I notice Argos sell various twin CCTV sets.
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/0072980/Trail/searchtext%3ECCTV.htm

notice that all Argos GET CCTV systems have low review ratings. Has anyone tried them?

Or can anyone suggest a reasonable CCTV system with DVR capability? i might fit this myself depending on complexity or get an electrician to help - depends on cost of system.
thanks

silentbob09

There are two ways you can go with this.....the traditional "Analogue" cctv path, which is the cheap stuff you find in Argos, Homebase etc or with newer IP (computer network) based systems.

A few questions....

The area to be recorded during the night...is this illuminated?

If yes, Permanently or with Sensor lights?

If no, are you expecting to use cameras that have IR illumination features?

How many metres will the cameras be from the target areas (this helps work out what IR power is needed)?

Do you have a wifi network at home?

If you can fill in the blanks I'll spec something up for you.

JR

mutley74

silentbob09 wrote: »

A few questions....

The area to be recorded during the night...is this illuminated?

If yes, Permanently or with Sensor lights?

If no, are you expecting to use cameras that have IR illumination features?

How many metres will the cameras be from the target areas (this helps work out what IR power is needed)?

Do you have a wifi network at home?

If you can fill in the blanks I'll spec something up for you.

JR

-area is driveway. it has some street lights nearby but also sensor lights.
-No idea about camera should have IR illumination features...depends on costs and comlexity.
approx distance to cover for about 10metres to end of drive.
Wifi - yes, but usually its switched off at night.

really need camera just to record who is vandalising our property and entering our drive at night.
i like the idea of a camera being able to digitally record on SD card if possible.
thanks

cit_k

The only stuff I am aware of that will directly record onto a SD card is the megapixel cams from mobotix, which have an inbuilt DVR, and can record to card.

They are not cheap though, as they are higher end stuff.

CCTV wont work out cheap for good results, you get what you pay for usually, the cheap stuff is usually great to look at, but fairly useless when you need evidence.

housesitter

If you want to record at night and don't want to spend much then I'd suggest using PIR's coupled with lights to trigger when they detect movement and have them start the DVR recording.
Put a timeout on the PIR so it'll keep the light on for x number of minutes after the last trigger.

The Cheapest wayto do it is with an old VCR and a triggering box, or get lucky on ebay with someone disposing of an old tape based CCTV system which will generally give better quality than a VCR and record more than one camera at once.

Good DVRs cost a fair bit if you wish to start doing motion detection or anything other than set quality / frame rate recording.

Plus remember the image you record is only as good as the camera. Spend all you like on a DVR and fit cheap cams and you are wasting your time. Again you should look for second hand quality kit over cheap new stuff.

These miniture "spy cams" surrounded by IR LED's are really not effective at night time unless the action is really up close.
You need to focus the IR LED's at certain distances to illuminate larger areas, don't see many of these with lenses on them....


A lot of these systems aided at the home market look great up until you actually need to get some footage from them and find your recordings are worthless.
It's bad enough in the commerical market to get good installs or footage from unmanaged locations.
I doubt the average home installer is doing any better.

mutley74

thanks for reply. appreciate you get what you pay for, but ic ant afford to spend 00's on this.

I had a look at maplin and screwfix which seem to have some reasonable equipment. cant decide between wired and wireless camerass. i can fix 2 cameras outside porch and a receiver/recorder in the porch if need be (mains electric supply avail). but its over 8m to nearest TV from there.

what is the quality of the wireless systems compared to a wired system?

housesitter

Suggest then that you buy it from either. Fix it up with tape for testing and see how you like the results. Knowing that you can take it back if unsuitable.

Mankysteve

I would go with an IP camera that can connect to wireless and leave a low powered pc/laptop permanently running to save onto a lot of the IP camera software can automatic record on movement. You should be bael to pick up two decent Ip camera for under £200 as you just paying for the camera and nowt else.

If you have the recorder in an unsercured location you loseing risking the entire sytem.

mutley74

Mankysteve wrote: »

I would go with an IP camera that can connect to wireless and leave a low powered pc/laptop permanently running to save onto a lot of the IP camera software can automatic record on movement. You should be bael to pick up two decent Ip camera for under £200 as you just paying for the camera and nowt else.

If you have the recorder in an unsercured location you loseing risking the entire sytem.

i was not too keen on connecting to my pc...as i like my pc and broadband router etc off when not in use (save electricity etc). So i take i need just 2 cameras, receiver, and recorder??

Are you suggesting wireless is better than wired? if so is wireless quality, in terms of picture tranmission any good?

mutley74

housesitter wrote: »

If you want to record at night and don't want to spend much then I'd suggest using PIR's coupled with lights to trigger when they detect movement and have them start the DVR recording.
Put a timeout on the PIR so it'll keep the light on for x number of minutes after the last trigger.

are you saying to hook up the sensor lights to the cameras? are do you mean the PIRs actually on the cameras?
thanks

asininity

Not sure what the difference is between running two cameras, a reciever and a recorder or an ip camera a computer and the router.

You'll need two things to get things sorted, a very good picture (enough to get stills from with clear facial features) and a bit of hope that the police are going to recognise who they are.