CCTV system help

CO2000

I'd wait until Maplin do a 50% off a kit with DVR, should be only £250 ish all in.

davester

Wifi Routers cost about 1p a day to run. so can leave it on all the time, and a laptop power cost I'm sure is less than the cost to repair the vandals damage.

Lakeuk

You could go for connecting a camera to a PC, this is year I did a setup by putting a cctv camera in a birdbox which was connected to a PC. I then used an extra piece of software called webcamxp that records from the camera when it detects movement.

Following is a little right up I did on the setup:-

http://lakeuk.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/birdcam-2009/

http://www.webcamxp.com

Another option maybe to buy a IR lamp and separately a cheap SD card video camera (anyone know where IR is picked up on any sort of camera?)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mk-3-48-led-IR-Illuminator-infrared-lamp-bulb-for-CCTV_W0QQitemZ350222088422QQcmdZViewItem

ukbill69

Right go on ebay and get your self a digital dvr and a few night cams. Easy to setup and cost you about £300 at tops.

david29dpo

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.

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.

I have a VCR recorder, works a treat. Good quality camera with a simple device which switches on the VCR for 20 seconds via a PIR.

mutley74

CO2000 wrote: »

I'd wait until Maplin do a 50% off a kit with DVR, should be only £250 ish all in.

when do maplin offers start? (before or after Xmas??)

i was quoted £600+VAT for a decent 4 camera (wired) system with 250gb recorder and 15" monitor by a local electrical wholesaler. Seems a bit steep IMHO, but they said no supplier sells a 2 camera system.

davester - thanks for clarifying running costs. i am due to get a latop so will look into that option of recording onto laptop. just means i need to make sure either desktop or laptop is constantly available for recording.

CO2000

mutley74 wrote: »

when do maplin offers start? (before or after Xmas??)

Not sure but sod's law it will be just after you buy at full price !

If it was me I'd give it until mid Jan for Maplin. There is other similar offers about from specialist companies - check out www.DIYnot for further info as I posted there a while ago about buying a budget kit.

mutley74

CO2000 wrote: »

Not sure but sod's law it will be just after you buy at full price !

If it was me I'd give it until mid Jan for Maplin. There is other similar offers about from specialist companies - check out www.DIYnot for further info as I posted there a while ago about buying a budget kit.

glad we both agree on sods law!
i seen this one on maplin website
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=285933&source=1#checkstore

seems reasonable but wires seem short, do the cameras seem any good?

also seen some good cctv kit offers on ebay except its hard to determine quality.

Lakeuk

Notice this for £70

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=226705

mutley74

Lakeuk wrote: »

Notice this for £70

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?moduleno=226705

yes i was interested in a wireless system but maplin and an electrical wholesaler recommended a wired system for better picture quality without interference. will visit maplin later this week to test the display units.