cctv

wroenaldinho

Hi all,

Looking to get a cheapish but as decent as possible for the price cctv camera kit. I only really need 2 cameras,one for front of my house and 1 for the back. I dont know where to start in terms of what i would require. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

neilwoods

Define cheapish, stating an actual price is more helpful. When you say front and back, do you mean just the actual front and back of house, or do you mean to include the garden as well (if so, what size if the garden).

Do you want to record or just view

JournalGirl

Have a look at Maplins - they have basic CCTV systems

N9eav

I cannot help you in terms of which manufacturer to buy, but I deal with CCTV a lot and I would say you will need to consider what you want CCTV for.


If it's just as a warning and you want people to see the camera (much like an alarm box on the wall but no alarm system) then anything will do.


Do you want to be able to see who is coming to the door, when you are awake and monitoring?


CCTV will not protect your property unless you monitor it 24/7, so one assumes it will be used to catch criminals/nuisance neighbours dog etc after they have committed the crime.


That being the case you would need a quality system that works in the dark and would have the ability to allow Police to ID the suspect. Or produce quality images for any civil case.


Far too many systems produce rubbish evidence because they are not fit for purpose in the first place.


Anyway, what do want it to do? This might assist you in getting some good advice.

A_Couple_In_Love

x2 on maplin, very cheap and good quality.

wroenaldinho

Hi thanks for the replys. Someone has recently tried to break in through the back patio doors so i would like to record really so i can playback in case of anything. Will i need a proper dvr or can you just get cameras with memory cards?

When i say cheapish i dont really want to spend over £200 if i dont need to,and would like 2 cameras as 4 would be too many.

Thanks

kwikbreaks

You should be able to get a couple of cameras and a DVR for £200 but they won't be great and are unlikely to be good enough to identify somebody you don't already know. Motion detect and record cameras as used for wildlife monitoring would still be ~ £100 each and less convenient to review.

A cheap deterrent measure would be a PIR floodlight.

Tucker

I fitted a Swann unit like this:

http://www.wiziwoo.co.uk/swann-dvr4-1200-4-channel-digital-video-recorder-with-smartphone-viewing-and-4-x-pro-500-cameras-with-500gb-hard-drive-black-uk.html?___store=default&gclid=CIX9je3n_bsCFQcTwwodRj4A4w

You don't need to fit all 4 cameras but you may well find 2 do not give you as much coverage as you would like and it gives you the option to add to it.

If you are half decent at DIY it's easy to fit yourself.

wroenaldinho

Tucker wrote: »

I fitted a Swann unit like this:

http://www.wiziwoo.co.uk/swann-dvr4-1200-4-channel-digital-video-recorder-with-smartphone-viewing-and-4-x-pro-500-cameras-with-500gb-hard-drive-black-uk.html?___store=default&gclid=CIX9je3n_bsCFQcTwwodRj4A4w

You don't need to fit all 4 cameras but you may well find 2 do not give you as much coverage as you would like and it gives you the option to add to it.

If you are half decent at DIY it's easy to fit yourself.

Thanks for the link. How do you find the night vision, is it o ive noticed the cameras are 520tvl and some sets on Amazon are 700tvl but chinese brands.

Thanks again

neilwoods

Night vision is displayed in the link, 20m.

try find a system that is not made in china or far east. 700tvl is only 702 x 480. But yes the higher the tvl the better the resolution, just need a D1 dvr to handle it.

That dvr in the link is refurbished though and only 90 day warranty, so it is worth.

Only thing i would say about buying from amazon or anywhere online a product like this is, if anything goes wrong, can be a pain to sort out and return. Whereas a store, you can just pop in, yes you will pay more for a system, but sometimes worth it. But then again, may get one online and it works flawlessly for years.

droopsnoot

Worth noting for any techies, I used to use an open-source system called "Zoneminder" back in the office. Basically set up a Linux PC with the software (there was a Boot CD option that did an easy installation) and connect some Linux-compatible cameras, and it provided motion-detection and record capabilities, so you could just have it make recordings when something happened. You could also "block out" areas, for example if your camera view includes a busy road you could stop it triggering that specific area of the view. And of course being PC-based, you could remotely access the setup, like these you see on TV where someone has watched their home being burgled while they're away on holiday.

Software was free, biggest trouble I had (as I was trying to re-use old kit) was finding cameras that were suitable for Linux, but some of the reference sites (there were quite a few businesses that would provide and install the system for a fee) had some very impressive setups. But also potential for quite a good system at a relatively low cost.

(for the record I have no involvement with zm other than as a user, though as it's a free product it's not like I would have been getting a kick-back).