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Posted: 12/8/2016 2:05:23 AM EDT
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2 years ago, I bought a Costco surveillance system in a box kit. It was a Swann (rebranded Hikvision) 2TB NVR with four 3 Megapixel cameras (Hikvision DS-2CD2032-I cameras). Reasonably good picture for consumer grade stuff.
Last night, someone stole a package off my neighbor's porch around 9PM. My outside garage camera got the bad guy's truck coming and going, but it was probably 100 feet to his broadside. Not a lot of useful information, but we gave what we had to the cops. We live in a 4 lot cul-de-sac. My NVR can support another 4 IP cameras. I'd like to get another camera that's dedicated to cul-de-sac entrance. Would something like this Hikvision vari-focal camera give me much added clarity? http://www.hikvision.com/us/Products_1_10534_i7722.html This masterful MS Paint drawing shows the following: The red arc is where you can read a license plate during the day. The blue line connects where I want to put a new camera and out to the entrance of the cul-de-sac. This distance is 100 feet. The purple circle is my neighbor's porch and the scene of the crime. 
Would the 4 MP 12 mm camera be likely to give me much additional benefit over the 3 MP 4mm camera? I realize a 100 foot license plate shot is pretty tough, and probably not possible at night. Or, do I need to really raise my budget for something serious? My surfing led me to things like this: Vivotek License Plate Recognition camera Very cool, and starts at $800+. Or, should I just give it up and put caltrops across the road every morning? 
Video of the Scrooge in question:  Package theft from front porch |
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We added a 140 foot IP and 2 analogs recently, the Alibi screams for NV, almost like I am using floodlights, the IP does okay as does the other analog.
To gain the quality you want you are looking at some expense as you have posted. I would pull that camera out of the window and get it outside, I would think the clarity would improve. I am going on a limb here and guessing you need 200 feet plus to reach out to the edges for the quality you are after? We had a situation where we thought a 65 foot range NV would catch things, boy were we wrong, when a neighbor removed landscaping from our (this was done at 10 pm, they must have lucky guessed our range), at 100 feet out we saw nothing. The 140 footers show enough detail to ID people and cars during the day and I dare say plates, but still tying to get quality details at night you might need to get some additional IR lamps to soak the area. Ours do show enough at night to make a ID of a person and make of car, doubt I would get a plate though. BTW I am no security camera expert, and many will probably call me out, just speaking from experience on our camera needs, I like the IP's but some of the HD cams in analog are really impressive now a days. |
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Thanks for the thoughts. My existing cameras are all outside. The next camera I want to install (at the blue circle on the MS Paint) will be outside as well.
The Youtube video (including the inside camera views) is from my neighbor. My only shots are the two stills at the very end. |
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