Posted: 8/5/2015 9:45:41 PM EDT
| I've read that some of you have security cameras. I'm ready to buy a system for my house. Any recommendations on a product / system to buy or not to buy? I am looking for something that records and has some sort of night vision and will alert an I Phone when motion is detected. I'd like it to be able to clearly see people's faces / car tags from at least 50 feet away. I've seen systems at BJ's Wholesale Club, but I don't want to buy something that doesn't suit my needs. Hopefully I'll get a video of that bobcat I've seen twice in the past two months. Thanks for the help. I hope to make it to McGuires on the 29th. |
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There's a mega thread in safes and security iirc.
Been thinking the same thing. Checked out a guy's cheap setup...was Costco package, maybe a qsee system that he could monitor from phone. Think it was around 400. You will prob have to spend more for the clarity you mentioned. |
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It is generally cheaper to place an extra camera or two where they can get license plates (or cameras with longer focal lengths aimed at the right spots) rather than trying to get ones with high enough quality to read it from a distance AND provide an area view.
Generally speaking there are three types of cameras in use professionally. The first is a somewhat wide angle camera designed for short range use at choke points. These watch doors, hallways, offices... They provide a record of who came and went, what they had in their hands, what they were wearing... They often have excellent night vision because the short range means on camera IR lights work well.They can be fairly cheap for a given quality level but still expect to spend a few hundred each for decent ones capable of surviving outside. The second is an area view camera, often the same general type as the first, but setup to view an area rather than provide close up views. They let you see where someone came from, see them coming... but they aren't going to give you fine detail, forget getting a good enough image to positively ID someone you don't know, much less in court. These may scan an area or have a fixed view (even if they COULD scan). These can be wide angle, telephoto, zoom capable... The third is often used in combination with the second, they are the fun ones. Pan Tilt Zoom cams with good lenses and optical zoom capabilities that let you look anywhere the camera has line of sight and zoom in enough to figure out what brand of smokes someone has from 100 feet away or more. The reason you don't use these everywhere is simple, size and money. The ability to PTZ smoothly adds bulk to the camera. The optical quality and zoom adds size to the lens. They are often not super high resolution, but the visual clarity is better than higher megapixel cameras with less capable lenses. Often you park one of these somewhere with a good general view of the areas you care about and that is the camera you play with, the others are to fill in the gaps and provide coverage where that camera isn't looking. Expect to pay serious money though. $1500 is a cheap one for a quality unit. I have been pretty happy with Video Insight and ALL Campus Security. Their software is basically free if you are using their cameras. Their cameras are not on par with the super high end stuff but are better than almost anything else I have found for the money. I compare them favorably with the mid range Axis stuff, which is sort of a base standard. I really like the A47 and the A200, those two cameras represent about 95% of the cameras I have deployed now, along with a few Axis telephotos and a few other misc units. I record to a Synology NAS setup at two different locations but if you only need a few days you could easily handle it on a decent PC with a 4tb drive. It doesn't even need to be a particularly powerful PC unless you want to do playback on it too, recording is really a low impact task for the machine, playback of multiple streams at once, or monitoring a bunch at once can cripple a lesser machine. I suggest viewing/playing back on a different machine and leaving the recorder/server alone to do its thing, far less likely to have issues. They have an iPhone app and if you have things setup right it works well locally (on wifi at your location) and via the web. We use it all the time via iPhone, iPad, web page on a PC... I have not tried the Android app so I can't comment there. I have to get to work, but if you have questions about it I'll check back later. Just don't think that the cheap stuff compares at all with the mid range, much less the good stuff. We tried that route, it was a waste of money. Also, plan on more cameras than you think at first, distance is the enemy, it works much better to put a camera closer to where it needs to look. |
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Quoted:
I've read that some of you have security cameras. I'm ready to buy a system for my house. Any recommendations on a product / system to buy or not to buy? I am looking for something that records and has some sort of night vision and will alert an I Phone when motion is detected. I'd like it to be able to clearly see people's faces / car tags from at least 50 feet away. I've seen systems at BJ's Wholesale Club, but I don't want to buy something that doesn't suit my needs. Hopefully I'll get a video of that bobcat I've seen twice in the past two months. Thanks for the help. I hope to make it to McGuires on the 29th. Lots of info in the Safes & Home Security section. There are several specific threads in there on video cameras. |
