Setting Up Surveillance Cameras For House

T

TIMEZONE

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 9, 2006
Messages
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Hey everybody...not sure if this is the right thread to put this topic but anyway I was wondering what would be the best solution for setting up a surveillance camera for the house. The main places are really looking outside of the house and not inside. So I was wondering if there is anyway putting the camera inside the house but making the camera looking outside! Sorry if that was kind of confusing...my English isn't really good.

*EDIT
Also the camera doesn't have to be up onto the network. I just want to setup the camera so I could see it on my computer when I'm inside the house and sometimes when I'm out. (Would like to see during night also and don't want people to see my camera from the outside.) Also was curious if when I'm out and come back and wanted to know who came by my house...I was wondering if I could like do a playback.

Additional Info:
Budget: $70-120USD

Thanks and Merry Christmas
 
I took a small webcam, used silicone sealant and just ran it along the edges where the plastic body splits in two if you undo the screws. I then used a USB extension cord and routed the wire under the front door. There is just enough space that allows the door to close over it. When you join the camera to the usb extension cord, you need to use another round of silicone sealant where they connect. I've been using this setup of mine hooked up to an old laptop thats inside the house. You need to seal it to make it weather proof.
 
TIMEZONE said:
So how much did that cost you MooCow? Btw, thanks for the suggestion.
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You could do that with a $20 webcam and a $10 usb extension
 
First time I read through the initial post, I said to myself, this guy wants the impossible.....

What your going to have to do is prioritize what you want in some sort of order and possible jack up the budget if some of the other stuff you wanted is important to you.

I'll list some of the stuff that are at odds....
About the camera being able to be seen from the outside, you can either go small or you can have one more professionally mounted behind some sort of pinhole that would only be noticeable if people were looking for it. Most webcams are kind of big compared to some more security oriented stuff.

Night vision is going to be a problem. Webcams are pretty bad in low light. Regular security cameras do a bit better, but the smaller you go, the worse they do in low light simply because of the lens size.

And finally, the playback issue....Webcams can record for short stretches of time, but definately not on a 24/7 basis. You can buy cheap security VCR's on ebay that can allow for 24 hour recording or go with something with a hard drive that will record only when there is motion and stop recording when there isn't. I'm guessing the webcam can be set to send snapshots every 30 seconds or something, but that is almost 1/500th the speed of what real video surveillance requires.

From a more professional security setup, the equipment would probably be around $500 and maybe budget another $100 for some type of screen.
 
i have been planning on setting up a home surveillanvce camera system since the past summer, and i found a setup for my home with four cameras IR outdoor , 120fps DVR card (30 fps per card), power and video carbles for $899 without a computer my friend. IF i add one of my own custom built computers, we're looking at around $1400...... :p :D ;)


..... up your budget.....
 
TIMEZONE said:
*EDIT
Also the camera doesn't have to be up onto the network. I just want to setup the camera so I could see it on my computer when I'm inside the house and sometimes when I'm out. (Would like to see during night also and don't want people to see my camera from the outside.) Also was curious if when I'm out and come back and wanted to know who came by my house...I was wondering if I could like do a playback.

Additional Info:
Budget: $70-120USD

Thanks and Merry Christmas
Click to expand...

Are you saying you want the camera physically outside or that you want to be able to view the camera from the internet(using password protection) when you are not at home?
 
Dew said:
Are you saying you want the camera physically outside or that you want to be able to view the camera from the internet(using password protection) when you are not at home?
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I'm saying that I want the camera itself inside and the camera looking outside. And when I'm at home or not at home...I want it to be on. Also to Rix2357 and AMD rules...well does it really cost that much? Is that the only way out? Apprecaite the suggestions very much. Merry Christmas.

*EDIT
About the night vision...well even with webcam how much in the dark can you see? Any comparison pictures?
 
TIMEZONE said:
I'm saying that I want the camera itself inside and the camera looking outside. And when I'm at home or not at home...I want it to be on. Also to Rix2357 and AMD rules...well does it really cost that much? Is that the only way out? Apprecaite the suggestions very much. Merry Christmas.

*EDIT
About the night vision...well even with webcam how much in the dark can you see? Any comparison pictures?
Click to expand...


Well that's easy. Any decent webcam will do the job. As for seeing outside, that will depend on outside lighting and indoor lighting(glare). If you have some sort of porch light, that should do the job, as long as it is dark inside.
 
The budget is pretty unrealistc. I would think more like Rix said, 500, and up and look around and see what security places woiuld charge to install the cameras.

Its a good idea to have them professionally installed. A lot of people that do it themselves just tac the wires to the side of the house and someone can walk up and cut the wire easy. Its better to hide the wires and mount the camera out of reach than look for the smallest or most concealable one out there.
 
I sort of do this for a living, except on a much much larger project scale ;).

Again, it would cost that much depending upon what your requirements are.

Webcams are a great cheap cmos based camera with a limited cord range to boot. I guess you can buy active usb extension cables to go beyond the usb specifications, but at some length in feet, the expensive active usb extension cable will not have enough power to run the camera because the wires in a usb cable are so thin, or will be cost prohibitive. Plus they can't record video constantly, nor do you want to be searching through the video it records. Some usb camera software used to come with a "security camera" application that would record when there was motion, but stability of that application wasn't all that great. Problems would surface that you wouldn't expect to come up.

What AMD RULES wrote about a budget isn't too outrageous either. He does have 4 albeit cheap IR cameras, and a card that can turn a computer into a 4 channel real time video recorder. Keep in mind that the computer is recording 4 simultaneous streems of video in real time without any of the tricks older cctv security camera setups used to record 16 cameras on a single vcr tape. That's equivalent to 4 vcr's running all the time at sp speeds. That price doesn't include the monitor he has to borrow from one of his existing computers nor the installation.

What I have suggested is possible too. I'm only counting the cost of 1 camera. Again, everything depends upon what is most important to you. The ability to standby and record 24/7. Easy search capability, internet viewing (that's another cost and complexity if you have dynamic ip's. DSL is the worst at it), camera quality, picture quality in low light, reliability, installation, and budget are all things to consider to do it in a manner you are satisfied with.

Pro's gravitate toward the reliability aspect of this since no business wants to be caught with their security devices not working during a critical moment. Makes all the money they paid to have it installed for go to waste if equipment malfunctions. Also YARDofSTUF also touched upon the installation issue. Usually, real pro's will try to mount it high enough so that it will take some concerted effort to reach the cameras, or will use stuff that is vandal proof. Some cameras can take a beating and also any wires running up to the camera should be in some sort of fairly rigid conduit if not behind a wall. I've seen semipro people use those plastic flex conduit that you can buy at home depot instead of the armored or metallic flex conduit.

I think I've given enough of a primer on all of this. This is like the question, "What computer should I get?" that gets posted here. There's lots of stuff to consider to make the best choice.

Merry Christmas


P.S. AMD RULES, I hope your using an Intel chipset + Intel processor with that DVR card.
 
Rix2357 said:
P.S. AMD RULES, I hope your using an Intel chipset + Intel processor with that DVR card.
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Don't worry, i am. Probably a Pentium D 805 or 4 and a cheap socket 775 intel chipset board.

Merry Christmas
 
Well, ya I know its really about my opinion, but my main problem is that my car is outside and a few weeks ago...my car was silly stringed on and got scratch. So that was why I wanted to put some security up. But what solution would be the cheapest w/o any of my requirements but camera still inside the house? Thanks.
 
I just thought of a cheap and quick solution. Most online stores that cell security cameras and hardware sell warning signs and "dummy" cameras or fake cameras, Get two and put them looking at your car and put up a sign that says "This property is under surviellence 24 hours per day." That will only cost your like $50. That scare those fools away


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
 
Well to revive this thread...do anybody know any experts in this case? (forums...)(about surveillance cameras...!?)
 
I've been looking for a 6-9 channel DVR/Multiplexor with good (color) cameras... I'd like to know of any forums as well.
 
Here's a forum that I've been on since 2004.
http://www.cctvforum.com/

I had my house prewire with siamese cables and run all into the MBR. There are 5 locations for which I can attached a security camera and each camera will vary depending upon it's location.

Looking at the original poster message, $100-$200 will not get you very much in terms of quality.

There are tons of information on this websites to read up on. In reality, if you want something decent with the capability to recognize a face or license plate, you'll need to spend a few hundreds to thousand dollars just for the camera....camera only.
 
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