Thanks Soundy.
I started out thinking I would only need/want 4 cameras for my property... 2 in front and 2 in back. I am now leaning toward 6 or more after yet more reading here.
There is NO lighting except what I provide.
I am thinking 2 mid grade IR bullets that reduce headlight glare (I may be a little bit of a pioneer and try the Samsung SIR 4160... it would be focused further down the road so I don't think it's wide angle IR problem would matter.) to try to catch license plates. The good news is there is roughly 200 feet of straight road on either side of my driveway. The bad news is most cars are traveling 50+mph. I was thinking 1 camera on the left of the driveway pointed right about 4ft off the ground (to maybe help with faces also) and another on the right side pointed left. My hope is the cross cover will help protect each camera and give me double the chance to get the license plate. The fact that the camera should have decent view of the plate for several seconds coming or going should help even if the car is going fast, correct?
I want to place 1 or 2 more cameras to capture faces but the problem is the front of my house is VERY low... as in about 6.5 feet from the ground to the gutter. Normally this would probably be wonderful because I could mount a camera right under the eve and it would be roughly face height. The problem is my jeep. I often park it right in front of my house parallel to the road. It would block the view of any cameras toward the middle of the house. I was thinking maybe a dome under the eve of both front corners with cross coverage again or a camera on the peak looking down to get general coverage (I'd be out of luck if they wear a hat though.).
There's my 4 cameras (maybe more depending on feedback). Since it leaves me with no side or rear views (not a priority to me at the moment) I guess I will have to go with a card that can handle 8 cameras and buy the other 4 later (if only I was a millionaire!).
In short (too late for that I guess), I don't plan to go with cheap cameras but I can't afford top of the line stuff. I was guess-timating roughly $350 for each license camera and $150 each for the other 2. I then figured roughly $700 for the 8 camera card. This isn't firm. I don't mind going up or down on the $$ a little if it means better performance.
Once it warms up a bit here, I will take some photos and post them.
