Hi,
I've had a number of friends have people break into their homes over the last few months and take pretty much everything. Seeing the effect that this has had on them has made me think more about my own security. They all say that they wish they'd been able to catch them on camera at least. I'm a bit of a gadget head so there's an awful lot to be stolen from me. Also, due to the nature of my job I can often be away from home for a few weeks at a time. I'm in the UK, btw.
I'm renting my place and the landlord isn't very permissive, so for the time being any drilling of holes for wires or mounting cameras is out of the question - although I've got a big IKEA desk I don't mind drilling into to mount a camera. In my current place there's only one realistic point of entry so a single internal camera focussed on that will be fine I imagine, but within the next six months I'll be getting a new place (also rented) with my girlfriend which I imagine will probably be a ground floor flat or house with a garden, so multiple points of entry. I'll ask for permission up front in that situation to drill a few holes for running wires, etc.
I'm assuming that if someone did get in, they'd be just as likely to take any cameras/DVRs as they would be to take my computers or TVs, so some form of offsite-backup is a must. My idea was that I could just create a new gmail account and have it email pictures from motion alerts to that. I've been reading up on 4-channel DVRs from AVTech and Swann and though they all advertise email alerts on motion detection they don't make it clear at all whether these emails will include an image/video attachment or not. Some of them also claim to upload alerts to FTP, but they don't make it clear exactly *what* they're uploading. I've access to a few GBs of FTP space if needed.
Being able to login while I'm away from home and check that my TV is still there would also be very useful/reassuring.
I want a completely standalone system that doesn't require any other computers to be on for it to work. Budget is ideally anywhere up to £400 but I'll go up to £500 if it's really worth it.
I was looking at an AVTech KPD674 bundle for £379 and then maybe a big heavy DVR lockbox as well but I can't figure out whether it will do what I need in terms of automically saving motion alert images or video in an offsite location.
Is a DVR system the way to go, or could I do what I want with an IP camera (and then add more IP cameras when required?)
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
