karnak

First off, let me say that I am a newbie to cctv but I do have a good understanding of electronics and know the lingo. I need to install a cctv system around my home, inside and out for security. Please tell me what kind of equipment I will need. Using 4 to 6 cameras, preferably wireless, I will either hook it up to my computer or will buy an additional hard drive. My computer has a Phillips saa7146 video capture card and two 500 gig hard drives. Is is possible to have the system record only when there is movement so I wont have to look through hours of video and waste hard drive space? What kind of cameras do I need for good resolution in low light situations? I only need to focus on small areas from 5 to 10 feet away. I do not need pan and tilt, they will be fixed. Where are some good places to start shopping? I probably will have many more questions, but lets start here till I get an understanding of what I need. If you need any more info, please let me know. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you...

I will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability. First off, I do live in a high crime area and basically want to monitor activity around my home. My cars are garaged and I have a state of the art security system installed in my garage and my home.(but no cameras) I have been having trouble with vandalism from the neighborhood punks. Several times these bold hoodlams have even walked right in my house in the middle of the day and stolen items like bicycles and video games/consoles. I have two mentally handicapped boys who can't understand the importance of keeping doors locked when leaving or entering. I can't blame them, they have all sorts of problems such as autism, touretts, and ADHD, and the poor guys just don't understand. I am in the process of installing self closing/locking doors. I have very good lighting around my home at night so I don't need cameras to see in complete darkness and to be honest, most of my trouble is during the day with gangs of troublemakers throwing rocks and walking in my house uninvited. Several cameras will only have to see 5 to 8 feet away, they will be mounted over my front and rear doors but I need clear enough video to make out faces for identification to the police. Like I said before, there will be plenty of artificial light at night. Several others will be taking wide angle video of areas around a detatched garage approximately 20 to 25 feet wide and between 15 and 20 feet away. Once again, quality video is needed to make out faces. I think I will probably be using hardwired cams instead of wireless after reading some post about wireless and I wont say the sky is the limit on my budget but I am willing to spend some money on this project. I'm not really looking for a lot of bells and whistles, just basic high quality video for four cams, two for my doorways and two for my garage area. I can add more later if I run over budget. I don't have a computer to dedicate to security so I suppose I will be using a separate DVR. Can I still use my existing computer monitor to view the video? If not I do have another monitor I can use. As far as equipment goes, is that all I need is a DVR, cameras, and the cables? I hope this answered your questions. If your need anything else, please let me know. Thanks very much...