PoorOwner

Is this any good? (for the price?) It sure beats the 1/4" CCD "kit" camera that I have. http://cgi.ebay.com/1-3-SONY-540-LINE-COLOR-CCD-IR-CCTV-OUTDOOR-CAMERA_W0QQitemZ140302909285 What I don't know is if it turns black and white at night, how do you tell?

I used a 3/4" bit to drill through the siding of the house.. it's was big but required to fit the siamese + BNC. Now I was wondering if anyone has a favorite way to seal it back up? spray foam? foam rod + caulk? I do want to be able to remove it incase I need to change the camera.. (the BNC connection I shoved inside the attic).

If I add a microphone to the cameras monitoring the entry door and driveway of my own home, is it breaking any regulation or laws?

I am using a DVR system with bullet cameras and it seems the cameras have the ability to adjust brightness on it's own. Each time it does I get a false motion detect.. I am not sure what I am doing wrong, maybe a cable problem? or is it just caught between the auto adjust sometimes. Another cause would be a cloudy day with the sun shine going on and off. I pulled back the shield for the camera since it is under a eave anyway seemed to help reduce / stabilize the auto adjusting. Thanks for any tips you may have..

I am installing a 4 Ch DVR capable of recording 640x480, comes with 420TVL cameras but it comes with standard cheap cable, 28AWG, 60 ft, power and video in one cable. I was wondering if I am going to get much better quality for this length of cable if I replace it with siamese cable of RG59+18/2 AWG power. Is it worth the effort AND expense (I have no BNC crimping tool) 60 ft looks to be adequate for all camera locations. Thanks in advance

Also, when adding the 12V plug to the end of the cable.. do you just use the soldering type like radio shack sells? Or do you get one with pigtail and solder the wires? Are there better options?

That's great, thanks for your help.. got another question though do you know how can the camera says 420TVL but transmit effective 640x480 pixels... that's just the pixels and not what the camera actually can see, it can only sense 420 lines (TVL) right? So I am missing out on at least 60 lines. Are pixel / resolution information being output by the camera, and the DVR will just take whatever it can from this image? whether it be 352x240, 704x240 etc from the camera. The DVR although will record 640x480, not sure they didn't just make it D1.. so until I get a 480TVL camera this will not be fully high res right? Would a 480TVL be better than 420TVL, by having 14% more lines and roughly 14% more claraity?

Thanks VST_Man, do you know what kind of quality am I missing when using the plug and play cable? Also even if I get the RG59, the camera has a 4 foot lead built in would this be the bottleneck as far as picture quality goes? I am leaning a bit towards running the RG59, because the length is customized when shorter than 50' and the quality would be even better just by doing that. You said about getting the stuff from the same source, I found this "datashark" brand at home depot, the compression tool was $20 and they have a BNC connector $2 each. I needed to wire some Coax for my TV anyway later so this will be good "investment". It's a economy compression tool not those $60+ ones, is that going to matter for me to do about a dozen or 2 dozen connections around the house? Do you know the difference between the expensive version vs regular version? Then I found siamese cable 500' on ebay which says 95% copper braid and copper core, this sounds like a good buy from my search here we want as much copper as possible for this application.

I would like to get a capture card and just 1 camera to monitor my living room and my cats while I am gone, would like to log in and view via a web browser. Using my PC, 2.7 Ghz 512MB RAM, DSL connection. I do not have a static IP address, but computer will be on constantly. How to find a consistent address for my computer from the internet? Can anyone recommend a capture card that is off the shelf and what software to use? (complication: need to be a local brick and mortar store, as I am leaving in 1 week). 2nd camera would be an added bonus, if the hardware card supports it. Thanks

Thanks who sells the Geovision card locally?

Does it makes most sense to mount camera somewhere under the eave and run the cable into any vents along the eaves. They are going directly into the attic I believe. Then run the cables to a centralized location from there. The vent grill would need to be cut in order to fit the camera plug through it.

Ok. I could provide a picture later but the vent is one section of the wood that run horizontally along the eave, looks like a 2x4. Instead of the vent then maybe I will just drill through the wood? Good call on orgainizing the camera cables. I don't know if I need to spend extra on a box, my house is small enough (1000 ft 2 bedrooms) and single level probably if all the cables run to the closet it is not a big deal. BTW. if I want to buy say a camera from cctvimports.com, it says BNC/RCA? Do I just get however many extension/connection length that I need? Or do you guys crimp your own cables? I do not think the cameras come with cables.

Thanks, do you just drill through the wall and then use a grommet of some sort? My exterior walls are mostly stucco. I notice cable guys usually just drill a hole straight into the room, but mostly seen on wood sidings I have no idea if it apply to stucco.

My house is on a corner lot. One side is Garage and driveway and the other side, street side, is long enough to park a few cars. most of my doors and windows also facing this side. My front yard lawn spans between the sidewalk and the house. So I have my car parked on the side of my house.. technically you could say it is street in front of my house. I had my car window smashed in broad day light. Now I am looking into installing multiple cameras. Initially I only wanted cameras to monitor driveway and front door entrance, now I am also thinking of one to look at this sidewalk. Basically to look at the cars parked there. I want to know if there are any legal issues with this? I would consider it to monitor my front yard activity too I have a few valuable trees planted there also.

I am interested to setup a few cameras around my property, driveway, front door, front yard, backyard patio. Not all will areas will be lit except the driveway which will have motion sensor lights. Criteria: I figured 5 cameras total and maybe some could be I/R or B/W, or all the same model. I do think the day time security is more of an issue as most folks in the neighborhood went to work. I think wide angle would be useful as well. Maybe a more subtle style camera as I do not want to place to look like alcatraz. The budget would be $500, or within $100 each camera, there was a site I saw before you have to buy 5 minimum I think but I forgot the link.

Recently I had found foot prints in my yard which is soft mud and it ain't mine! I am kind of panicking right now.. someone has been climbing over my fence. I need to setup a system to view and record motion in my yard. In my old place, I used to have a old PC and ran a software called Gotcha via a capture card, it was great because it posted screenshots in a loop on a http server. but I would like a DVR with net capability for a cleaner solution now. I went to frys and bought a swann 4 channel DVR but it doesn't have network so I am going to return it. I researched a little bit and found that it is a company called AV tech that makes it for Swann. Where can I buy the AV tech products? I think the 4-9 channel DVR with net is what I need. I hope not to spend over $1000. that is with or without cameras, I have a color CCD cam with IR that will do the trick providing it has some motion floodlight but I'll start with a camera or two, I'm only interested in surveying the backyard right now. Also has anyone seen the system sold in costco, home sentinel CCTV from strategic vista. It is $1000 with monitor built-in DVR unit, HD, 4 cameras included and USB connectivity to PC (not sure if that is network or not) Well that is about the max I want to spend, please give me some advice and recommendation.

Can you recommend a good night vision camera(s) for my yard. Does it have to be B/W? Does it mean in day time it might become too bright and un-usable? Also the ones that are color that claims to turn B/W at night, do they work as good as a true B/W? I have a clover OCD225 color and the night vision is just poor despite with the IR LEDs you have to walk up really close to get a blurry blue face image. That makes me decide against a color camera because it is practically useless at night unless you have powerful flood lights with it. I would like clear image from the eave to fence, about 16-20 ft at night. Also, what does CS camera stand for?

Hi, I'll try to describe the situation better regarding my security concern. There are 4 sides to my yard, for simplicity I would say it is about 20x40 ft 1 side is the patio / house, 2 sides are 2 different neighbors, fenced (I'm in a corner lot). 1 side is gate/fence facing the street. This fence is barely 6 ft tall. You can just walk up and peek at my patio (living room door), and also see my shed. Not good. I'm working on getting a higher fence. But of course budget does not allow for a year or two.. landscaping is expensive. Recently I have found foot prints on my newly seeded lawn. It scared the heck out of me. incoming and outgoing footprints towards neightbors side fence though. Someone took a tour of me and 2 neighbors I bet. My neighbor does not even have a lock into his yard I bet thats how someone entered. Maybe some kid climbed and retreive a ball, I don't know. The backyard lighting include (auto dust to dawn) yard floodlight, and motion detector flood light. both wired to 1 switch, well I am not in a habit of turning it on before. I really only want to have the motion light working.. but yard light is for when I go outside at night. I might have to leave these on permanantly. Is it a good idea to leave the yard light every night? It is bright enough to let anyone peeking over my lowly fence to see the patio and shed at night. Would the light aid a thief better (to just grab stuff in my yard if not broken into the house?) I am mounting at least 2 cameras, possibly 3 onto the house. It will be attached to the eave.. siding etc. Yesterday I installed the first camera looking from corner of roof down to patio. clover 1/4" CCD, color, 11 LED, 330 lines, I am not so happy with the image quality. Not going to get facial features for sure. But, it does ok to see motion in day time and night (if floodlight is on). And even in the dark it see a little with IR. To tell you the truth, I am hoping the camera be a deterent than actually being able to be court evidence. I am going to have a home alarm sign on my backyard lawn so the fence peekers will see. Also "under camera surveillance signs". Sometimes I am not even sure what the cameras would do any good if the intruders don't know about it, don't you agree? But since I am installing cameras, I might as well try to fit my budget and get a good image. Thanks bryan you really got me thinking, I don't know what I want really, and what angles I should survey. I tend to like to turn lights off so I am saving electricity. (utilities are quite expensive where I live).

So maybe a color camera with flood lighting is the way to go. The color camera also seem to be enhanced by IR LEDs, for example my color camera have 11 IR LEDs and you would see a circle of blue being lit up at night. Now I am not sure if I want completely good night vision since that won't give me good image in day time. And, having both color and BW of camera in one location (to cover day and night) doesn't seem to be ideal.

So bryan you don't have any experience with that camera yet? Does it have the IR LEDs built in? Does it have a good field of view, being so narrow. FINALLY Do these cameras work in day time or will it look to white and bright.

Looks ok, you have to order 5? I'm under the impression some black and white cameras can let you see completely in darkness. Or should I add IR illuminators?

Can you shred some light into the PC vs the standalone issue. PC is never as stable but can be scheduled to reboot once in a while. Instead of spending $1000-$1500 I am thinking of running a $99 4 channel card and leaving my computer on.. while I am not home. I honestly can say I'm not trying to run a bank or store here, maybe it is a good starting point. The chance of actual crime happening might be very very low. To me $99 is neglectable cost if I get a stand alone later on. But I would like to start monitoring soon and the PC route would let me do so without hurting my wallet too badly.

I have trouble identifying which AV tech model is this, can you help? http://www.swann.com.au/show_item.php?item=160 Also... they always mention "video web server" in the bouchure. Has anyone used one to add video serving through the web? I suppose you can't have more advanced operation like controling the DVR from it? Although, the video web server have RS232 control, right?

Do you know more exact which AVtech (without LAN) this one is? I know it is not the 780 model.

My head is already spinning.. Where do you guys buy all these brands of DVRs from. Even a net search for AV tech and power telecom etc doesn't come up with anything. I'm in Bay Area also..