What are some really nice front-door cameras?

[Birdman Adam 0]

Yup, you guessed it. I may be putting in another system, for another friend. I already know what DVR and general-coverage cameras I will use (VCM-24VF outdoors, DBM-24VF indoors).

 

BUT - I am clueless on what to do at the front door. He's already got cat5e prewired to all the spots, so I will be going w/baluns of course.

 

What do you guys have up your sleeves for front-door cameras? Basically, I want Monalisa quality, or better. So good colors during the day, nice B&W picture at night, with decent light shining out from inside the home. IR would be fine, if needed. I want to get the camera at about face-level, and be able to capture a good shot of their face, as well as most of the body of the person.

 

So this leaves me with:

 

- Some sort of camera mounted in the door. Model #'s anyone? Experiences? This would be ideal, but how does it look from the inside? A nice-looking finish is essential.

 

- Camera of some sort mounted to the wall to the left of the door, or just above the door. Not as pretty, but that is probably where the cat5e is... Ideas? CNB may have some options:

 

http://cnbusa.com/en/html/product/product_list.php?maxx=1&midx=7

 

- Just stick a CNB vandal-dome above face-level, looking down. I wouldn't place it so high as to not be able to get their faces, however.

 

And finally, anything other positions I didn't think of. Below this area is unfinished, so I can sneak the cat5e in where-ever really...

[Soundy 1]

http://www.google.ca/search?q=door%20peephole%20camera&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=513

[Numb-nuts 1]

Hi Adam, I have done quite a lot of research on this as I have a doorview camera at home. The important thing is to get a crisp image of the person at the door and the first conclusion I came to is that a colour image is not necessary. A monochrome image is perfect for close up ID or seeing who is at the front door. Spend the money where it counts. I have done a couple of dooorview cameras for neighbours and friends and my best ones from an operational point of veiw ahve been 19 mm bullet cameras with a 2.5 mm lens, inserted into the door at about 4-5 ft from the ground. I drilled a hole about 10mm through the door and then enlarged it to 19.2 mm from the rear of the door to almost the whole depth but so that the hole at the front was still only 10mm. inserting the camera into the hole, getting the picture vertical and jamming a couple panel pins in from the back to secure it from moving. I then bought a junction box dna drilled a hole in the back and placed it over the camera at the the rear of the door to cover the rear of the camera and hold the connections. A single cat5 cable carries power and video along to the door hinge side and I used stranded cat5 because of the numerous corners the cable had to route around. In my case, I bought a 10m patch cable as my box of cat5 is external grade and solid core. Using passive baluns at both ends obviously. the pictures were far better than mine. I disguised the hole at the front of the door with door numerals. Works well and picture is better than my own doorview camera.

 

Some of the commercially available doorview cams are terrible, so try them out first if you can, like my own one is far from perfect but I can't pass it on to someone else knowing it's rubbish, I couldn't sleep at night knowing that I'd sold a piece of cr@p

[Numb-nuts 1]

Alternatively, I have a corner camera mounted to the left of my door in the porch aswell as the doorview camera. It takes a board camera and a 2 mm wide angle lens. Again, I spent the money on TVL rather than colour. This is an Eneo housing and board camera but it does require additional lighting support at night. There is a model of complete camera for corner mounting by Bosh in their extreme range which has IR support built in and also thie pictured model below

 

This is a link to the google page

[tomcctv 190]

door jam cameras are much better than fitting a camera direct into a door and you dont have wires on the inside of door.

 

 

door jam cameras all wires can be hidden via the moldings. and they are not as noticable.

 

http://www.videologyinc.com/cameras/ccd-board-camera-20K142-F.htm#ccd-board-camera-20K142-F=overview

 

[nDAlk90 0]

I think this camera would probably be ideal for you. The specs look great and it can be direct mounted in the side wall of the porch without a back box. I think its better to mount a peephole type camera in the side of the house rather then in the door. This way when they are turning their head to find and push the doorbell you not only get a good front shot but a side shot of the face also.

 

http://www.seco-larm.com/EV-5105-N1SQ.htm

[Birdman Adam 0]

Thank you all for the great suggestions!

 

Once we get it all figured out I'll be sure to post some shots as usual!

[liveinxs 0]

just in case you haven't made a firm decision yet, you might want to check out this camera, is Vandal Proof, and could be installed to the side of a door, enabling you to capture a perps face...also this has the Monalisa chip you were looking for...

 

i just ordered one today for my home, looking forward to checking it out...

[rory 0]

Make your own?

Gang Box, Clear/Tinted Cover (or white plate with cutout then clear/tinted insert), install board camera

 

 

Back in the day we used these at ATM/Entrances

[nDAlk90 0]

rory;

 

I love you ingenuity.

 

Make your own?

Gang Box, Clear/Tinted Cover (or white plate with cutout then clear/tinted insert), install board camera

 

 

Back in the day we used these at ATM/Entrances

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[Twilo123 0]

http://www.mobotix.com/other/Products/T24-IP-Video-Door-Station/Simple-Installation

 

http://www.mobotix.com/other/Products/Home-Automation/CamIO2

 

or if you want to get creative and have an extra android device laying around you could do something like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8to1hJhmnPo&feature=channel_video_title

and stream from the android camera to the client.

 

for analog camera check these guys out

http://www.aiphone.com/products/alpha-list/

they have an encoder to make the analog camera ip also if you want

http://www.aiphone.com/products/alpha-list/detail/ipw1a