Be real- Hobby? Necessity? Or both?

[shockwave199 0]

It's an interesting thing, and something people new to this who are thinking about a cctv setup should consider. I'm new to the whole thing- if you consider the total time invested. It's about four months. I took almost a month to shop, read, study, and formulate a plan- and with that I made mistakes. The past three months have been installing, tweaking, replacing poor cameras, tweaking, and just plain survielling my exterior eight channel system each night- the bulk of my need. It's a chunk of money, first off. Hobby or not- be prepaired to spend at least 1,200 bucks for an eight channel system- and that's budget gear. And a TON of sweat-equity. Wires don't run themselves and cameras don't hang themselves. WORK, man.

 

I started out feeling I had a serious need to even get invloved in all this. Working overnight and leaving my home and family on their own, coupled with my ability to actually watch my camera system all night, was enough for me to conclude it's time- buy, install, watch. Long about the first time you get a camera setup and watch it, you become hooked. It takes on the form of a hobby. You see other peoples gear- you get motivated to upgrade. You get four cameras installed and you love the array of footage you now have- you want another four. It's fun! It's at times funny to watch too. It's genuinely fun to be into this. And rewarding too. Ater all, when you setup a whole system yourself and sit back and watch your work, it's rewarding think- 'I' did that. All good- fun.

 

And then one night there's an incident- like what happened to me just this morning at 4am, after three months of watching nothing more than insects and cats. There I sat, checking into my cameras remotely from work, when all of a sudden someone just marches right across my front yard- right across camera eight on my system. And my heart drops to my balls. It turns out that it amounted to nothing- just someone apparently taking a shortcut across my lawn. But at 4am, there's very little good that goes on, so who knows. Playback showed nothing more. My eyes and my cameras are now WIDE open. It's actually the second time I've caught something amiss, only the first time my original camera provided such poor night image I couldn't be sure. In an instant- hobby became critical. Images became super important. The plan of action beyond just spotting something becomes paramount.

 

So from one newbie to droves of others flocking here- have fun with it. It is fun and rewarding. Nothing wrong with it being a fun hobby. But make no mistake- surviellance will eventually be critical. Put a camera up and you're libel to see something not good along the way. For that, be prepaired. Know how you'll handle that. Have a plan of action. And here's a big one- when you're putting a system together- make sure your cameras are actually useful past a cool little picture on the screen. Because as sure as anything, you're gonna be glad you have quality good enough to where you can actually desipher the trouble before you, instead of leaving you in a panic and guessing what the hell is going on.

 

May all our views be boring as all hell.

 

 

Dan

[Birdman Adam 0]

You know, you should really write a book. Or two.

 

I have had that feeling too, the "oh $#!@" feeling - the moment you may have realized that something bad is going to happen. Or after the fact and you realize you have captured them in the act.

 

It is so true - once you get into this stuff, you will never stop! I too can agree - it is best to save until you can hit the quality-point you want. You really do get what you pay for! (Not including over-paying. )

 

Also, I would be willing to bet that EVERY camera you ever put up will catch something odd - I know mine have! - This reminds me, check Scruit's youtube channel, he has some neat videos!

 

So yea, have fun everyone! " title="Applause" />

[rory 0]

The dogs come out at night here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUUl6bFAp9k

 

there is one road i drive down and at night like every 100 feet there is like a pack of 20 or so dogs trying to bite your car tires ... they even lay down in the middle of the road (one reason there are so many dead dogs all over the streets), guess its to make you stop so they can attack

 

Yes the 4am burglar ... seen that before ...

 

One night I was just watching the cameras out of the corner of my eye and I heard a noise, looked up and see this figure having just jumped the wall walking in my yard, with gloves on - actually it was like 1am so I thought was it the garbage men, they wear gloves. But no, I then see him disappear behind my jeep, now it was on - as i was not fully dressed or armed yet, i ran to the window to first stop him breaking my window and shouted at him ... he ran ... too bad ... then i got dressed and armed, turned on the alarm siren and ran out after him ... he disappeared down the beach somewhere, cops came eventually but never even got out the car, he probably hid in the bushes for a while.

 

Another time I heard a noise and looked out the window .. saw this guy on top of the wall then he jumped and ran down the road after I said I was gonna get him .. played back the video and he had come in from the other entrance and was trying the car doors unsuccessfully .. at the time i had an old avtech DVR and evidence sharing from that was tedious so took a while like an hour to back up the video then drop it to the cops on CD. But my cheap color bullet caught him clear as day - and in most cases here these burglars are known to the cops so only have to show them some basic video or image.

 

All that said. most of the time its dogs or people walking down the main road ...

neighbors dogs bark anytime someone or an animal passes by now .. so then I open up the cameras and monitor it ... until they quieten down and I then know its all clear

 

Most of the real crime videos I deal with happen at the night club and even the gas station ..

Spent years watching video of people getting stabbed and beat .. sad really.

Just a few weeks ago some thug broke a bottle over a customers head at a gas station .. for not giving him a cigarette - victim needed something like 20 stitches to his head. Ofcourse the videos where the victims die or get beaten near death is the hardest to handle, its not just youtube, you see the blood in person and many times even the victim and even the suspect, after a while it makes one paranoid of everything and everyone. And thats why you dont catch me walking around my yard empty handed at night * cough * while doing a little gardening ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQSO8N3YLc

[vincenttor 0]

Haha, the same here i know exactly what you mean.

first time that something happened was with some boys with fireworks

dropped some in the mailbox and boom, a little hole in the bottom

 

boy was on camera but because of the lack of light it was barely noticable.

My plan was to put up pictures on tree's with the face of the bomber haha

 

upgrade immediatly to some samsung utp 2000 and now its like its day in the night

still a hobby but im also pointing a bit more on good images because there are some robbers spotted in my little village lately.

[Birdman Adam 0]

Next scare: 9:30PM when a truck pulls in. I'm watching the cams while readying the gun as they park it and walk up to my door. No doorbell - then they leave. Of course, the first thing that comes into my head is someone trying to break in again. Turns out to be Fed-Ex - at 9:30PM? wtf?

 

And then there was last Saturday... Someone decided to shove a bunch of crap including a skanky purse with a bunch of cheap makeup in our mailbox... I still can't think up a legit reason why someone would do this??? Would have had a perfect view of the car and person, if I hadn't parked in the way of the cameras view! Now I park at the end of the driveway...

[shockwave199 0]

That's really weird- UPS did the same thing to me last week- like 9pm at night we get a delivery. Great service but man- that's late and unexpected. The purse- that's freaky. Could have been drugs or worse- ditching someones ID. No ID in that thing? Just skank?

[Birdman Adam 0]

Yea, well it looked like it had been sitting in the ditch during the rainstorm earlier that day. Smelled like bad perfume and ****e...

[shockwave199 0]

I guess people are as dumb as all hell and someone could have thought it was a good place to ditch it- but I'd be inclined to bring that into local PD in case they have anything on the books that could be related to.

[fa chris 0]

1. I think you guys might be a bit paranoid.

 

2. UPS frequently delivers late, driver has to get the packages done. I used to work in an UPS warehouse in college, the drivers always told me they loved delivering packages late at night, people were always happy to receive their package. During the day they almost always get left on the porch.

[shockwave199 0]

1- readying a gun could lean towards paranoid! LOL!

 

2-I LOVE that UPS gets the package here, even late!

 

3- You get a bit rocked when you DO run into potential or obvious crime caught on your residential cameras. It makes you wary. Paranoid? Ok- that too.

 

Glad things have been just peachy for you.

 

Dan

[Birdman Adam 0]

Well, after being broken into once, I'm OK with paranoid.

 

I think your mind changes once something like that has happened. I find myself more aware, for example always setting the alarm when I go.

[rory 0]

People regularly trespassing here now, so I dont call it being paranoid anymore, instead it is called being aware.

[fa chris 0]

Don't know if your dvr supports it, but try setting up trigger alarms to email you when something happens so you don't have to constantly watch and still feel protected and are fully aware of what's going on.

 

People shortcut through my yard all the time (hazard of living on a busline)... not to worried about it. Alarm system will notify me if they try to get inside.

[Birdman Adam 0]

That is a good point... Although I don't think the computer I'm running Zoneminder on can quite take the load of having to do motion detection as well as recording everything.

[SS360 0]

And thats why you dont catch me walking around my yard empty handed at night * cough * while doing a little gardening ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQSO8N3YLc

 

 

Hahaha rory is going to give someone a haircut. I like the music. " title="Applause" />

[shockwave199 0]

Don't know if your dvr supports it, but try setting up trigger alarms to email you when something happens so you don't have to constantly watch and still feel protected and are fully aware of what's going on.

 

People shortcut through my yard all the time (hazard of living on a busline)... not to worried about it. Alarm system will notify me if they try to get inside.

But then you're monitoring boring emails instead of all your nice camera pictures. Emails are after the fact. My dvr does support that but it's the last thing I wanted and don't plan on setting it up. More emails of false triggers I don't need. All my cams out outdoors, btw. I would only set emails if I was away on vaca or something for days. Vacation? What's that! Haven't had one in a decade! Hmm, maybe that's part of the problem!

 

 

Dan

[Anymouse 0]

1) Someone walking across your yard isn't something to panic about, but is nice to make sure it doesn't turn into something to panic about.

 

2) I fully share your nerdy appreciation for an overkill CCTV system. Events a while ago prompted me to go all out on a 16-channel IP/NVR system (still in progress) after running out to immediately buy a 4-channel DVR system and throwing that up for the short term. I'll still use it permanently so in total I'm going to have 20 cameras (and probably only need 4, hehe). It's a very fun project that I just so happen to have a decent excuse for, I love it! Not to mention, I'm learning a LOT about networking and some other things that are very useful for to me to know.

 

3) To be truly paranoid is to NEVER give out too many details on the internet nor to post any actual video from the system unless it's absolutely necessary (for troubleshotting, etc), and to make everything as "anymouse" as possible, no matter how BADLY you want to share with the whole world how cool every last thing is that you're doing, even if there's only a .003% chance that doing that would ever compromise even the mildest of security and surveillance needs.

 

4) I've caught some pretty cool things on mine too, I had never seen a bird catch up to and snag a bug mid-air before!

 

5) Great thread!