Home System

[seahunter 0]

Think I was on the wrong forum?? Anyway...

 

Hello,

 

It seems most of the posts are commercial, but I am just looking for home surveillance. Basically, I want perimeter cameras and to utilize the PC DVR card to send e-mail and phone notification for movement (not constant recording). Don't want to limit to four cameras, so have been looking at the eight-channel cards. I like good quality image, but from what I've read, I don't need anywhere near the 30 FPS. I am leaning towards the GV-650 eight-channel with probable six cameras max, so 10 FPS. Just hoping for any advice/suggestions regarding whether this is still overkill for just a residential application. Regarding cameras, I see they are all over the board for quality, etc. I know you get what you pay for, but are any of the +/- $100 cameras I am seeing any good at all for non-commercial use? Of course don't need casino quality, but are they going to show any detail? One example:

 

1/3â€

[kensplace 0]

Dont know your setup, but I find it hard to imagine any home setup that would not drive you insane with constant emails/notifications of movement that were not real alarms - especially perimeter cameras.

 

A locked room, that no one should enter, or a locked house, where any movement is always a alarm (apart from falling objects due to vibration or whatever) is one thing, but outside cams will give you a headache.....

 

As for cams, many cctv cams, even ones costing hundreds of dollars are useless. Honest, many cams are rubbish. Only way to know for sure is either to experiment and buy many different ones + different lenses, lighting etc, or spend a lot and get a really really good one (even then, price is no guarentee of quality), which even then may give a bad a pic as a cheap one if you dont know how to set it up.

 

If you enjoy learning, get a few on ebay, see what you need, and upgrade as required, but if you need a good result now then consider finding a good pro and paying them to save you the money as they have already made the mistakes...

 

Another thing to remember, regarding price, often the cheaper stuff may work great for one person, but not the next, as quality control may not always be the same quality for a cheap cam as a more expensive one.

 

But - that does not mean cheap cams cant be good - my two best cams are a cheepo black and white outdoor cam, and a very expensive colour cam. The price difference is in the thousands, but I love both of em...

[seahunter 0]

thanks a lot for the reply kensplace. I appreciate the ideas. I had thought about too much movement and uneccessary notifications, but it looked like with the Geovision you can set the sensivtivity on the system to ignore short-duration movement like an animal or solicitor it sounds like, and also take out areas of a camera's coverage. Would this work? Appreciate the camera input, I may have to go the trial and error method but like you said that can be costly.

 

thanks again!

[keno 0]

Basically, I want perimeter cameras and to utilize the PC DVR card to send e-mail and phone notification for movement (not constant recording).

 

A word of caution, any outdoor camera that is used with motion detection will give false alerts from birds walking on the grass, trees and bushes blowing, or just the sun causing shadows shifting. Night time you can get false alarms from headlights and also trees/bushes moving in the wind. Rain and snow also will cause false alerts. My cameras are sometimes recording about 80% of the time during the day, and about 20 - 30% at night due to the above. My suggestion is use the cameras for recording video, and get some motion sensors for people walking on your property.

[Deluxecctv.com 0]

What is your budget?

[Mobiquitus 0]

Think I was on the wrong forum?? Anyway...

 

eight-channel cards. I like good quality image, but from what I've read, I don't need anywhere near the 30 FPS. I am leaning towards the GV-650

 

I agree with all said here about false outdoor triggering and I would also consider the following issues:

 

1) who/what you do protect yourself from ? Do you want to catch people walking in your property ? Do you want to eventually identify their faces ? As said some external triggers would be more effective.

 

2) About fps. I assume you don't need to keep days of recording for later use. Why then not using full 25/30fps and just record over the old stuff all the time ? With the HDD now its very easy and convenient. The issus is that if and when you will really need to go back to a recording to identify someone then you would hope to have as much fps as possible Using low fps it is used for saving HDD space and be able tor ecord and store many days on the same HDD. But probably in your case you would not need more then a day or anyway not for a very long period. Is this your case ?

 

3) For a cheap testing I would save on the analogue capture board and go for a simple Ipcam with its dedicate simple CCTV SW. You might get what you want and still some some money

 

THX

CIPO

[keno 0]

Currently I have a DVR with 4 camera, soon to be more. With a 200Gb drive I can easily record a month or more. I do use motion recording, and sometime (actually alot) it records birds, pets, shadows, trees moving, etc. What I am in the process of doing is setting up a photoelectric beam sensor on my back porch that will send an alert (not an alarm) to my alarm system when it's armed. This way I will get a page on my cell that someone was on my back porch, and I then can go to that time period to see who it was and what they were doing. Most likely it'll only be one of the neighbors, but I want to make sure that is the case, and not someone casing my house. Without this photoelectric beam, I would need to look thru days and days of video to see if something was going on.

[Deluxecctv.com 0]

The beams are a great idea, but you must mount them high enough so that it does not pick up any cats or animals that my come onto your porch. You don't want a bunch of false alarms going off all of the time.

 

Our dealers usually mount these 2-3 feet off the ground. These go directly back into the DVR which will trigger the alarm and call you. In some cases when the alarm is triggered, it starts recording on that specific channel. Hope this helps. Let us know if you need anything else. Thanks

[keno 0]

Thank you, and yes I am planning to mount them around 3' off the porch. And even if it does trip a false alert, the only harm would be is that I receive a page on my cell phone. The actual house alarm would not go off. The DVR is motion controlled, so it will be recording at any motion.

[rory 0]

Hi, we normally install beams approx waist height, at least in the alarm industry .. just for information .. that can ofcourse differ upon the installation, but thats the general height.

 

Rory