karnak 0 Posted June 22, 2007 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... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
scorpion 0 Posted June 23, 2007 We would need more information. What are you trying to protect? Your car/cars, a boat, a shed? Do you live in an area prone to crime, or are you being proactive in case something happens down the road. We would need to know the distance from the cameras to what ever it is that you are watching. How far is it from the camera to where your cars are parked? I would imagine that your car is more than 5 feet measured at the rear bumber. What is your budget for a DVR? What is your budget for your cameras? What is your total budget to include all items? I know that you said that you are going to use your computer to put the video on your hard drives. What programs are you running on this computer? Is this just for a "hobby". If this is going to be a security system then you may want to remove all of your programs, and tweak the system to meet your security needs. If you wish to use wireless cameras then you will need to buy the best grade that you can. Look at the wattage. How many walls will this signal have to penetrate to get to a receiver? These are usually designed as "line of sight" devices. In some cases you may have difficulty with wireless video. You will have to expect flicker, and momentary loss of video in cheaper designed wireless cameras. I would avoid using the 2.4 Ghz freq. What kind of Cameras do you need? Are you trying to avoid the "trashy" video that you see in some of the news footage of crimes? When it gets dark at 5 pm how will you get video in the dark? Are you going to buy specialty license plate capture cameras? I would highly recommend that you contact a local CCTV dealer, and have them design your system. This wil need to be done correctly if this is for security purposes. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
karnak 0 Posted June 24, 2007 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... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mijie 0 Posted July 8, 2007 first you need to learn about cctv, study about that...survey market price for cctv product. u need to know about cctv first before u decide to install the cctv by yourself. so search at google...study how to install and review the cctv product... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
