CCTV, why me.

[Someone-Else]

My neighbours car had a sat nav taken from it today (His fault, never locked the door) so I get a knock asking did my cctv see anything.
They know from last time, it only looks at my drive, and same as last time "we will get a camera" will people ever learn?

Have you got cctv, or are you thinking about it?

[ultimatehandyman]

I have a Homemonitor outdoor pointing at the front of the driveway but keep thinking about proper CCTV. I also have a couple of guardcams around the property (which record to an SD card). I might install a full system next year, you can never be too careful!

[ayjay]

Have you got cctv, or are you thinking about it?

Neither: all the scrotes live too close and in general terms I guess they don't crap on their own doorstep.

To the best of my knowledge there's only been two burglaries in my road (of about 60 houses) in the twenty years I've lived here, and one of those they were almost begging for it with their virtually continuous ostentatious improvements and many holidays.

[BillyGoat]

I was having the conversation with a mate on Friday. A well known retail chain is stocking some new interesting items, but I said it's home monitoring NOT cctv.

If I was going to do it, I'd use cameras from a known CCTV place, like the trade place I have for cameras, DVRs. There is a lot to a decent install, whacking a few cameras up doesn't make it good.

BG

[kellys_eye]

Years gone by I'd had a CCTV/video recorder setup thrown together to mintor some scrote who were damaging the missuses car - it didn't catch THEM at it but it DID record a transit van being stolen from the grounds of the house opposite I passed the tape to the van owner but never heard a thing aout it..... always wondered if he was 'in' on the theft

Nowadays I'd be fitting IP webcams (if anything) to take advantage of image recognition/movement detection, zoning and, above all CLARITY as the resolution far, far exceeds anything most CCTV cameras can manage.

[BillyGoat]

You can do all that with a good DVR, plus cameras are MUCH cheaper than their IP counter parts. The nice thing of DVR is that it's all centralised from a control perspective.

If you have several IP cameras, they rarely interact (well) if at all....so each one is sending motion reports, has to be setup and controlled indvidually and is a pain if you want to access remotely. Some of the newer IP cameras are a pure rip off in the consumer space as they require a 'cloud storage' account to function. No subscription = no recording, let a lone the fact if they go bust you've lost all your kit!!!!

BG

[ultimatehandyman]

I have an outside IP camera and it's always going faulty and offline- not much good if you need to rely on it for evidence

[BillyGoat]

I have an outside IP camera and it's always going faulty and offline- not much good if you need to rely on it for evidence

That's one of the nice things with a DVR - you can usually set a couple of options that help a lot:

Loss of image alert - if a camera gets blanked (spray, paper, bag) it can alert you
Loss of signal - if the camera is smashed, wires cut, etc it can alert you

Both good things to have. Of course, if the DVR fails (not seen one yet, but they do have drives inside) then it's like loosing a single camera.

With local storage of IP cameras too, you've got to get it from each camera - again, not a central point. Don't even get me started on the 'it's got an SD card' cameras.....because THAT's safe!!!

BG

[Razor]

Can you combine services and have cctv record directly to its own partition on a home server??

[BillyGoat]

Can you combine services and have cctv record directly to its own partition on a home server??

Lots of the new ones have the facility to do such a thing - costs usually though. The ones I've seen work via FTP after an event has finished or can be scheduled at a set time (overnight, which would be good when it's off-site).

Not seen anything that works directly to a NAS/SMB or storage share - DVRs, that is. There are plenty of computer solutions that do that, but again, all the ones I've seen rely on a computer and never seem to perform amazing - assuming you can find a genuine card with multiple inputs, not a rip off version from China with cutdown/compied chipsets.

BG

[Someone-Else]

I never saw the point of using a pc to record onto, if your pc goes down you have lost the lot.

[BillyGoat]

No different to a DVR HDD failing S_E.

[Someone-Else]

I see what you say, I agree that yes they are both a HD and if you format it you could use it in the opposite of what it is in, but a dvr is on 24/7 and doesn't get a virus etc.

[BillyGoat]

DVR card in a server, with av, not used as a PC with firewall or no net.....

BG