Home CCTV

[NickFitz]

I must admit that the plod were singularly uninterested when someone lit a fire in the car port, despite the video evidence of this...

Too much trouble, I suspect.

Last year my camera was stolen in a pub in London, and a few days later the same guy stole a laptop. All of this was on good-quality colour CCTV, and the landlady had a copy set aside to give to the Police - but they never bothered coming to collect it.

The pub is directly across the road from Charing Cross Police Station, and has coppers walking and driving past it constantly, so it's not as if it would have been much trouble to pop in and pick up a disk

Perhaps they were afraid they'd leave their hats behind

[Iron Lung is Rusty]

Cctv

I have four bulldog cameras connected to a laptop running RapidOS Digital Surveillance. Each camera is individually configured to suit the environment and zoning of the areas I’m interested in. I can send out motion detection event videos - snapshots to a nominated FTP.
I have other cameras connected to digital recording ‘boxes’ I forget what they are called – but Maplins sell them.
AlanR, in your situation you may need to decide if you want a covert solution or a deterrent as some yobbos may play up to the camera. Also, maybe your neighbours or other people will object. Consider if you need colour, day, night time and high quality pictures – unless you invest in quality cameras you won’t get a recognisable image.

[Ardesco]

Not true it is no use as evidence. For legalities check gardenlaw and neighboursfromhell sites.

I spent some time testing Sony's Realshot manager suite and the big problem they had with the original version was that initially the video stream did not have time embedded in the original video stream, it was layered over the top before the video was saved.

In a court of law a lawyer who knows his stuff will get this thrown out as inadmissible evidence because the video stream has been tampered with (when the time stream was layered over the top). There is a reason that professional security systems cost a lot of money, they are designed to produce evidence that is presentable in court, and to make sure that there are no get out clauses due to the inner workings of the system.

[xoggoth]

Not true it is no use as evidence. For legalities check gardenlaw and neighboursfromhell sites.

[BrilloPad]

I built my own, but that's because I'm a sad git.

Though it did earn me £800 for a couple of magazine articles...

Well done Sir

Any links to the articles?

[AlanR]

Cheers guys,

Essentially, things are going missing from the front garden and drive (before anybody says anything, no we don't have any gnomes), nothing major, things like bird feeders, black plastic caps off of the wheel nuts on out cars, flowers being pulled from the flower beds.

Also my wife's car has been scratched although we cant be certain that it happened on our drive or not. But i work away from home during the week so if it acts as a visible deterrence then that's half the battle, if anything happens then we may be able to see who it is. I have my suspicions who it is and i get on well with his parents so, if it is i can have a word with them and if they don't believe me...

Plus it will give us a bit more peace of mind when we go away.

Alan

[Hiram King Of Tyre]

I'd be interested in this. I have 8 acres with outbuildings (stables, barn etc). I was looking for an IP solution though really. I was looking for an application to run on a PC writing to an external disc.

[minestrone]

Waste oo time really unless you are hoping it will scare them into behaving properly.

The evidence will not be valid in court and the police won't want to know if you capture the little scroats doing something illegal on it.

I think if they are in your property it is allowed to be used, if you are taking pictures of public land then you have to put a sign up. Don't know though, the laws for us north of the border are totally different, no trespass here.

There was that chap who got his PC stolen and used the images from his web cam to convict the bugger. I have a camera above my main PC in my study looking back on the room for that. Like him FTPed to a server, also have one looking out over the front garden running from the same PC.

For the cost of a couple of web cams I think it is worth it.

[Ardesco]

Waste oo time really unless you are hoping it will scare them into behaving properly.

The evidence will not be valid in court and the police won't want to know if you capture the little scroats doing something illegal on it.

[minestrone]

If you want to do it on the cheap, like me , I got a couple of cheap web cams from ebay and used a bit of free software from http://www.visiongs.com/.

You can select areas of the image to trigger motion detection.

Has a web server so I can see the house at work and FTPs to remote server.

Good camera and it is as good as CCTV

You can go up to infrared and wireless web cams if you feel flash.

[xoggoth]

I brought a DVR and CCTV camera from Security Consultancy & technical Ltd. Chinese made and instructions rather poor but works fine. Quite decent picture and works at night. (But not through a window which reflects the IR). You can program time and motion sensor area and sensitivity. DVR allows up to 4 CCTV channels. You can plug in a USB memory stick to transfer recordings to PC.

Make sure you ask for a lead that allows DVR output to connect to an ordinary TV video socket or you won't be able to see what is going on. The camera can also go direct to TV video input with the right adapter. (BNC to video) Maplin also does various adapters and leads.

Also have a remote radio pinhole camera kit from Pakatak. With receiver indoors and camera in shed, works over 50-60ft, again quite good picture. Rather narrow view, check if sufficient. Problem with radio is that interference (including break up due to poor signal or other people with devices on same channel) can spuriously trigger motion sensing on DVR. Think you can get 4.8mhz instead of standard 2.4Mhz which is better.

[oracleslave]

Been having a couple of problems with kids round our way

Any details on the problems? Do you want something as just a deterrent or do you have other plans for the footage?

[AlanR]

Evening,

Been having a couple of problems with kids round our way so I am considering installing a CCTV system, 2 -3 cameras, motion detection recording.

Has anybody got any recommendations for home cctv systems?

Regards

Alan