CCTV

[ians]

I have cameras setup around the house linked to a DVR which i use for testing and experimenting.

The cameras are setup to record for 30 days. Someone swiped my weed eater, so i decided to go back and analyse the footage to see if i could see when it was taken and by who. It is not something you can put in a bag and walk out with, however if you plan it right you could take it out during the day and chuck it over the fence and come back later to collect, inside job.

This is were it got interesting, i found one of the cameras have been switching off randomly, i presume because of the 230 000 volt line i have adjacent to my property, i also found that because of the camera quality and the positioning it doesnt actually serve as a security backup, you buy cheap you get junk.

The other camera is a good quality colour IR unit, but because of the setup it also very time consuming trying to view old recording, around 1 hr 15 minutes per day at x 16, so i had a look at events and monitoring, also an issue because i had all the pixels on the screen active, which i have since modified, but still have issues because of the trees, shadow from the sun which moves across the screen as the day progresses and at night there are just tooo many bugs.

So for inside monitoring great, outside eeeish you either need someone with lots of time to play back and watch or you gona waste alot of time.

[wynn]

You need that system that takes a piccie every 10 seconds, then when you fast forward it looks like a keystone cops movie but the time is too short for someone to skelm the weed eater without being picked up.

[Riaanhar]

Can't you set your dvr to only record only on movement?.
I found that most analogue cameras give similar video quality with exceptions though, unless you go for the high-end cameras.
If you want quality it is better to get IP cameras - I found the axis cameras to be of very good quality.

Are you using a pc based system or a hardware based dvr?

[adrianh]

A friend who owns a electronics shop in town has a clip of a hooded outjie sneaking up and stealing the very expensive CCTV camera filming the outjie stealing the CCTV camera....

[Riaanhar]

A friend who owns a electronics shop in town has a clip of a hooded outjie sneaking up and stealing the very expensive CCTV camera filming the outjie stealing the CCTV camera....

That is why you have to have a system that will notify you when a event are triggered.

[AccessTech]

Hello. Not sure if you have resolved your problem yet but here's some advice.

I understand your main problem with installing the camera outdoor is the motion recording being triggered almost every second by nature resulting in lots of unnecessary recorded footage.
You can reduce the sensitivity of the motion recording and also setup the exact area your DVR must monitor the movement per camera and in such you get n much more detailed motion recording.

The reason you should reduce your sensitivity is to cancel out unnecessary movement detection caused by flying insects attracted to the IR light the camera projects at night.I found that most DVR systems I work with tend to set the sensitivity at about 50% on factory default. Depending on your depth of field most of the time you will only need about 20% sensitivity to pick up somebody walking away with your weed eater

In the end this will leave you with allot less video footage to work with finding your thief !

Hope this will help ;-)

PS : I monitor some of my sites via the use of remote view setup.I view live footage from my iPhone or PC anywhere anytime by just logging in to the DVR.
It can be tricky to setup if your are not familiar with networks and port forwarding but the technology is available and makes your DVR more handy for you than ever.

Good Luck

[Hermes14]

When I check my footage I usually watch four cameras at a time, set the speed to x4 or x8 & stand about three meters back.
Anything faster than that I find you miss events.

Have you checked you BNC connections?
Are they crimped properly?
What cable are you using?
If it is RG59 check it for cracks & make sure the power & co-axial cable, if they are laying next to each other it could affect your reception.
How many frames per second is your DVR set at.
What is the resolution?
Just remember if you less fps you have & the weaker your resolution the poorer the picture.

Check you cameras during the day & again at night.
The main thing to look for is facial recognition.
If you can recognise the face of a person who has a dark skin in the day but not at night try & install a few IR beams.
Another alternative would be to put a spotlight with a motion detector behind & above the camera.
That way when he triggers the beam, he & the light goes on the first thing he is going to do is look directly into the camera.
You could also get one or two stand alone covert cameras & place them strategically.
If you want to go the NVR route I would suggest you get at least 4 meg IP cameras & cat 6e cable