I need an outdoor surveillance camera and setup that allows quick play of events recorded 24 hours a day to catch a person in the act of a crime. Any recommendations as to model and type of setup and cost? I'd prefer a simple and remote, temporary setup and less costly solution. And the camera doesn't need to be small/hidden, because it'll be out of view, anyway. Thanks.
edit: (both wired and wireless will be considered. I only need one camera.)
I need an outdoor surveillance camera and setup that allows quick play of events recorded 24 hours a day to catch a person in the act of a crime. Any recommendations as to model and type of setup and cost? I'd prefer a simple and remote, temporary setup and less costly solution. And the camera doesn't need to be small/hidden, because it'll be out of view, anyway. Thanks.
edit: (both wired and wireless will be considered. I only need one camera.)
serious crime or nuisance crime? e.g. petty theft or someone tagging your fence? don't go cheap on the cameras. I had a cop tell me how good my video was after it was handed over and he said those $49 deals have such crappy video there isn't much they can do. - I don't know whats good in the "less costly arena" but these are what I have. »www.swannsecurity.com/s/ ··· duct=975 you'll be amazed at how you'll want to add more cams once you have it setup. there may be insurance discounts as well.
serious crime or nuisance crime? e.g. petty theft or someone tagging your fence? don't go cheap on the cameras. I had a cop tell me how good my video was after it was handed over and he said those $49 deals have such crappy video there isn't much they can do. - I don't know whats good in the "less costly arena" but these are what I have. »www.swannsecurity.com/s/ ··· duct=975 you'll be amazed at how you'll want to add more cams once you have it setup. there may be insurance discounts as well.
I really like using Axis cameras with Vitamin D video because it will identify people vs. other motion vs. nothing. Thus, it won't record a whole day of nothing happening, and it's easy for you to go back and review clips. You can configure the Axis or Vitamin D to send an email with a snapshot, or run a custom script.
I am pretty much sold on the VitaminDinc solution. All I need is a single camera that has both wired and wireless (802.11n) capabilities and night vision. I was looking at WVC80N (Linksys), a camera supported by VitaminD. It has everything except night vision, so I'll look elsewhere.
Found a nice cost-effective camera: Foscam FI8918W. Main drawback: moving objects (including people) get blurred up. That means identification of suspect would be iffy. Here's an example video, which gives the Foscam bad marks in this area.
Image Compression: MJPEG Image Frame Rate: 15fps(VGA),30fps(QVGA) Resolution: 640 x 480(VGA), 320 x 240(QVGA)
The 15fps is the problem, assuming the recording device that even made it to the youtube video kept all 15 frames.
30fps is my minimum...
Resolutions: AXIS M1011/M1011-W/M1031-W: 640x480 to 160x120 AXIS M1054: 1280x800 to 160x90 Frame rate H.264: 30 fps in all resolutions Motion JPEG: 30 fps in all resolutions AXIS M1011/M1011-W/M1031-W, MPEG-4 Part 2: 30 fps in all resolutions
A while ago, I didn't know much about network cameras, but just by looking around, I've learned a few things. I want: 1) megapixal resolution 2) motion JPEG compression 3) day/night with IR (30 meter range would be good) 4) motion detection 5) local storage (memory card slot) 6) digital zoom 7) both wired and wireless (prefer 802.11n but 802.11g is ok) 8) outdoor ready 9) audio support (option, not necessary) 10) pan/tilt capability (option, not necessary) and, of course, at least 30fps!
I use Geovision for several DVR systems I have setup. A good Geovision card with the software is around $100. You then need a PC to plug it into.
A cheaper alternative is the open source Zoneminder application. It is a full-featured DVR that lets you just install a capture card and the Zoneminder installs the OS and everything so the PC becomes a DVR.
If you want a plug-and-play system, for around $400 at Costco you can get a Q-see or Swann system.
the most critical thing is that the el-cheapo systems use plastic cameras that use CMOS sensors. These have terrible video. what you want is a CCD camera, preferably with a Sony super-HAD sensor, which typically can do as high as 540 TV lines of resolution.