Hi all,

I'm thinking about setting up a couple of cameras in my front yard to monitor for intruders. I've been looking around at what's available, and I've come to the conclusion that I want a setup with night vision and motion detection that's wireless.

I seem to not be finding many setups with both motion detection and night vision. Is it because the infrared LED's interfere with motion detection? I'd think that body heat is of a much longer wavelength than the just-barely-below-human-sight wavelengths they can use for night vision.

Another thing is I keep finding wired systems that would be good, but I don't really want to deal with running wires all the way across the yard to the house, and I really would rather not have an analog setup. I'm more comfortable working with things on the computer, and hard drive space is cheap.

Do any of you folks have any experience with this sort of stuff, and know where would be a good place to buy the equipment?

 

Check out palmvid.com If you want give them a call they are all very helpful. I am running 8 of their security cameras with two of them night vision (all are color and motion detect) I am using two of the 1480 capture cards. Each is good for up to 16 cameras I am using 4 on each to capture the best quality. I am dumping the video on 4 300GB harddrives and have about 2 weeks of high quality color video. My system is buisness oriented so it is all wired. They do however have wireless kits that I have no experience with.

Hope this helps

 

Try Sams Club. They have a simple unit that even comes with a time laps vcr. Simple, inexpensive, and I know somebody with one and it works quite well. I think his came with 4 cameras, a monitor, video swicher and the vcr.

 

Yeah, but is the sam's club one wireless? I really need that-for a variety of reasons, it's impractical to run a signal cable from the cameras to the house. Now, getting power to the cameras is no problem, as there is an outdoor outlet near where this all needs to happen.

 

Are you in a neighbor hood or out by yourself some where? How close is your closest neighbor? Is your area that bad?

 

I'm working with Mobotix stuff if I need a good cam for surveillance- take a look at http://www.mobotix.com/eng/content/view/full/2 - they do offer a lot of nice features.

HTH

AlpineRAM

PS- I'm in no way affiliated with Mobotix

 

Here's the deal-this may offend some, but it's the reality where I live:

I live in a white middle class neighborhood, and I've lived here for almost 11 years. Recently, like in the last bunch of months, we've had blacks from other areas cruising through, casing stuff. We started to see thuggy-looking folks who obviously don't live here cruising slowly through for no apparent reason. At exactly the same time, stuff started to come up missing. My dually got broken into about 3 months ago-it was parked on the street in front of my house because I had another truck on a trailer behind it. The window was broken out, all the stereo was stolen, and my laptop was also stolen. The very day before, a black dude not from around there was driving literally like 3 mph up the street, looking intently out his window at houses. I mean, you could have walked beside his car and kept up. It so happened that I was standing between the two trucks, hidden out of sight when he eased by. He looked visibly surprised when he saw me, raised his hand to wave, and took off. I got an uneasy feeling about that. So, about 9 that night I went outside and made sure the truck doors were locked. At 7 the next morning my wife was leaving for work. She called me and told me that the passenger side doors on my truck were open. That's when I found out it had happened. I don't have comprehensive insurance on that truck, as it's a '98 with nearly 300k on it. My homeowner's didn't cover it because it happened on the street, not on my property. I'm out about $2500 from all that.

Then, less than two weeks ago a friend of mine parked his truck in my front yard while he was coming to get me in LA. (That was when the transmission in my dually died) When we got home, his stereo was stolen.

See, the thing is I've started talking to my neighbors. Lo and behold, a bunch of them have seen and heard about what I'm talking about. The cop who took the report when the dually got broken into said that there's been a wave of exactly what I'm talking about in my area-housing project cans going into white areas where stuff is easier to steal because it's not watched as closely.

Frankly, I'm tired of pressure to keep things politically correct and sanitized. It is what it is, so that's the way I'm calling it.

 

At work I have used these guys before for equipment. Security Cameras Direct www.scdlink.com

 

Nothing wrong with wanting to protect your property. The reason I asked those questions is because I dont live in a neighborhood where things like that are a problem, but I have a neighbor that installed some cheapo cameras in her windows and pointed them at myhouse and another neighbors house. I know there is nothing illegal about it, but it just seems wierd. It also detracts from the entire neighbor hood. The guy next to her cant sell his house now due to this. People show up to look at it and the first thing they see is her cameras, her private drive, keep off grass, no tresspassing signs, and her ghetto plastic flowers and think, what kind of neighbor hood is this?? That was the reason I asked those questions. If there is a known crime problem and that will stop it then you should. If you dont have problems like that then you shouldnt.
It takes a good quality camera to identify a person on and I bet it is near impossible at night to do that at all. Good luck with it and let us know how it turns out.

I still say that the electric fence charger hooked into the truck is the way to go
A good dog goes a long way to. If Ralph barks at night, someone is outside. Then you can go greet them with Heeler in one hand and 1911 in the other

 

I second the dog. Cameras don't scare and more times than enough can't identify the bum. I know one incident that the cameras where stolen as well. Funny part about it they where the cameras the law had put up. We got two dogs with big snappers no one comes on our property when they hear or see the pearls snapping. Even the big black bear runnin through here gives them respect.
The dogs hear everything, even the darn deer sneaking around at night eating my wife's flowers

 

i agree about the dog too. what good is a camera gonna do if you catch them in the dark if you cant tell them apart. and by that i mean its obviously dark, most thiefs ive heard about wear hoods to cover their faces and their baggy clothes are becoming pretty popular . a good dog and pistol go along ways in propery protection.
i know what your talking about having a new crowd move into the area so to speak. except in my area it was some druged out 20ish white trash kids and some Katrina evacs that the government still wants to support. i live in a condo on a golf course thats in the top 100 in the nation, and i had to worry about my bbq grill coming up missing. and it did and that was the last straw. now im happily settled in the country where i can leave my truck unlocked and sleep in peace. hope it all works out for you

brett

 

A friend of mine is a farmer, he's in the process of rigging up a night time security device for his market and shop. He's hooking up a propane cannon, like they use to keep deer out of fields, to a motion sensor. I haven't seen it work yet, but he says he's got it so it will fire three quick rounds when tripped. If any of you all know what I'm talking about, those cannons are seriously loud. That would almost give someone a heart attack, hearing that thing go off at night.

Good luck with your cameras man, worrying about someone breaking in or stealing your stuff will drive you crazy. I'm somewhat paranoid, I've gone outside in the middle of the night with a shotgun and a light plenty of times, when I thought I heard something weird. Maybe you could set a trap for him, put the camera in the truck with an empty wallet on the seat, get a good shot of his face.

 

It's impractical to put a dog where this is happening. I live on a corner lot and it's all happening in my front yard, which is not fenced at all. I also don't particularly care to have a dog yapping every time a squirrel farts in Idaho. The cameras I'm considering are supposedly quite good, capable of delivering 420 lines of resolution. That's better than some home video cameras. I don't plan on the cameras being spotted-there are places to hide them, and the purpose is not to let people know they're being watched, but rather to catch them when they don't think they're being watched.

We're going to move out to the country, but that takes time. We have to find a place, go through all the financial crap, and actually do the move. Not gonna happen before the end of this year for sure.

 

sent ya a pm

Tom

 

Its gonna SUCK when you spend a little money on these big bad boy cameras and all you get out of them is the ability to watch the guy make off with your stuff and still do nothing about it.

I talked to our security systems guy, he was at the shop today, and its like he said. Hidden cameras are good at very close distances and when you have a good idea who the suspect is. Other than that, he said the presence of the camera is what you want. Stop the ciminal before he commits the crime on you. Let him go to the next guys place and steal his stuff. I have to agree with this information. He said you would be amazed at the places you see cameras in that have no ability to film anything. They have motion activated lights and some that even follow the motion. He said they are just as effective as a real one with 1/4 of the cost.