I need a "simple" system to monitor traffic in and out of my property when I am away- mainly to minimize the amount of lumber(and tools >:() some folks (and a former emplyee who locks don't deter >:()"forget" that they picked up.
Wireless would be good (needs to transmit 300'), 2 motion sensing camera's minimum, recordable through my pc would be most convienent.
I've searched and found hundreds of suppliers but can't seem to find a system that is all of the above and still affordable.
sounds simple enough, but being somewhat electronics challenged is leaving me with more ??? ??? ???the more I look.
color,bw,what lens, field of view, clarity?????
I've considered a gate(no electronics, cheap) but it will only advertise that I am away and keep out the honest folk. Big ugly dogs and set guns are out also.
Never thought I'd be even considering this....... ::)
Anyone doing something similiar? Pros, cons of your system?
I did, years ago. It cost me a fortune. ...to me anyway. Equipment has improved by leaps and bounds since I purchased and installed my system. It is cameras in weather proof containers with co-ax connections to a device that selects each camera in sequence and feeds a few seconds to a fancy-smancy time lapse recorder. This gave me a week of pictures and then would start over.
You can get a better sytem from Sam's Wholesale club now for 100th less than what I put together.
My static camera lenses got burned with the images and were quite useless before long. I don't thing the new ones will do that.
Rather than look for distance of transmition, consider long lenses to reach out there and touch someone. Many of the cameras will allow lense choices.
Don' t be so proud of your system that you tell everybody about it. It's tempting to show it off. You definitely don't want anyone knowing where the recording device is located.
You can purchase fake cameras that have a lot of deterrant as well, especially when you've hidden the real one well. The destruction of a fake camera can set a perpetrator up for a mighty fine portrait.
Take into consideration lighting. A silouette looking into the evening sun isn't going to be much help. Also consider vehicle identification and tags. That can be almost as important as a picture of the person. Sometimes you can kill two birds with one stone.
Some cameras will use low light, or even record in the invisible spectrums.
I finally had my system installed by a professional because he knew equipment and the tricks. I would have spent months or more learning enough to do it myself.
Karl,
I have never rigged these cameras up to be motion sensing, but I have rigged them as time lapse. There is not really much to it. I have not used the wireless outfits that are out there, but they look pretty simple. The camera plugs into the wireless transmitter using a standard RCA outlet. The receiver is just plug and play into a recording device.
I have run 12 V DC waterproof cameras to 12 V DC time lapse VCRs without any problems. At the time, an entire setup including the camera, recorder, wired, weatherproof box, and battery costs less than 1000.00. Prices have dropped a lot since then.
The wireless untis I have looked at recently are a bit confusing. The price ranges sort of scare me. I see some for 40 -50 bucks for the transmitter and receiver that claim 1 mile transmission. I see others that are over 1000 for the transmitter and receiver. This makes be a bit concerned over both. If you get what you pay for, the cheap ones may not be worth dirt and if the importers are just trying to make money off of folks that aren't very savy about electronics (me), I'd be affraid I paid way too much for the more expensive units.
I would not let linking everything together concern me. That part would be a piece of cake.
There are game trail cameras that may work for you. I don't know if they will accept external triggering, nor what the time lapse capabilities are for recording several spaced images.
Couple years ago, I installed a sensor down the drive, and send the signal to the house ($70 at Radio Shack). The unit has a switch that it closes, which I hooked into the doorbell system. Now, when a vehicle comes in the drive, the doorbell rings. Really has worked well (keep the spiders out, the blowing snow out, the tall grass from triggering it, etc.). I wired in a circuit from a motion light, and use it when I'm gone to turn on a floor lamp in the house. The idea being when a car pulls in the drive, the light in the house comes on. Thinking this may give an uncomfortable warning to anyone in the mood for sneaking around.
This same switch could possibly activate a camera or video sequence for capturing digital images of whoever pulled up the drive. May wish I had taken the time to set that up some day, but so far only in the thought stage. :)
From experience. Hide the camera, hide the recorder. Cameras only on the areas you want to watch. A general camera at the gate catches a lot of folks that wont go much further if they just turning around. The other advice on long lenses and water proof set up works. Slick idea of a camera on a fake camera, catch em at it.
Just a comment on the security system recording to a PC. Unless you spend some extra money to get a mega-big harddrive or your cameras are particularly low resolution, your harddrive will fill up very quickly as the video streams in. Having a separate recorder is almost a necessity.
IMHO,
Jim
Our wireless network camera from Linksys has motion capabilities and when triggered it will send the video clip of 10 seconds per instance to up to 3 different email addresses. You can zone the motion to different quadrants of the view if needed to screen out pets and such. Problem with it is that it is not weather proof. It has to be inside. I dont know if it will transmit 300 feet or not. 150 no problem.
Here is some good info, www.pixcontroller.com
Jeff, hope you don't mind me posting the above link.
SMS
Did ya get that thing fixed Jeff?
They sent us a new one. It was under warrantee ;D I dont have it installed again yet though.
Ya'll keep talking, I've been kicking this same idea around myself. Only thing different is that I'm going wired to a couple different locations at the gate and barn.
Jim Buis, Any idea how big a hard drive would be required? I just stuck an 80GB external on here, big enough?
Quote from: Woodwalker on February 05, 2007, 10:06:52 PM
Jim Buis, Any idea how big a hard drive would be required? I just stuck an 80GB external on here, big enough?
The answer to the question is dependent upon recording time and resolution. I'd have to do some checking to pin it down specifically, but if you are recording at a high resolution, i.e. anything remotely approaching what we have come to expect from a home video camera, that 80GB harddrive will be filled up within a matter of several hours. As the resolution goes down, the amount of recording time you can squeeze into an 80GB harddrive goes up exponentially.
For example, if we compare digital still cameras (DSC), the original DSCs took a picture with a file size of about 250 kilobyte while modern DSCs have a file size of 4 megabyte to about 8 megabyte. The greater file size is in proportion to the improved quality of the photos. The same is true of digital video. Digital videos consist of hundreds and thousands of digital still photos. The better the quality of each individual digital still photo the greater the file size of the digital video will be.
Jim
If you have motion detection theres no need to have a huge storage need. Your only interested in seeing what happens in front of the camera when something is happening I would think. The video files our camera sent during testing were only 200k or so per incident.
Quote from: Woodwalker on February 05, 2007, 10:06:52 PM
Ya'll keep talking, I've been kicking this same idea around myself.
So have I. Especially today, cause when I arrived at my mill yard and noticed that someone had come in and took my battery and 8000# Warn winch off of the flat bed. >:( and it was welded on. >:( >:( The only problem I have over there preventing me from hooking up a system is that it is about 1/3 of a mile up the road from my house. I also have no power other than generator. I don't want to have to run a generater all night long just to run a camera and recording device, but I do need to fiqure something out. :-\
Woodwalker - I do a lot of video recording and you can ballpark about 10 gb of hard drive space per 1 hour of live video. That is just a ballpark, but will get you close. Like Jeff says, if you have motion detection, then you don't need a lot of time.
We were looking at a video system for a store and gave serious consideration to having the system that sends photos to e-mail addresses. As it turned out the store closed so we didn't get to make that happen.
This is a very interesting thread - I think a lot of us are looking into these possibilities.
I checked into this before I caught my thief. Had all sorts of info and sites bookmarked. Spent many many hours doing comparisons, reading reviews, talking to online vendors on the phone. Then I lost it all with the hard drive crash.
Some guy in Fla. was the most helfpful to me, and I was looking at a system that would call up 3 people and send emails too whenever any activity was detected, and send the video offsite to whatever hard drive I desginated.
I will have to start all over to find this guy. I am anxious to see what y'all come up with because I might take the lazy way out and try and get the fruits of y'alls research. ;)
I too looked into this a while back, and have started gathering some components.
The Linksys wireless camera's actually will run off of 12vdc power. My plans are to take and hide some, wiring them into some heavy equipment batteries on a solar charger, and set them to record when motion is sensed.
For backhaul, I have already installed an external onmi-directional high gain antennas at my house, and from driving around the farm with a laptop I have determined that I can receive a signal about 1000' line of sight from the base station antenna. However, the problem comes in that the remote devices are usually not powerful enough to make it back from 1000' - ie not enough uplink power. The sweet spot though seems to be around 300 - 400' (with 802.11G technology).
So - I'll be putting some directional antennas at the cameras - pointed back to the base station antenna, and will have it record on a hard drive off of a pc.
At least that's the concept...
Big ugly dogs are looking better all the time. :D
Wesdor, I'd check your program if I were you.
I also record and burn a lot of video and I'm only using 1.5-1.6 gb per hour in most cases.
You either have a ton of loss goning on when you burn, or aren't getting much on a disc.
Quote from: DanG on February 06, 2007, 02:19:36 PM
Big ugly dogs are looking better all the time. :D
They keep me in the truck 'til you come outside :D :D
Sometimes, they keep me from gettin back in the truck too :o
You may want to rent your place out for 'safe storage'. I figure thieves are about the last thing you'll have to worry about.
As for me.... I got one BAD BEAGLE :D
Gotta learn me some o' that there Electronicez language :oY'all gonna hafta type slower for me ta unnerstan'
Got any dawgs for sale Dang?
Keep talkin', I gotta run out tonight. I'll read this agin tommorrow when I'm older and .....(what was that other thing?)
BTW- solodan- don't that just get yer hair up? Sorry you got hit.
If you buy a video card for your puter, you can feed in anything you want.
That means you could buy some cheap used camcorders and use them.
Either through the puter, through a VCR DVD recorder or even just stick a tape in the camcorder long as it's well hidden.
The wireless deal is what makes things hard.
The cheap ones are just that, cheap and they still require 110 power for the best reults.
I have one that runs on 110 or 4 AA, it works better on 110 and I sure wouldn't wanna keep feeding it batteries. :o
You can get what you want if you are willing to pay.
I sugest getting something cheap and just bury the wire, or better yet, bury a plastic pipe so you can feed what ever wire you may need through it and forget the wireless.
My 2 cents.
x10.com (http://www.x10.com/cameras/index.html) has the Anaconda and the NightWatch2 wired cameras.
I would look into the legality of hiding your cameras. If they are hidden, you may not be able to use the information for prosecuting the dirtbag. On the other hand, if it is just between you and him ;D A friend of mine had all the tires slashed on his semi and the lawyer said that if they put up a camera they must also put a sign saying that there was surveilance, he did both and it stopped the problem. It may not be an issue in VT, you are actually allowed to protect what's yours up there. ;)
Dave
You might want to look into the X-10 system and using the software that stores just motion from a wireless digital camera to a hard drive. You can get repeaters too.
Thanks!
Gonna look into the x-10, sounds like even I can handle that. Thinking I'll take Furby's advice and run wire.
Dave- It may be an issue in VT.too, but not for me. ;) It has been my experience that the court system is a waste of my time and money. ::) They will only be involved as a very last resort.
I will be hiding the real cameras and mounting in obvious locations dummy ones, and warning signs.
Dang, I really hate spending my time and money to keep other folks honest!
If'n y'all try that X-10 junk, ya better have muucho Fire extinguishers handy. I had that stuff in the Florida house, and every so often, there was a hot plastic smell, and the camera feeds would smolder. Never could get the recording thing to work ALL the time. It worked when IT felt like it. The wireless receiver caught fire too. >:( >:( >:(
E-mails to them were ignored mostly. >:( >:(
The people expressing concern over file size are used to normal video editing. Security cams almost always use low frame rate, lower resolution and compressed files. No need for 30 frames a second to catch a scumbag, better to get higher resolution than more frames a second.
> mounting in obvious locations dummy ones
Make sure the wire and cable is obvious on those so they can cut them. Make it just tall enough to reach on the back of a pickup truck so you can take a picture of the license plate with the hidden ones when they back up to it.
I ordered a Linksys camera- hopefully it works for me...also a couple simulated cameras and signs
Got to come up with a location that minimizes the number of self images I record, yet captures the other traffic.
Called x-10 for info- verbal promise of email addressing my ques.- no response-now where have I heard that before FDH?
Thanks for the advice all
I'll post pics of the hanging tree and it's first customer ;D
Got my Linksys- only to find out that it won't work with dial up.
That was one of my original questions before purchace and was assured it would- gotta love sales people ::)
Wish I knew what I wus doin' ???
Back to square one....agin.
You can probably make it work, but you will need to wire it directly to your PC using an Ethernet cable then have it transmit images directly to your PC.
There is probably a bit of techie voodoo needed to make this happen, but it should be possible.
Let us know if you want more help and I can download the manual for the camera you have and give you some more detailed advise.
Cheers
Ian
You only need broadband if you are trying to access the camera from the internet. If you bought the network camera, you do also need a network hub and a network installed in your house. If you bought the wireless and wantto use it wireless you will need the wireless hub. As Ian said, you can also hook it to an ethernet cable to the hub.
Thanks for starting this thread. I've been doing some research for my own situation and have found some interesting software.
For the PC users you might want to check out WebcamXP:
WebCamXP (http://www.webcamxp.com/)
For Mac Users there is EvoCam:
EvoCam (http://www.evological.com/evocam.html)
Neither is a camera, but they offer some good looking software to go with cameras and at a very reasonable price.
Locker gnome gave a link to a site that had interesting info on security cameras that would send the video to an off site location. Seems that the author of the article said that someone stole the computer and camera and they still had pictures of low life. There are links here for equipment and software. If you would like this link, send me a PM.
"the more I learn, the less I know"has never been more true than me trying to understand this tech stuff. Beginning to think I have a learning disability.......
Always been one to "do it myself" but beginning to think that it's time to call someone who knows whats up, pay for their knowledge and do what I know to pay for it.
Thanks for the help all.
At least no one is ripping me off now- too much snow!
Those were the same conclusions a arrived too, Karl.
You got too much snow too, Tom? :D
Or'd ja mean the udder stuff? ;D