Home CCTV Advice

[Bob]

I'm looking at instaling 2 CCTV cameras to monitor the drive (where Bongy lives) for 'just in case ' purposes.

Not familiar with the beasts so any thoughts would be most welcome.

Thanks.

[g8dhe]

There are quite a variety of systems these days.
Possibly one of the main factors you need to think about is do you want to be able to watch live or merely record ?
I prefer to watch live and record, if so mobile display/smartphone or fixed locations maybe picture-in-picture on tv screen ?
Resolution - don't trust marketing/sales pictures!!!! - ideally see for yourself, also check under POOR light conditions especially look for clarity of faces when moving in poor light, many system look good for a static full face, when the heads are moving with poor light exposure times can be longer and all the details disappear especially on a still image taken from video!!
If lighting is poor seriously investigate infrared light source at night, quite cheap these days with IR leds so no obvious lighting. but also consider white lights to disturb or put off chancers who see an opportunity, anyone serious will have hidden there faces or have a spray can ready.
Have one or more cameras obvious, to put off chancers, but also consider a discreet well hidden camera, perhaps at ground level again IR lighting a good idea, at ground level looking upwards it gets facial images when people "hide" their faces from lights and the high mounted obvious cameras
Make sure your able to record for several days ideally one or two weeks is good, its quite well known for the serious minded thief to reconnoitre several days weeks beforehand, even come to the door on an excuse - one of my cameras is actually the doorbell pushbutton people LOOK at the button before pressing it nice full face recording !
Positioning, bear in mind where the sun is during all times of the day, long exposure to the sun will damage the camera sensors, also aperture will shut down when sun in view giving high contrast - black faces - also street lights after dark same effect, consider simple shades to block strong lights etc. that might be in view at night.

[Bob]

Brilliant info.

Thanks Geoff.

[winchman]

I also spent ages looking in to this
I bought a system made by this company via Ebay
http://www.sanncegroup.com

Camera positioning is key, personally I would have one low down to get faces and one high up covering road to hopefully see any associated vehicles.
This is excellent
https://www.cctv42.co.uk/help-advice/vi ... tallation/

[Bob]

Thankyou.

[Sven]

Hi Bob,
I have two systems on my premises - a Swann 4-camera hard drive recording system & a 3 camera system made up of cheap webcam type cameras off Amazon. They both have pros & cons.
The Swann system costs more (around £300) and also takes quite some time to fit. It is all wired so needs wires run from the control box to all cameras & also from the router (if viewing from a phone/tablet is required). But the resolution is pretty good & it records for about 3-4 weeks before over-writing it.
The Amazon cameras cost about £30 each. You can start with 1 & built up from there. They only require plugging into an electric socket & hooking up to the WiFi. The resolution is not as good as the Swann but not too bad either! They can be moved to anywhere with an electric socket but can only be used indoors. These are also remote controlled so i can move /pan them remotely from the app. They also only record to an SD card & only record 2-3 days (on a 32gb card).
Both systems are far better & clearer in daylight. They both have infra-red but it reduces the clarity & its only black & white. I have several floodlights to assist at night. The other problem with infra-red is the spiders/cobwebs. They just reflect the infra-red & blocks the view! I have to brush my outside cameras twice weekly!
I like being able to remotely view all the cameras from my phone or ipad. I even have one set up on my dogs so i can see what they’re up to
I will try to add some images to give you an idea of what you can expect.

[Sven]

Daytime & night views of Swann system

https://i.imgur.com/gLWrgzn.png

https://i.imgur.com/Xok37QP.png

[Sven]

Amazon webcam system
(Hope you can see these!)

https://imgur.com/a/nph7kOh

[Bob]

Thanks Sven.

More really good info.

[westonwarrior]

I have a wired system installed and so far it has helped with 2 crimes. you know im not far so if you want advice and see my system shout

[Bob]

Thanks Rob.

[sotal]

I have a system similar to the Swann system, the quality looks near identical on the images.

It does the job but only just - faces are difficult to distinguish. Ideally I need low down cameras to cover this but then I'd need them in a variety of places.

The main use for ours is to check where delivery drivers put the packages! Also got some lovely footage of a UPS driver drop kicking my new camera under the car on the drive!

Ours wasn't overly expensive but I am looking at upgrading it at some point in the future as I'd like better quality. Ours has a TB of recording space and I can view it live on my phone or laptop and can watch recordings on my laptop, or direct on the cctv recording box if I plug a monitor in.

As above spider webs are annoying - they reflect the IR, I think spiders must like the warmth of the infra red LEDs.

Another annoyance is the movement detection recording, I used to just use this so it only records if it detects movement, but most of what I recorded was tree branches moving, or spiderwebs blowing in the wind, or rain drops falling. When anything did happen that I wanted to watch it seemed to miss half of it! I ended up switching it to record 24/7 - it fills up in about a month then starts going over the oldest files. It is a bit of a pain to skim through to find what you want but at least it is there.

[sotal]

You also need to consider if you want internal or external cameras. Internal are easier to fit and generally a lot cheaper. They also don't suffer with spiders as much, but they aren't great for looking out of the windows at night as the IR reflects off the glass.

Also if you fit internal ones that record onto an SD card then a burglar could just take the camera or the SD card. My HD is the same they could just take the cctv recording box, but I've made it as hard as possible to find, and to remove!

You can get some of the YI cameras from Amazon which get cracking reviews - like the 1080p YI dome camera which is often on offer for about £27. These should have much better resolution and can save video to the cloud. People have raised concerns about cloud storage of video though as they are worried about what the cloud companies will do with the videos / audio from your house. Most of these ones store it all on Chinese servers too.

[Bob]

Thanks Sotal.

More good info.

[teenmal]

I also spent ages looking in to this
I bought a system made by this company via Ebay
http://www.sanncegroup.com

Camera positioning is key, personally I would have one low down to get faces and one high up covering road to hopefully see any associated vehicles.
This is excellent
https://www.cctv42.co.uk/help-advice/vi ... tallation/

For the cost, this is a very good system, I have installed several over the years, even the police commented on picture quality.


Take care.