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CCTV recommendations and advice - No advertising/jobs/quotes

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I am looking to buy a couple of external security cameras for House I have had a look in Maplins and I am going to try the place on Shalesmoor. However I am not sure on spec and things what is good quality just wondered if anybody knows this or has some that they can recommend. Thinking of getting hard drive not sure how many hours these record this is so I don’t have to mess about with tapes etc. I wanted it to record on movement so take it I need PIR detectors? the cameras I have looked at don’t have PIRs on them so is this something related to hard drive or can I buy them separate or do I need t in built. If a hard drive can record for days then I won't be bothered about movement detectors. If anyone can give any advice or has got some good ones and can tell me where to go or buy please help.

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I haven't got the references to hand but I am sure that there is some stuff on here already if you can search a bit.

I am also fairly sure that you can use software that will only record when movement is detected.

You are going to need some form of IR illumination though.

 

 

Here is a start.

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B&Q and Homebase sell a range of micromark cameras.

 

The quality is okay. I don't think they do hard drive type ones, however they do sell ones that are movement activated and record to tape only on activation (with IR too). That's about £80.

 

I used it on our house when we went away for three months and I was pleased with the result. (lots of footage of the postman !! but also no end of people I don't know - funny that).

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hi ya oggy

 

try the ad.mag we had a cc.tv fitted with a firm from manchester they advertise in ad.mag its got infra red built in works well at nite in black and white we also fitted a small security light to boost the image you are better going with b&w for a sharper image we have already prosicuted the scumbag who was vandalising my car hope this helps best of luck with it steve,,,

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Don't bother with Maplins\B&Q etc... as the cameras are all quite frankly, ****e.

 

My recomendations would be a Samsung day\night camera and housing (I'll come back with model number when I remember it!) or a decent day\night anti vandal dome. As these are professional products they don't come with "easy fit connectors" and "built in IR LED's" so you would need to sort out cabling and possibly additional illumination, either some security lighting or IR lighting.

 

For the activation you don't need PIR's, if you did the only decent ones I would recommend would be Redwalls but they cost a fortune, but are the proper kit for the job. The activation for timer\alarm\motion recording is done on the software on the PC\DVR at the internal end of the setup and works by comparing pixels in the picture and starts recording or triggers an alarm output for bells\lights when something on the screen moves.

 

When you say hard drive do you mean you are going to connect it to a PC or do you mean a complete seperate digital video recorder just for the cameras. If so, a reasonable entry level DVR will record for appx. 5-7 days at a decent quality and framerate on a 160Gb hard disk.

 

Have you got a budget for this and an idea of what you want to achieve with the system?

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Thanks for the info I will look at in more depth later. I am thinking of hard drive specific for cameras not on PC. Budget not sure if I could get the lot for £500 including 2 cameras and hard drive any other bits etc. what you think?

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I would allow probably another £2-300 for the equipment, but that will depend on what exactly you settle for and what the site specifics are for the cable required etc.... Fitting by a professional installer, such as myself :wink:, would be in addition to this. This would be the budget for the cameras and recording equipment, the lighting required would be on top of the above guide prices.

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i got a pci card and put it in the pc myself, it cost £50, the camera was £80 and is a colour infra red one which i stood outside on a window ledge. the power adapter thingy came with the camera and the software came with the pci card. I set it up and left it on motion detect and if anything happened i went through the video files to see what had been going off when i wasn`t home. It did the job i wanted it to rather cheaply as well, the only irritating thing was that i only had a 40gb hard drive in the pc so every few days i had to check there was enough space left or delete some files, on occasions i burnt some to rewriteable discs first to make sure i wasn`t wiping anything i would need later. I got the lot mail order but later found all the same stuff in maplins.

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couldnt find any other posts on this.

i am interested in setting security cameras up outside my home.

How easy or costly is it to have them linked to a pc & not to a vcr.

monitoring them whilst working would be a benefit but also using the hd as a storage medium whilst on vacation etc.

 

any help would be welcomed.

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If it's just one camera, especially if it's a web cam, then it's very easy and free. I have one watching my driveway right now and taking a snapshot when it detects motion.

 

If you want to do it properly, it's still not too expensive.

Computer shopper did a whole article on this last month (I think, or maybe this month). Reviewing quite a few proper cctv cameras for both daylight and night performance, reviewing several capture cards for the pcs and a bunch of standalone capture devices.

 

The biggest hastle (IMO) is getting it all wired up, wireless is an option, but a battery powered cctv camera won't last long, so you still need power to the location for the camera.

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That would be useful for friday and saturday nights round here

 

I get fed up of having to go and see what the dog is shaving off at several times through the evening. Being able to just switch windows on the laptop would be really handy :)

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It would be harder to implement on a laptop, with it being impossible to add most expansion cards, although you can get a few usb/pcmcia capture cards, they are designed more for watching tv/transferring video from camcorder.

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