CCTV Advice Needed For Home Security

[TonyB]

I used a standard home video camera connected to a domestic recorder set to run in long play. That gave me 8 hours of good quality tape and enabled the police to nick the old b*****r that was vandalising my car on a public highway. The tapes went through the police and several solicitors and at no time did anyone say I shouldn't have been filming.

To round the story off, the old boy ( 70+ yrs old! ) was arrested and marched off to the nick. CPS decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute ( !! ) despite the fact that you could hear the key on the metal for several seconds and see the bloke - who admitted it was he - but he denied scratching the car and the video did not actually pick up his hand against the bodywork.

The insurance co started proceedings against him and after 2 years of letters the old boy stopped replying. At that point the NU dropped the case. I could sue him privately to get my £120 excess back but to be honest it isn't worth the hassle. I don't think he'll do it again.

TonyB

[nightjar]

Home video equipment can be near broadcast quality, which is far better than cheap CCTV.

That is the important bit. You have to capture irrefutable evidence of the crime happening for the evidence to be any good in Court. Even in the recent well-publicised case where a thief was caught on a web cam stealing the computer it was connected to, he was convicted on the basis of his confession when confronted with the recording, not on the evidence of the recording.

Colin Bignell

[tony sayer]

In article , nightjar writes

And that shows how received broadcast standards have fallen in recent times!!......

[Micky Savage]

The commission only applies to commercial buildings, I do except that you cannot have a camera pointing in to your neighbours bedroom, or you cannot have ptzs on a domestic dwelling. As long as the camera is fixed to one position, namely his car nothing is out of order.

Micky.

[Micky Savage]

Don't take this the wrong way, But what a load of balls.

Mick

[dave]

Eagerly awaiting the repost...

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Can he prove its a load of balls?

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Listen the article was on the BBC News site late 2004 the guys camera was bordering onto a public footpath now either the police went about obtaining the footage the wrong way or the guy did not display surveilance signs.

You either believe it or not, either way I ain't bothered.

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[marble]

That alas is bollocks, there are plenty of surveilance cameras capable of looking into residental bedrooms perfectly legaly. More going up every day. Lets hope the security guard grunts queing up to get surveilance jobs wont use them for that purpose.

, or you cannot

[marble]

I remember a story where the defence barister got the person, who had had his surveilance tapes seized by the police and used in a prosecution, prosecuted and fined but I cant find the story. I think the advise has changed since then.

[nightjar]

You do realise that I am talking about the number of TV lines that can be achieved don't you?

Colin Bignell

[tony sayer]

In article , nightjar writes

No explain.... Please;)

[ioan_davies]

Hello Again So back to the original question,after all the discussions,does anyone have any advice to a system that fullfil my requirements? Please.

Thanks A Lot MW

[Peter Lynch]

Almost certainly not. It uses inbuilt IR LEDs to provide illumination at night. The range that these will be effective for will only be a few feet. Plus, having the camera behind a window means you will: a.) lose some IR transmission through the glass, thus limiting their range even more b.) get a _lot_ of reflection off the glass itself which I expect would render any image useless.

On another note (I haven't read any of the other posts and don't intend to get into a discussion on the topic) I doubt that a camera with such a wide field of view would be much use at identifying any vandals. It certainly wouldn't provide "evidence" quality data, if that is your intent.

Pete

[ioan_davies]

Thanks Pete for your input,appreciated.