Has any one tried DIY CCTV I would like to detect motion of anyone near my house in day and night. At night the street is not completly dark, but a basic web cam just shows a black image. I am also planning on uploading the motion detected images on to a web site (this part I have no problems with).
My main intrested in people experiance of camera selection and connectivity to a PC
lastly can i get a grant from the council for this??? as its could be said its their lack of policing which has caused this issue.
You need a camera with light amplification or an infra red filter and an IR lighting system. I can't remember what mine where called, they are generic security camera's feeding a frame grabber card.
I use some home made scripts and the GNU Motion system
You are more likely to get a fine if you are pointing your camera's into the street, mine overlook only my property.
Yes public, as in not your property, I am no expert in the rules governing the use of CCTV camera's but I am fairly certain that you would not be allowed to monitor the street like that, ask your council or local police station.
I believe the rules are different for businesses, as I said please ask your local police department. I am not telling you what to do I merely attempted to make you aware that I believe you could be getting yourself in trouble by filming the street.
Also, please consider to kick the habit of top posting :)
It's not so much a fine, but you could be prosecuted under the Data Protection Act if you set up a CCTV camera system to monitor a public place without making an appropriate registration with the Information Commissioner.
Look here for more information, and in your case the "Small User Checklist" is a good summary of what you need to do.
There are 2 types of webcam: CMOS and CCD sensors. The CMOS ones are cheap, but have crap sensitivity. The CCD ones are much more expensive and (nowadays) difficult to come by. Philips make/made the most popular CCD webcams. I get a very satisfactory night time image from my Vesta(tm) cam with a wide lens and a 0.2 second exposure time.
but bear in mind most of their solutions are not evidence quality (see later).
Most motion sensing CCTV systems have high false alarm rates as rapid changes in illumination level trigger them, you can see this on the demo cameras at
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during the day as clouds pass over the sun.
If the camera is covering anything other than within the boundaries of your personal property and if you use motion detection (making a person the "focus of the information") or make the images on the web accessibly by anyone other than yourself the installation will be covered by the Data Protection Act. You would not be able to rely upon S36 exemption. You might find it useful to read -
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particular the bits about having to have clear signs naming the person or organisation responsible for the surveillance and the image quality required.
Most CCTV systems are ineffective as they fail to produce images of adequate quality to be used as evidence. Even if someone can say "I know him - that's Jones the Thief from no 42" it doesn't mean the image is suitable as evidence. For night/very low light this problem is many times worse as IR sensitive cameras produce a grayscale image where the grays do not correspond in the same way a panchromatic black and white photograph would correspond to a colour image of the same scene. IR images are rarely usable in court. Ultra low light (image enhanced) cameras produce very grainy and noisy images which equally have little value as evidence.
Quite often police observing a surveillance image will be pretty sure they can identify who the miscreant is (often well known to them) but are unable to use the imagery as anything other than a guide to who to visit. If there is no other evidence the imagery alone is usually not enough to prosecute.
To produce useful images for submission to a court any image capture system must be able to :-
Identify the suspected criminal(s) visually for purposes of evidence.
Provide a linked record of the date, time and place of any image.
Visually confirm the nature of the crime which was committed.
Visually connect the suspected criminal(s) with the crime.
Provide a verifiable audit trail of image handling from recording to court.
Identification capability is usually expressed using the Rotakin standard. This is measured by using a standard test target of a standing man with a height of 1.6 metres. When the image fills the screen vertically the image height is 100 per cent Rotakin. Different Rotakin levels are classified into groups depending on the likely evidential quality of the pictures.
Common Rotakin definitions from the Police Scientific Development Branch are:-
5% - Monitor An observer can observe the number, direction and speed of movement of people whose presence is known to them, i.e. they do not have to be searched for. Subject matter should fill no less than 5% of the screen.
10% - Detection Following an alert an observer can, after a search, ascertain with a high degree of certainty whether or not a person is visible in the pictures displayed to them. The subject should fill no less than 10% of the screen.
50% - Recognition Viewers can say with a high degree of certainty whether or not the individual shown is the same as someone they have seen before. The subject should fill no less than 50% of the screen.
120% - Identification Picture quality and detail should be sufficient to enable the identity of a subject to be established beyond reasonable doubt. The subject should be no less than 120% of the screen.
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Code of Practice for Digital Recording Systems for the Purpose of Image Export to be used as Evidence is quite a good guide especially as to the chain of custody requirements.
I assume you are contemplating an automatic (unattended) system. If you wish to use the pictures as evidence you will therefore need to consider the field of view carefully and are probably looking not merely at a motion sensing but also an auto tracking system. If you want this to work in hours of darkness it will need IR or visual floodlighting (but remember IR images have limited value as evidence). An alternative might be multiple cameras with one giving a wide area view and others zoomed in on particularly critical areas within the wide area view.
I've used the Axis 232 PTZ before and with appropriate lenses it has good performance, the Axis 221 is also good but doesn't include a pan/tilt head. For both a separate IR floodlighting system would need to be used much at night. Network cameras are usually much simpler and more reliable to use than usb/video card ones.
_Inside_ of domestic properties is exempt under S36 of the DPA. Outside your boundary is not. Moreover by using motion detection and uploading to a website you put yourself most definitely within the DPA requirements.
Doesn't it seem odd that I can take my "ordinary" digi camera anywhere in the street and photograph almost anything, yet I can't point a CCTV camera into the same street? :-)
But they are only monitoring a specific area of the premisis ie could be the doorway or take for example the garage forcourt, so long as it does not overstep the buildings boundry its fine.
Oh and one other thing a sign saying CCTV in operation is needed.
Discussions about what's "legal" really are moot here.
Unless it's the size of a football, painted orange and flashes bright lights, no-one will ever be aware you're using a webcam. So all this stuff about "the law" is really a pointless discussion.
If anyone does ask, just tell the truth - they won't be that interested, unless you're pointing it in their bedroom window. Even if plod does knock on your door, smile sweetly and say "Oh! officer, I never realised. I thought I was being a concerned citizen." You won't get shipped to Guantanamo Bay.
I'm going to get the police & council involved I was planning on locating it externally with some sort of IR (which i guess glow slightly). I dont want to spend 100s of pounds to be told to remove it. plus if its no good for evidence why should i waste my money..
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