Hi, Any one into home surveillance stuff? what camera(s) are you using? Just started installing, setting up couple cameras indoor and outdoor to hook up to my NAS box. First couple days learning curve was fairly steep but I am getting hang of it now. 2Mp HD camera image is near stunning. Having fun with one camera located in the back yard watching birds and small animals coming and going day and night. So far I got Vivotek and Geovision wireless IP cameras and no problem setting it up. I need one more long range night vision outdoor weather proof bullet.
Have you looked at game cameras? The local farmers are having problems with thefts of batteries, irrigation system wiring, etc. One of them brought in a picture of a trespasser/thief. It was a good clear picture.
Hi, Looked into open software freeware iSPY? Quite robust. On Synology NAS can install one camera on default setting. To add more, need to purchase camera license key.
I've been fooling around with IP cams for a few years now.
Had one stolen near the beginning of the game - and I had not turned the application over to the guy who was going to pay for it yet. $450 out of pocket.... Ouch!
I have a problem with cams that use IR for night vision. I use them at home, but for something that is exposed to thieves I'd think that little ring of red glowing lights is just a sign that says "Valuable, fungible equipment here, steal me!". Anybody with half a brain can shine a flashlight into an IP cam and totally defeat it while they approach the cam, cut the wire and steal it.
I'm currently fooling around with supplemental IR and plain old Home Depot motion-triggered floods.
Strangely, the critters that frequent our back yard (deer, foxes, raccoons, the occasional opossum) do not seem to be fazed by the floods coming on - they don't even look up or give any other evidence of knowing they've been lit.
I have a Reconyx game camera that I bought before starting to fool around with IP cams. This one uses IR, but emitters it uses give no visible evidence. I wouldn't call the quality of pix wonderful, but they're good enough to ID somebody at, say, 15-20 feet. Main issue I had with the Reconyx was that it took a half-dozen "C" batteries and it got kind of expensive to keep it in business.
Hi, Game camera has high night visibility and HD as well as high sensitivity, Costs upto a grand or more. Good stuff. For general consumer use, 100 to 300 range in price will be OK. Most of them made in China which are most often hit and miss, but Taiwanese produced ones seem better quality with decent support in general.
I have been using BlueIris. There's a freebie version for evaluation purposes, but the Real Deal costs - can't recall how much, but it's less than $100.... maybe less than fifty.
Only gripe I have with it is that it uses a *lot* of CPU cycles if cams are set to motion detect AND to record the prior N seconds when motion is detected.
If I had it to do over again, I would buy all ACTi cams and use ACTi's server. Reason: ACTi offloads the heavy lifting to individual cameras so it can run on very modest PCs and not take too many resources.
That being said, I'm running a half-dozen cams under BI and use Process Lasso to automagically cut back on BI's CPU usage when necessary - to the point where the only time I notice any performance hit is when I'm ripping DVDs - the ripping process seems to speed up if I kill BI.
The farmer I mentioned earlier has a telehandler so he should be able to put the camera safely out of reach. Some of his neighbors feed cattle and own payloaders. It is something I need to think about.
Had to cut rest due to AIOE quotation limits.
I'll have to do some snooping. Maybe a camera hidden behind some flood light would be an option. Adding a couple fake cameras might not hurt either. The cameras we do have can spot Angus cattle if they get in the right spot at night.
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