Is Cheap Video Surveillance Possible?

timholman writes "After a series of burglaries and auto break-ins in my neighborhood, I'm thinking about adding some video security cameras to my home. To me, the object isn't just deterrence — if someone tries to break into my house or my car (parked on the street in front of my house), I'd like to provide a high-quality image of the perpetrator to the police. Inexpensive video surveillance systems, with their atrocious image quality, are nearly useless. The problem is being able to get good image quality at an affordable price. After some research, I've decided that using network cameras to FTP images to a central server over a HomePlug network is the best solution. However, good megapixel network cameras (e.g. Stardot or Axis cameras) can easily cost more than $1,000 each. Has any of you dealt with a similar situation? Is there any way to get reasonable quality (preferably open source) daytime and nighttime video surveillance equipment for home use without paying an arm and a leg? Is it better to go with a couple of expensive cameras, or a multitude of inexpensive cameras? Is paying two to three thousand dollars simply unavoidable if I want to monitor my front and back yards?"

Comments

IQeye

[kmsigel]

I've been working with IQinvision's IQEye 511 camera (www.iqeye.com) for the past couple of months. It is a 1.3MP camera capable of 15 fps. It communicates over and is powered by 100mbit PoE. I think the street price is somewhere around 600-700 dollars, depending on what you get with it (PoE injector, lens, etc). The camera seems to take pretty good pictures and can deal with pretty varied lighting conditions. It has various ways to retrieve images, like emailing or ftping them to you on a set schedule. Hope this helps.

Step 1) Get used camera 2) download this software

[Bananatree3]

Here is some good software for turning many consumer cameras into a computer controlled camera.

Steps: 1)Go through the list of cameras on the above site, and select one that has the specs you want (good resolution, zoom, etc.)

2)Check eBay or find a used one.

3)setup software and install camera where you want it.

4)Enjoy cheap but hi-res image security.

Many of the cameras on the list above go for less than $100 in good used condition, and offer many megapixels and good optical resolution. Many of them also have other features like low light mode, or other things that can be controlled by computer software. Good luck!