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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?"
Well, you've got to do a cost-benefit analysis similar to a business. In low light it is going to be difficult to get a high-quality images without extra light (obvious you are monitoring them) or a really, really expensive camera which is vulnerable to spray-painting or vandalism itself.
I was going to do something similar at a previous residence, but found that I would have to worry about people stealing the camera, or simply wearing a mask and gloves when they break in, which will really render the best camera useless. In the end, I used a hidden cheap Linksys webcam that was discreetly hidden inside my house, enough to alert me and catch a careless criminal.
I have also had good success with the D-Link products, which are very cheap.
http://www.dlink.com/products/category.asp?cid=60&sec=0
Also, keep in mind that making your house / area "different" may actually attract more attention. Numerous cameras outside a particular residence screams "important stuff here" if you can't hide them effectively.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
I sat on a grand jury a couple years ago. (Not an investigatory one; we issued general felony indictments. The county I live in does things a little oddly -- they have a pair of standing grand juries, each of which meets once a month to hear potential indictments. You're on the jury for a year, and hear a couple dozen cases each day, so I saw a bunch. All felony indictments go through one of the two.)
The most common case for small time burglary was that there would be a set of crimes that the police were convinced were related, and then finally the thief would hit some place that had video cameras that were placed well enough to produce a usable image -- at which point, odds were they had already had dealings with that person, and the case got fairly easy. So usually they would present it to us as an indictment for just the one crime, but explain that the investigation was being treated as part of a group.
So if you want the guy caught, there's really no substitute for good video surveillance. Sure, plenty of cases were based on things like the thief pawning stolen goods, but video was the most prevalent and easiest to work with.
There is only one important reason to have video surveillance. I've got a camera outside each entrance to my home -- four. It's not as a deterance. And it's not for security. And it's not to catch the thief.
It's for one thing and one thing only -- insurance. It's really easy to make a claim when you have video footage of someone stealing your stuff. That's it. It doesn't need to be a good quality picture at all. It needs to show a humanoid holding a television.
There are, of course, gravy tastes. Most insurance companies will give you a small discount for having such video. Also, when the cat got out (movers left the basement doors open after they'd left), watching eight hours of video at 16x speed allowed me to figure out that Snickers had crawled into a furnace vent. She came out when we turned off the flow of fresh air.
My wife's bicycle was stolen at her work (directly across the street from the police station, with regular police officer foot-traffic in the building). We had fancy cameras and a close-up of the guy's face within an hour of the theft.
Did it help anything? No...
The cameras were also in plain sight, and he was especially brazen in how he went about it all.
Technology won't solve the problem.
Imagine that! Video cameras more expensive than still cameras!
Incidentally, timholman, I recommend you invest in a quality still-picture digital camera if you want an economic solution for high quality digital imaging.
I'd take a look at buying one of the cheaper Canon Powershot cameras between $100 and $200 for which there exists open source firmware. For networking, you might explore whether or not the USB mechanism in the camera can be coerced into the host role (as opposed to acting as a device) which has been accomplished in similar situations for devices such as the BlackDog and many iPods with Linux installed. With USB device hosting capability in hand, you could then easily connect it to a USB Ethernet NIC for a little over $20.
With your own firmware installed, you might even do something really novel and program the camera to do something that will get the intruder's attention before snapping a photo so that they are sure to be looking right at it, giving you an excellent shot of his or her identity.
Let us know how it goes!
I was listening to a radio interview with a professional house theif. When the said thief was asked what was the best deterant the reply was "a small dog as they are next to impossible to catch or bribe". After hearing this news the mental gears started whirring and I created a fake YAPPING dog security system. Its very simple with a IR motion sensor on the back and front entrance hooked into a MP3 player and a small PC speaker system. The hard part was finding a good yapping dog recording until I asked someone at the park if I could record her dog barking and she was happy to oblige once I explained why. Another trick is to have multiple varying MP3 files and make sure the MP3 player is set to shuffle so it sounds more realistic.
Here's what works great for me - total cost, about $500. I live in a fairly-grotty neighborhood in Oakland, not far from Nina Reiser's former home.
... I manually aim 'em. Rarely have I wished them to be changed.
... I chased him away. He left his wrench behind)
One cheap color video camera, aimed out the window on my front door. The camera cost $40 on eBay and is wired directly to my DVR. It sees my front stairs, the sidewalk, and street in front of my house.
One modestly cheap color video camera with IR Leds (about $60 on eBay). Hardwired to the DVR. This is on the driveway of my house, pointing towards the street. Its far coverge is similar to the front door.
Neither video camera has Pan/Tilt/Zoom
A 4 Channel Security Video Recorder - records mpeg4. About $250 on eBay. I only use 2 of the 4 channels. A 100Gbyte IDE disk drive adds another $60 to the total.
Cheap car-headrest style 5 inch LCD/TFT monitor, which is set next to my computer monitor.
Wire & connectors to connect everything (to my surprise, cheap CAT-3 cable works fine, even though it isn't shielded!)
An infrared doorbell which chimes whenever someone walks up the drive. When it sounds, I glance at the monitor to see who's there.
The recorder saves a week's worth of imagery. It's a bit of a pain to scan to what I want to see (the DVR software is horrible).
Over the past three years, this setup has:
- Caught one postal thief! The guy came up on my porch and tried to steal two boxes. I caught him in the act, and he ran away, dropping my two boxes along the way. Thanks to the video, the US Postal Inspectors successfully prosecuted him for mail theft. The guy lived in the suburbs and trolled the city looking for mail to steal.
- Caught a purse-snatcher! The SOB chased after a woman on a cell phone; she fought back and held onto her purse. The guy ran away, but I gave the video to the police, who eventually tracked the guy down.
- Stopped a guy from stealing my neighbor's tire (I glanced at the monitor and saw someone removing a tire
- Saved me innumerable trips to the front door, to deal with Jehovah's Witnesses, salespeople, and other such annoyances.
Exactly. I sat on a grand jury a couple years ago and heard numerous burglary indictments. Most of the cases the police clearly weren't terribly interested until the perp happened to hit a place with good surveillance, and then they usually knew who it was immediately and the case went very quickly.
The county I'm in does grand juries a little oddly -- they have two standing grand juries for all felony indictments (investigatory grand juries are different). You serve one day a month for a year (one jury meets at the start of the month, the other in the middle), and you hear a couple dozen cases each day. So I saw plenty of burglary cases, and the ones that actually came to us tended to have either video surveillance or an ID from a pawn shop. There were some stupid crook stories too (hint: if you're stealing a car, with boat attached, remember to hook up the trailer lights), but mostly the indictments came from video footage accompanied by a comment from the officer that they thought the perp was responsible for several other area breakins but couldn't prove it.