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

Re:Uh, you realize your error, right?

[raehl]

I have researched. That's why I know the 1.5 million number is bullshit.

The 1.5 million number includes any circumstance in which someone who had a gun felt that their possession of the gun prevented a crime.

But the number of crimes prevented by guns is NOT EQUAL to the number of times someone with a gun thinks they prevented a crime. It is only equal to the number of times a person with a gun prevented a crime they could not have prevented without a gun.

The unfortunate reality of the situation is that we simply do not have good numbers to compare how bad guns are vs. how good guns are. Lots of anti-gun people have BS numbers to support their postiion. But the "1.5 million crimes prevented" is an equally BS number.

And you can't really attack me for making up numbers (and I was certainly making them up, thus my use of 'let's say') when you proceed to make up numbers assuming that the ratio of crimes prevented via gun possession is 2:2:3. (That was a made up number.)