Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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?
http://www.wilife.com/Default.aspx
Unless you live in a small town a picture of the perpetrator is all but useless. The police really don't care about break and entry anyway.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Get a dog. The TCO may be higher than the camera, but the deterrence factor is way higher (and it's better to not be broken into at all, than have footage of your breakins afterwards).
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.
ZoneMinder It has some really nice features.
Tell the local FBI office you're thinking of opening a Taliban mosque and they'll keep 24/7 high-res real-time video with CD quality audio of your entire property with an emphasis on identifying anyone coming or going. Then if anything happens they'll already have the suspect's name, address and phone number on record. Just ask the police to get the info from the FBI.
You need to get yourself a dog. It doesn't have to be big or scary looking- a small, yappy-type dog will do just fine. Unless you advertise the presence of valuable goods inside your house, a burglar will not break into your house if it is occupied. I think you'll find that most burglars will go for the lowest-hanging fruit, which will be your neighbor's house (unless they also have a dog, in which case the next house over is the low fruit). They want to get in, grab the stuff that is easiest to make off with and pawn, and then get out. I doubt you have any state secrets or anything like that in your house; this is a simple cost/benefit analysis for you and the burglars.
Another thing to look into is a neighborhood watch program. Of course, if you live in a neighborhood like mine that might not be a viable option. In that case, you need to get yourself a dog and a steel-core door. Skip the expensive cameras. Are they really going to save you money? Or is this a vindictive side of you, the side that might put a "Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot twice" sign on your fence?
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Actually, quality isn't the issue. Angle is.
What you need to do is ensure that you capture a face shot as close to eye-level as possible, without having the camera obstructed by people walking by.
The police and FBI don't like to talk about it, but there is a program where if they input a digital photo of someone, even a poor quality one, the computer will compare it against the database of digital photos taken by the Department of Motor Vehicles and spit out the six closest matches.
These system rely on facial characteristics like eye-nose-mouth ratio, hairlines, etc so as long as the computer can accurately calculate the centers of these areas, it works.
But when cameras are mounted up on the roof or in a corner as is typical, they are worthless unless the suspect looks right at them.
Also, you want to think about having a camera just for vehicle traffic on your street or culdesac. A license plate is going to be your best method for apprehension. Sure, the car may be stolen, but if it is recovered then it can lead to your property. And if it happens to be a crime of impulse, you will have a suspect.
If you were really clever, you could find some way to rig a standard digital camera with a flash similar to a red-light camera. This would be your most inexpensive option but also a dead give-away and not recommended for busy roads. Instead, find the least expensive camera that offers changeable lenses, and then focus them on a spot on the street that you know vehicles must drive through. Add some inexpensive infrared lighting and you should be able to playback a log of all vehicles (suspects and potential witnesses) when there is an incident.
I think having more inexpensive cameras with decent quality will have a greater chance of success than a couple high-quality ones. Also, don't overlook physical security sensors. Infrared beams and even motion sensors are the best way to deter the crime, instead of relying on catching the criminal.
I have been on the victim side of countless incidents in my profession and, frankly, you won't get the time of day from law enforcement. If a light turns on, or a camera flashes as someone approaches your vehicle...they will move on. And don't forget if you are worried about your vehicle and not just what's in it...pick up a used Sprint/Nextel phone on eBay and split off power from your car's 12V plug. Hide the phone inside the dash somewhere on continuously. Get the least expensive plan, or just write down the IMEI so that you can later activate the phone by calling Sprint. If the car does get stolen, activate service and add-on the GPS tracking features.
Cheapest Lojack you will find.
Good luck.
-JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
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.
Unless we're talking murder or some serious crime, you're probably going to have a hard time getting the police interested in investing the resources to try to identify the perp and hunt them down and arrest them.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That solution won't save money. Do you have any idea how much it costs to train a dog to safely and effectively handle a firearm?
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.
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!
You can do it cheaply, but don't expect to get any amazing images. I have 4 cameras outside my house recording full motion video 24x7. I spent only about $800 on the hardware ($125 per camera, $50 per video capture board, and $25 for coax cable). I record at 640x480x30fps and I can store about 3.5 days worth of video on an old 120 GB hard drive. I caught a kid breaking into my car at night, but there was no way to identify him, and police didn't want to pursue the case because he only took a few dollars out of my change tray. Even if his face had been clearer on the video I still doubt they would have done anything unless I also gave them a name and address. I believe the police view petty theft under a few thousand dollars as an issue for your insurance. Your best bet is to install motion sensing lights outside your house. They're a lot cheaper than cameras and they have better deterrent value. If you still want cameras, get the lights too because they're much more effective than infrared-LED-based night vision, which have very limitted range. After having these cameras running for more than a year the thing I use them most for is checking whether the UPS man left a package on my front steps.
Part of the issue you will face is that yes, a good security camera will cost several hundred dollars each.... that said, professional systems are not particularly difficult to install yourself.
Couple tips:
1) Avoid network cameras, the Cat-5 medium is not as noise free as other methods, and the circuitry involved to convert it to a digital/network capable camera adds cost... I recommend using RG-59 grade coaxial cable and any 18guage-2conductor wire for power. Get a moderate DVR, or better yet use one of the PCI-card kits and an old PC to save more. 4 Camera cards can be had for around $160.
2) Consider the benefits of good nightvision. Examine cameras with IR LED's, they will provide some of the better night-vision capabilities, however viewing range is limited outside the IR's angle. That said, Speco sells a line of cameras called the "Intensifier" that has some of the best night vision I've seen. We use many of these in some very high-profile homes (let's just say as far as world's wealthiest goes, we're in the top 10). The Chameleon indoor/outdoor model can be had for under $400 each.
3)It's not about quantity vs quality, it's about paths and coverage. Our general camera strategy is to have a couple cameras for general coverage, and a couple cameras in major pathways, close-up, for good ID. So you know who it was, and what they did.
Catching your neighbour screwing your wife : Priceless
Never look back at the carnage.
Forget the cameras. Put in an alarm system with lots of PIR's (I have them in every room that has valuables), and make the internal siren(s) loud enough to make your ears bleed. Same with the car - put a 120dB siren (or two) on the inside.
Unfortunately sirens and strobes on the outside get ignored by the general public, and the cops dont care about the petty crime as much as you would like. When the internal sirens are so loud you nearly vomit, the crooks will leave prematurely and unsuccessful.
I meant to give this URL for the "open source firmware" link. I must have messed it up somehow:
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK_in_Brief
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.
I spend $150/year to insure $30k worth of electronics from theft. Are you really going to find a better cost/benefit solution?
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
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.
If you live in the UK, leave the keys in the ignition, with a note apologizing for not having the car warmed up for them, along with $100 on the seat so they can by 1/2 tank of gas.
I've setup three retail stores with security cameras for a small retail chain. At the first store we tried a camera at, almost as an experiment, we used a TCP/IP one from D-Link. About $200. It was OK as a deterrent, but not really all that useful if we actually had to use the footage for identifying people.
The next stores used a kit which bundled 4 analog cameras with a PCI DVR card. Think TV tuner with 4 inputs. The whole kit was about $500. It's great but "only" 640x480. The newer ones have modest IR support for night-time recording. The DVR software provides remote TCP/IP access, though, via a proprietary client.
From my admittedly limited experience, you get better value from analog cameras -- the market is much bigger for them, so they're higher volume, and therefore cheaper. Plus, the camera's are interchangeable (it's just analog, afterall). You can mix and match easily and get standardized lenses and filters, etc.
A way to get the intruders attention is to build the camera into a clock and place it in the window.
They always look at what time it is and you get a full face closeup too.
I used to build these camera in clock things years ago, but now you can get them really cheap from china. The camera doesn't need to be such a high resolution as 'chummy' always comes up real close to see what time it is.
threadeds blog
You're comparing accidental deaths to crimes prevented.
That's like comparing fatal car accidents to broken tail lights.
Let's say I have a household with myself, my wife, and my two kids. Now, I have the option of purchasing a handgun to 'protect my home'. In the next year, let's say there's a one in 10,000 chance that I will successfully use my handgun to prevent a criminal from stealing my stuff. But there's a one in 50,000 chance that my gun will accidentally kill someone.
Is the life of someone in my family worth 5 televisions?
Also, consider this:
You can protect your home just as well with no gun. Your 1.5 million crimes prevented count every instance where a person with a gun feels they prevented a crime. But lets be realistic. Was it the gun that prevented the crime? Or just the mere presence of a witness?
If a criminal is breaking into your home, and you wake up, that criminal is going to leave. Criminals don't want head-to-head confrontation any more than you do. They want to steal from unoccupied homes. Just being awake will chase most criminals from your home.
I want to be clear that I'm not anti-gun. This is America, and people should be able to own the things they want to own. But we also have to be realistic about the dangers of certain things. We don't let just any schmuck drive a car, and we need to have some reasonable regulation with regards to firearms. The rights of the American citizen to own a firearm need to be balanced with the right of the American citizen to not be shot by one.
paintball
Repeating this story is worth being modded down for:
Where We're Headed
Robert A. Waters
You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door.
Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way.
With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it.
In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds a weapon--it looks like a crowbar.
When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.
As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble. In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered.
Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm.
When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."
The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choir boys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters.
As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media.
The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win.
The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.
It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.
The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened.
On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.
How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once-great British Empire?
It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.
Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.
The British public, already desensitize