Is Cheap Video Surveillance Possible? 700
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?"
Where do you live? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where do you live? (Score:1, Insightful)
I put together a security system in/around my house after a break-in a few years back. Eight months ago, someone broke into my house and stole $8,000 worth of electronics (two laptops, a desktop, a tv, and some other misc stuff).
The cameras caught a high quality image of the perpetrator, which I turned into police. In addition, I also turned in the serial numbers of the laptops and TV. I was assigned a case number, and I was told I would be contacted a few weeks later.
Nothing is going to happen. The serials were put into a flagging database, but the police aren't going to do anything with the picture. They're far too busy catching drug users than to deal with these "minor" criminals that do burglaries.
You want the cameras to act as a deterrent, because the police aren't going to do anything with the pictures.
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not deterrence? (Score:3, Insightful)
(Bold added by me to further highlight the already obvious). He's saying he wants a camera that might actually produce images that will identify the intruders on top of being a deterrent. That wasn't so hard to figure out was it? And it certainly isn't as unreasonable or suspicion-worthy as you seem to think.
Seriously, get a dog (Score:5, Insightful)
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
The cost of good security... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes.
What do you really want to capture? A video feed of something that looks like it came from an Atari video game, or an actual image of a face that police can use to track the perpetrator? And would you really trust a couple-hundred dollar camera to stand up to outdoor conditions? Security cameras are expensive because the companies that offer them know that clients want SECURITY. And security costs money.
I wouldn't pay for cameras that expensive, because the value of the property that I have in my apartment doesn't justify the cost. But if you have property that you want to protect, you'll have to determine for yourself whether the cost of the cameras is worth the cost of protecting your property.
Advice from law enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:4, Insightful)
From a Professional Security Installer.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Insightful)
I've solved the security camera problem with a $50 webcam, but I was only monitoring a desk in a cubicle that had a bad habit of things going missing. Worked pretty well, though lighting wasn't an issue in that case. Neither was cable length, because the camera only had to be a couple feet from the host PC.
Maybe one could rig up something like that, get a couple Fit-PC's (they run around $300 each) and a couple webcams and go from there.
Not sure how to solve low light situations.. but it's a long shot cheaper than $1000 if you can live without it.
Re:The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IQeye (Score:4, Insightful)
Camcorders, and other digital optics used to not have the IR blocked. It was not until it became popular to post IR pictures of people in normal clothing became popular. The problem was/is that IR tends to let us imagine we are seeing through the clothing. As one could understand, not something most people want being done. So, congress rattled its saber and the camera manufacturers removed or filtered the IR. This is also related to why digital cameras make clicking sounds that in many cases you can not disable. It was to warn victims of someone taking illicit photographs.
Which just goes to show, anything can be used in ways that were never intended by the inventor/manufacturer.
InnerWeb
Axis 207MW (Score:3, Insightful)
It supports both WiFi (WPA2-PSK, if you want it) and 100BT. There's no IR illuminator, but they claim 2 LUX sensitivity. You can find them on the 'Net for about $400.00.
Re:The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:2, Insightful)
Imagine if YOU were locked up for a year or two.
A story... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Nonsense," said the husband, "I haven't set foot outside today."
Looking out the window as well, he saw the light, sure enough, was on. Two men were inside the shed, going through boxes and bags and plant pots looking for valuables. He ran to the phone, and with trembling hands, dialled for the police.
"Hello? Yes, I'd like an officer to my house at 10 Villa please, my shed's being broken into. Yes, they're there now. No, they're not in the house. Lock the door? Alright, I'll do that."
"What did they say?" asked the wife.
"Oh, there's nobody available," said the husband, counting off in his head. He mouthed the word "Thirty" then dialled the police again.
"Hello, this is 10 Villa again, I called a minute ago about the burglars in my shed? Yes, well you don't have to worry about it, I've gone out and I've shot them. Goodbye."
Three minutes later, the street was alive with police cars and a van, SOCO units, dogs, ambulances, armed response... the two men were caught easily and bundled into the van.
One of the police officers walked up to the old man and said to him "I thought you said you'd shot them?
The old man looked at the police officer in disgust and spat "I thought you said there was nobody available?"
True story.
Re:The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:3, Insightful)
In general, you're wrong. The people stealing from houses that we heard about got caught either because someone called it in in progress, or because they did a bad job selling the stuff. The video surveillance tended to be at convenience stores in the poor, high-crime parts of town; in one case that I remember, the convenience store installed video cameras after the second breakin, and caught the guy on the third.
Police aren't interested in investigating burglaries where no one got hurt, be they poor neighborhoods or well to do ones. Perhaps the police take more interest in the truly wealthy, but for the merely well off upper middle class, you've got approximately zero hope that the police will do any real investigative work.
Re:The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:1, Insightful)
If he wasn't a 'career criminal' before, he will be once he gets out and can't get a decent job because of the felony conviction on his record...
IMHO, don't be so picky about digital... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:IQeye (Score:1, Insightful)
For every -1- person who saves his home and/or family because he has a gun at home, knows how to, and actually is there to use it in the correct way at a breakin, there are -10- who then experience one of those family-members hurt by that gun because of improper use.
So buying a gun to make your family safe is MUCH more likely to end up putting a bullet in some body-part of a member of that family than it is to end up putting a bullet in a criminal.
Re:IQeye (Score:2, Insightful)
And lets say someone violent breaks in, with a gun. Don't I considerably increase my chances of getting killed if I have a gun myself?
I once did a self-defence course with a martial arts expert, one guy asked him what to do if a mugger pulled a gun on him.
He said - give them your wallet.
Guy - And if I had a gun?
Martial arts expert - Don't carry a gun. Just give them your wallet.
Real life isn't like the movies.
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Insightful)
Here [vox.com] is a blog where someone's mentioned a lot of the statistics. The number of gun accidents, as he discovered, is somewhere around 1150/year. The number of crimes prevented is apparently somewhere around 1.5 MILLION per year.
So, yes. Citation needed. Your gut feeling that guns are evil is not, in any way, proof.
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, you realize your error, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Uh, you realize your error, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I do believe that it is.
First, you're making up wild numbers to "prove" your case. Gun ownership is estimated around 200 million - given that previous number of 1150 accidents, that implies that there's a one in 170,000 chance that your gun will accidentally kill someone. Also, given the 1.5 million crimes prevented, that's a one in 133 chance that you will prevent a criminal from committing a crime. Not, necessarily, from stealing your TV. Looking at the paper quoted there, this appears to be about a 2:3:3 ratio of rape, assault, and robbery. So out of that 1.5 million crimes, that's about 375 thousand rapes averted.
Is preventing the rape of 300 women worth a single innocent life?
Is preventing the rape of 300 women, plus the assault of 450 people, plus 450 robberies, worth a single innocent life?
(Also, consider the chance that some of those potential rapes would end in murder. Apparently only two percent of rapes end in murder [www.rrj.ca], so that means there's about six murders prevented there as well. Versus a single accidental death. That is a trade I would be willing to take.)
If you can sit there and say "okay, I have looked at the numbers and I still think guns are fundamentally a bad idea", then, okay, you've made a decision, and I'll respect your decision. But as long as your decision is based on wild extrapolation and guesswork, it's not a particularly valuable one.
As a side note: one of my friends was robbed while home a few months ago. The criminals broke in, held them at gunpoint, and discussed raping his girlfriend, which they decided not to do because they didn't want to risk hanging around too long. At least some criminals aren't particularly afraid of head-to-head confrontation.
I agree that we need reasonable, well-thought-out laws on this matter. That reasonable regulation should be based on facts and actual numbers. Please research before inventing numbers and making claims.
Re:Uh, you realize your error, right? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh, you realize your error, right? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
I know of at least one case where this was simply not true. That's why I mentioned this. I wasn't attempting to make any other point with it - please stop trying to weave strawman arguments out of what I wrote.
Fundamental rights vs. privileges (Score:2, Insightful)
I disagree with your premise. The theft, and defense of life, liberty and property happen at the point of a gun. It is a tool, not a cause. Driving is not a fundamental right of man. Defending ones life is.
Still think some regulation is acceptable? Okay. then how do you feel about some "reasonable regulation" regarding voting? (perhaps only land owners can vote? Maybe pass a test first or pay a voting tax?) Or "reasonable regulation" for freedom of speech (such as jail time if you offend someone or laws against speaking ill of the government?) Finally, how would you feel about "reasonable regulation" of ones ability to practice a religion (say we just ban Islam completely or require everyone pray to the Official State Government) Doesn't sound very appealing, does it?
All of those things I've mentioned are considered God-given, fundamental rights which the US Constitution and Bill of Rights prohibits the government from tampering with or infringing upon.
Besides, who gets to define "reasonable?" This is the definition of a slippery slope. Fundamental rights are immutable, and having politicians determine your rights is precisely the opposite of what our Constitutional Republic was designed for.
Reasonable Regulation often isn't.
Re:IQeye (Score:4, Insightful)
Duh.
Of course guns kill people. That's all they're capable of doing. That is what they are designed to do, period. So of course you can find statistics that relatively a large number of people are killed by guns in what is, by far, the largest country with any significant gun ownership. This should be obvious to you.
Your statistics say nothing about how many crimes they stop. Your statistics say nothing about how many people are killed by other things when guns are not available.
Does the good outweigh the bad? I think so. I can't prove it, of course, but I think so.
But even assuming I'm wrong, the fact that 11,344 people are killed by guns in the US every year is not a proof of such. It's barely a data point.
48 thousand people were killed in car accidents in 2004 [cdc.gov] (page 33). Let's ban cars!
If you want to prove that guns are a problem, you'll have to sit down and figure out exactly what good it is that they provide, quantize that, and compare it to the harm. Also, remember to not include deaths that would have been caused by other means if guns weren't available, appropriately pro-rated by likelihood. Good luck, because you'll need it.
Re:IQeye (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IQeye (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, there are places in this country with crime rates high enough that gun ownership for protection is an obvious and reasonable choice. What I really don't understand is the response of those to whom using the best tool for the job is somehow unthinkable. Would these same people oppose table saws for woodworking because they can accidentally take off fingers?
By the way, I have had formal gun safety training. I make sure my children also get it at an appropriate age. I reinforce that training during recreational shooting. Life is full of risks, but owning a gun need not be any more dangerous than owning an automobile, a table saw, a swimming pool, or any other useful but potentially dangerous objects.
Re:IQeye (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you know what the kid is in your house for? Are you really going to let some kid rape your wife or daughter because you thought he just wanted your TV?
If someone is in your house, you have to assume that your life is in danger and respond appropriately. Anything else would be insanely irresponsible.
Re:IQeye (Score:2, Insightful)
My problem is with the second part of the advise that the GP stated - "Don't carry a gun". The "Guy" was saying not only to yield to superior force, but to not even attempt to equalize that force. If this was his true outlook, why was he bothering to teach intro level "self defense" courses? Ostensibly, their purpose is to allow one to defend ones self by teaching special skills that will balance out the attacker's presumed experience with violence. But as you (and I) have pointed out, such a low level of training is likely to INCREASE, not decrease, the odds of getting hurt. So why is he teaching something that he KNOWS will likely get people hurt worse, but counseling AGAINST carrying a firearm?
The reality is that, here and now (and not in some Utopia that never existed and will never exist), force and violence can and will be visited upon people, whether they like it or not. It waxes and wanes, but it will ALWAYS be there. There have been a few posts regarding how Europe isn't like that, or how it is only in the States that there are such levels of violence. While it may be true that there is more violence in the US, does that mean that there are no rapes in the EU? No murders? No muggings, no robberies? Rioters burned a significant portion of France a few years ago - no one died, but residents lived in fear for a few weeks. Is this not the use of force to affect other people's lives?
Telling people that they cannot defend themselves is sometimes the cold truth; telling people they *should* not defend themselves is corrupt; telling people they MAY not defend themselves is evil.