Has Anyone Installed There Own CCTV Surveillance System?

[Barry83]

Just wondered if anyone had experience of installing CCTV. I have been planning to install an intruder alarm with a surveillance system as a backup. I am fairly good with DIY and just wondered if anyone in this forum had installed there own home CCTV system. I know there are many websites supplying this type of security. It would be useful if anyone could tell me what to look out for and whats best for my home. I need four security cameras with about a 20 metere range and a recorder with a large recording capacity as I don't want to be messing around with the unit very often. I have looked at this supplier below has anyone dealt with them before. I know maplyn do CCTV but from past experience you don't always get the best advice of the larger companies.

http://www.dtsdigitalcctv.co.uk/

 

[davenn]

yup hey have some reasonable stuff on that site.

Cams with built in IR illumination for nitetime use are good. You do get what you pay for tho and the more you pay for the cams the better the resolution. Many of the avg priced ones you would be lucky to get enough resolution to recognise a face at 10 - 15 metres let alone 20 metres and you can reduce that by at least 5m during dark conditions even with the IR illumination.
Some of our clients demand garanteed recognition out to 20m or so and will spend horrendous amounts of money on cameras for us to supply the results.
DVR's gosh there are so many to choose from ..... pick the best you can afford.
in general its the HDD's that fail in them, They are running 24/7 writing and over writing time and time again.

just a couple of thoughts

Dave

 

[Barry83]

yup hey have some reasonable stuff on that site.

Cams with built in IR illumination for nitetime use are good. You do get what you pay for tho and the more you pay for the cams the better the resolution. Many of the avg priced ones you would be lucky to get enough resolution to recognise a face at 10 - 15 metres let alone 20 metres and you can reduce that by at least 5m during dark conditions even with the IR illumination.
Some of our clients demand garanteed recognition out to 20m or so and will spend horrendous amounts of money on cameras for us to supply the results.
DVR's gosh there are so many to choose from ..... pick the best you can afford.
in general its the HDD's that fail in them, They are running 24/7 writing and over writing time and time again.

just a couple of thoughts

Dave

Thanks for the advice I will maybe look for 30-50 metre range with the security cameras then just to be safe. I have read H.264 compression is best for the DVR's. It will give me fast network transmission and max recording capacity.

Thanks again for the advice.

 

[davenn]

another thought or 2 ...

try to avoid facing the cameras in a direction where they would get direct sunlight into the lens... a sure way to damage a sensitive CCD chip

I have also found, even the best "weather proof" domes etc, aren't and with time they all leak, so I always try to shelter the cams as much as possibe/where possible.

Cheers
Dave