Re: Any video security experts out there?
this is the system I bought for about $100.
http://www.amazon.com/VideoSecu-Sec...?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1320498038&sr=1-21
I works extremely well however its not quite clear enough for facial recognition but you can clearly see build, gender, race, clothing, hair color, etc and enough detail to eventually track someone down (which I did sucessfully). I got a camera for two reasons - one, as a visible deterrent, and the 2nd, as a low cost way to recover some evidence of the crime if I ever get broken into again. You don't necessarily need to see someone's face to find your cultprit. Short story - my car was broken into. Witnesses saw a green sedan driving away at a high rate of speed. My credit card was used at a gas station so I went there and got their video- saw a green honda accord with a black male on video using the pump at the same time the bank reported the transaction. The car had distiguishing marks. I then set up the surveillance camera (because I was victimized and wanted to do something to get this guy) and waited. Few days later a black male driving a green honda with same distinguishing mark showed up my on camera. I immediately went out and searched nearby, found the car, got the plate, and eventually got the arrest warrant and now he's in jail.
I already had a old computer tower so I spent about $25 bucks on the DVR card which is a 4 camera enabled PCI express card which plugs into an emtpy slot in your tower. The camera was $70 or so and then I bought extra RCA cables to stretch from the camera location to inside where the computer is. The wiring is extemely simple - audio and video leads from the camera to the computer and one power cord from the camera to 110 v powder. Initially I thought I needed to have power at the camera location however the 100 ft bundle of RCA cable that I bought off of Amazon (which turned out to be WAY more than enough) contained a power extention so I drew power for the camera which was outside from the same surge protector the computer was on! The DVR card came with the necessary software which works well enough.
Like I said, this camera won't get you facical recogniction, but you don't necessarily need it. It will get you other descriptive values plus license plates if its close enough. Additionally, I used an s-video output on my video card inside the computer to push the camera signal to my TV in my master bedroom. That way, if I hear something at night, I don't have to get up - just turn on the TV and change the channel to Input 2. Plus, the nighttime video quality is awesome. Be sure you have about 100 gb of free hard drive space and most software's will support "recycling" of video, so after two weeks or so if you don't need the old footage, new footage will over-write the old.
!!!!! So Skargo just HOW MANY time have the traffic cameras gotten your smiling license plate