Slashdot Log In
Is Cheap Video Surveillance Possible?
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Apr 27, 2008 08:48 PM
from the eye-on-the-lamp-post dept.
from the eye-on-the-lamp-post dept.
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?"
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
IQeye (Score:5, Informative)
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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.
Parent
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
Parent
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Funny)
The only other available places require machine guns or anti-tank weaponry
Parent
I guess "need" is for each of us to decide (Score:5, Informative)
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
Parent
Re:I guess "need" is for each of us to decide (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with your story, just making sure it is updated appropriately.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Martin_(farmer) [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:I guess "need" is for each of us to decide (Score:4, Informative)
So the story as presented is incredibly biased, obviously written to rally the NRA crowd in America. Maybe you made the post for the sake of completion but it should really be modded down for being only half truths and propoganda.
Parent
Re:I guess "need" is for each of us to decide (Score:5, Informative)
While the outcome does seem unjust, the case was not as lopsidedly unjust as this version of the story makes it appear.
Parent
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.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:Uh, you realize your error, right? (Score:5, Informative)
And yes, the 1.5 million number is possibly an overestimation. It's rather impossible to say, unfortunately - a good deal of that aforementioned page 9 discusses the problems involved in getting that number, and why it's probably inaccurate. However, you can't honestly be claiming that it's an overestimation by two orders of magnitude, which is what your original estimate would require.
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:IQeye (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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.
Parent
Re:IQeye (Score:5, Interesting)
Incidentally, timholman, I recommend you invest in a quality still-picture digital camera if you want an economic solution for high quality digital imaging.
I'd take a look at buying one of the cheaper Canon Powershot cameras between $100 and $200 for which there exists open source firmware [slashdot.org]. For networking, you might explore whether or not the USB mechanism in the camera can be coerced into the host role (as opposed to acting as a device) which has been accomplished in similar situations for devices such as the BlackDog [projectblackdog.com] and many iPods with Linux installed [ipodlinux.org]. With USB device hosting capability in hand, you could then easily connect it to a USB Ethernet NIC for a little over $20.
With your own firmware installed, you might even do something really novel and program the camera to do something that will get the intruder's attention before snapping a photo so that they are sure to be looking right at it, giving you an excellent shot of his or her identity.
Let us know how it goes!
Parent
A way to get the intruders attention (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re:IQeye (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, using a still cam with custom housing and a motion sensor is a pretty good idea. But when it comes down to the nitty gritty, a firearm is your best bet.
Parent
Here is a start... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [dlink.com]
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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agreed with the rest of your post, but from what I've seen of small CCTV cameras these days, they use IR LEDs for illumination. I have one from DealExtreme ($12) that comes with them built in.
-b
Re:Here is a start... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:The surveillence is the easy bit (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. I sat on a grand jury a couple years ago and heard numerous burglary indictments. Most of the cases the police clearly weren't terribly interested until the perp happened to hit a place with good surveillance, and then they usually knew who it was immediately and the case went very quickly.
The county I'm in does grand juries a little oddly -- they have two standing grand juries for all felony indictments (investigatory grand juries are different). You serve one day a month for a year (one jury meets at the start of the month, the other in the middle), and you hear a couple dozen cases each day. So I saw plenty of burglary cases, and the ones that actually came to us tended to have either video surveillance or an ID from a pawn shop. There were some stupid crook stories too (hint: if you're stealing a car, with boat attached, remember to hook up the trailer lights), but mostly the indictments came from video footage accompanied by a comment from the officer that they thought the perp was responsible for several other area breakins but couldn't prove it.
Parent
WiLife (Score:5, Informative)
Where do you live? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dog (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Dog (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Good images are important (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
GPL Monitoring Software (Score:5, Informative)
easy and cheap solution (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:Seriously, get a dog (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
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
.
Good Luck! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Step 1) Get used camera 2) download this software (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Prevention is better than prosecution... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Prevention is better than prosecution... (Score:4, Funny)
uhhhhh, could you call that Kleptus Interruptus?
Parent
How about a fake dog (Score:5, Interesting)
How about insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
My $500 video system caught 3 thieves in 4 years (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
You don't need any cameras (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
When my car was broken into, the thief had greasy fingers and left large as life well made finger prints on the window. I cou
Re:Why not deterrence? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re: (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.
Re:Save your money (Score:5, Funny)
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?
Parent