Home Security

[Jezza]

I made a mistake, left the garage open for a few minutes. Two road bikes later, I want to invest in some kind of video surveillance. Does anyone here have any recommendations? I would like something that records pretty much continuously. Ive never looked into this before and I'm not sure where to start.

[ky0u]

There's a program called webcam video capture. Free and records off your webcam onto a computer hard drive. Recordings will add up and use up a lot of HD space but you can delete it unless something happens that you want to watch. I used an old laptop I was about to recycle as a dedicated hard drive for the recordings. Might be a cheap easy way for you to get what you need

[einhander]

Would be cool to rig up a motion sensor that automatically sent an alert to your smartphone once it was activated, then showed you a live feed.

Or rig up the device to record to an hd if the sensor is tripped.

[AndrewBird]

www.monoprice.com has lots of cheap security stuff. DealExtreme.com does as well, though shipping takes 1-2 months since it is all coming from Hong Kong.

These things look pretty awesome:

http://dx.com/p/tenvis-300kp-cmos-surveillance-security-wireless-network-camera-w-10-led-ir-night-vision-black-175049

[N-Gen]

I use a windows application called iSpy. It can use any device attached to a pc or your network. I tried it out with 1 webcam and it can support as many cameras as your pcs can handle.

Has great settings to control the disk space and also records on motion detection and audio detection (depending on if your cam had audio of course), all of which you can set thresholds for Or you could just let it record. Quite a good piece of application if you ask me, worked great for me so far.

[DaveSmed]

4 channel dvr systems are pretty cheap these days, I picked up a samsung sde-3004 refurb for $120 a few years ago. Overall pretty happy with it, wish it was 600TVL instead of 480TVL, but for the price it does the job.

Being able to check it out remotely is extremely convenient, esp. When the ups guy decides to build a monument to package theft out of rock auto boxes in the middle of the driveway. (After putting them inside the porch the previous week)

I was able to call someone to move them somewhere less conspicious for the remainder of the week I was called out.

[hyperE30]

I bought a ZMoDo from eBay for 150 I think, 4ch 500g with motion sensors, can connect to your phone to send allerts and what not, Its been great for the price.