home video camera question- outside security

OK, first a disclosure. I sell cameras online so I might be biased in favor of you visiting my website.

Now for the cost part. If there is plenty of light in the viewed area at night, almost any weather resistant camera will do. You can spend $100~150 or so. The problem is few truly inexpensive cameras are rated for use at New England's winter temperatures. If you don't have decent lighting in the covered area, you'll need a camera with IR LEDs (a ring of infrared lights around the lens). Cost on these adds very little. Useful range is around 25 to 50% of whatever is claimed by the manufacturer. :^)

If you use your PC as a recording device you'll save considerably over the cost of most profesional DVR's. Otherwise, add around $400 or $500 for recording.

All professional cameras can be viewed directly from any TV that has a "video" input. That's the yellow RCA jack on the back. The same is true of virtually all DVR's. You only need a standard "RCA" cable.

Most of the folks here are professional alarm and/or vieo installers. Everyone has his favorite brand. Clinton Electronics has decent price and quality. There are tons to choose from so take your time. Speco is another brand you should look at.

Hope that helps.

...except you'll need to get a wire to your PC, and you'll have to add some sort of capture hardware and software, and you'll have to leave it running all the time.

Whatever camera you buy, I would definitely get an outdoor enclosure with a heater built-in.

Some cameras have a huge resistor for heat built right into the lens cover. I've never used one, so I don't know how well those work. I live in Texas where our main concern is too much heat and we need to ventilate our enclosures well.

try

Matt is 100% correct, though you'll need a wire either way.

By the way, I didn't mention wireless cameras only because there seem to be only two types of those -- really expensive or really poor quality. Unless someone else has a good suggestion, I am not aware of any inexpensive RF cameras that are actually reliable.

True... however, with a separate DVR, it can potentially be located somewhere that makes that wiring easy, whereas if running to your regular home PC, you may find wiring more difficult.

This is true of CCTV in general, although you're right, it's more an issue with wireless.

The main problem, of course, is that most of them operate in the already-overcrowded 2.4GHz consumer band, where they are subject to interference from all manner of cordless devices (phones in particular), as well as WiFi routers and devices.

Part of being inexpensive also means that they usually use very cheap camera guts, so on top of iffy wireless transmission, you'll probably have poor image quality to begin with.

The OP only wanted a camera pointed at the front door hooked to a monitor, I doubt any of that is a big deal