Longest distance between camera and PC?

I want to get a surveillance camera to play around with in connection with an old PC that I'll put Linux and whatever freebie surveillance software I can find on.

In the back of my mind - if I can get something working... and after I've run it for a month or so just to see what comes through our back yard at night... I'm thinking about moving it to a utility building at the shore where a friend's business was broken into a couple of times already.

So, really 3 questions:

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1) What should I be thinking for the max allowable cable run between 'puter and camera?

2) Are most "outdoor" cameras weatherproof enough to survive salt air exposure?

3) I'm thinking Digital, Black-And-White, able to see at night, as many lines as I can get. Brand/model recommendations?

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Reply to
(PeteCresswell)
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I want to get a surveillance camera to play around with in connection with an

Good luck. I am sure it will be worth what you pay for it.

It depends on how you wire them. a) RJ-45 = 100 Meters. RG-59 or RG-6 = up to 800' to 1500' respectively (in some cases more) with a whole lot of variables to contend with. b) Twisted sender = thousands of feet with a whole lot of variables to contend with. c) Fiber = miles in some cases with a whole lot of variables to contend with. d)Wireless 802.11 (a or b) WITH A directional antennae of the proper dB gain = more miles with a whole, whole lot of variables to contend with. (Don't forget the cable itself must be out of door/UV rated.)

There are no real out door cameras, it is the enclosure you put them in.

State the budget first then ask the model/brand. Outdoor Thermal Imaging cameras can be had from 10K to 90K. That in you budget?

Reply to
Roland Moore

Per Roland Moore:

Mea Culpa.

How about a few hundred bucks? Let's say... less than $500.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Reply to
Roland Moore

Per Roland Moore:

Camera

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

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You might want to look at this wireless outdoor camera,

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It looks like a commercial grade outdoor camera but with wireless. It's a little more pricy but not way out there. They don't give too much info on the wireless but it uses a 400mW card. Worth a look anyway. Good Luck, this is only the 3rd 802.11b/g outdoor camera that will I have been able to find.

-Geo

Reply to
Geolt3

Per Geolt3:

I'm coming around to realization that my $400 figure was hopelessly low.

Now I'm thinking $1200-1500.

Question: From that camera's specs, it sounds like motion detection is built into the camera. This is at odds with my expectation that the camera would just keep pumping pix back to the PC and software in the PC would make the decision as to whether or not there was motion and save/discard the images according.

How come this isn't the case?

Or can it be done either way, with camera-based detection used for non-PC systems?

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

If you are protecting some premises, the length shouldn't be a problem. As long as you remember that you are not looking at HDTV.

I think most hardened glass and stainless steel can with stand salt.

I recommend color HDTV.

Reply to
accidental plumber

Are you planning running a cam all the way down the beach day and night? You pervert.

The critical part is the CCD, and size matters. So 1/3 in or 1/4 in is about as good as a mid range camcorder. $300 to $500. Divide that by

3 to get a B&W. ~$200 is about right for a high quality B&W camera.

Someone must be selling something wrong if it cost more than $300. For that you can mount a color camcorder. Is that good enough for you?

You will run into hopeless situations if you behave like kids, I want this I want that while you don't have a clue.

You better start with your object or specifications. Running something digital for a few hundred yards doesn't make much sense. For audio you can run PCM and even lay fiber. For digital the closest thing is DVI, which is miles apart, and has a range about 2 ft.

Again to protect something, cameras are the last thing in the priority of things. Can you afford staff to monitor the cams 24/7? You hope to give the video to LE and hope that they catch the thief AFTER you building is broken into? Only in public places like shops that they have no choice but use camera to deter robbery. In private homes you have lot of choices to guard against break in.

You stress quality, but it depends on what you want to achieve. Camcorder grade, DVD resolution at 720 (640) x 480 is the most you need for security. That's sufficient for high quality internet p*rn too.

The distance that you are monitoring affects the quality. Normally cameras are best to protect inside corridors, entrances etc. The maximum distance will be limited so faces will appear fairly large on cam. You don't need high quality to see the faces clearly. Unfortunately if you rely on cam only you need quite a few of them. If you use one cam to cover the whole parking lot, you need to mount it high or far from the cars. You can't even see the license plates after enhancement. If you point the cam to the beach, you can't even see what they are doing.

B&W and quality is oxymoron. Imagine a American most wanted broadcast, "A dark guy drove away in a light car".

Night vision and security is oxymoron. You want plenty of light around to deter. With night vision you can mount it secretly to record in the dark. That doesn't protect anything unless you have some security guards to sit and watch the cameras 24/7. As most security cameras are big and intimidating, you don't need night vision.

Night vision is best for you to see from miles if that's a head or not, and shoot. Image information is worse than B&W. The contrast is much lower. Many comes with characteristic little IR LED around the camera. If you add up all the powers of the LED, it's smaller than a 50W bulb. And a bulb if more efficient light source for ordinary camera at night. So I always suggest a normal camera with as much light you can afford the electricity, or add overly sensitive PIR floodlight.

Night vision is basically ordinary camera with the IR filters lifted. So you are not getting any better quality. You get shifted colors in daytime and blurred shadows at night.

There's nothing wrong with NTSC signal, before HDTV, some morons drive

50 inch big screen TV's the size of a whole wall using NTSC. If you want digital, the Ethernet is available. It cheaper if you mount a PC with the cam, provided that you don't mind the size.

Getting the video is the easy bit, storing it is the problem. Of course if you have a team of security guards on watch 24/7 is different. Motion detection is often linked to cams. Firstly, try playing DVD 24/7 on your PC. So if you get your "digital" whatever, it will be high power and hot. So using a PIR to turn on the cam prolongs the life of everything. Battery operation is possible too.

The other reason for motion detection is storage. 20 GB will last a few days of continuous video. With motion detection, that could be weeks or a month. With motion detection you can capture only the interesting part in a SD card. The whole DVR can be discreetly hidden and protected.

With wireless or wired ethernet cam, local storage is required for the mp2/4 files. So it make sense to send image off when movement is detected, and discard the rest.

Often motion detection is done at the cam, using firmware. It's not a big deal as mostly likely it's counting pixels sequentially.

(PeteCresswell) wrote:

Reply to
accidental plumber

Per accidental plumber:

Thanks for the detailed and informative reply. You just told me more than I could ever hope to glean in a week's worth of Googling.

As far as requirements go, the primary requirement is to allow a total dilettante (myself) play around with TV/motion detection implemented via a PC. The secondary requirement has nothing to do with protection. Vengeance is more like it.

A friend has a small windsurfing retail shop on the beach on the edges of a multi-story hotel's parking lot. He's got three small buildings: two side-by-side and one facing the two. Next to the two side-by-side he has rental racks where customers store windsurfers.

The vengeance part comes in if/when we can identify whoever has been stealing windsurfers from the racks (bolt cutters... and so forth...).

These are felony thefts and given clear photos of the perps and a shot of the vehicle - preferably with legible license# - I'd hope the police would regard such a case as low-hanging fruit and go after it.

So far, the scenario doesn't seem all that unrealistic.

To wit:

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- The rack area is lighted and can be lighted even more, no problem.

- All three buildings have AC power and are weather tight: no problem having a PC in them. In fact one building has had a weather sensor PC in it for some years now with no problems.

- The distance from the facing building to the rack area is less than 25 feet.

- Due the visibility and the size of the things being stolen, we'd be hoping that somebody would back their vehicle into the area closest to the racks. This make sense in that they might feel more comfortable doing the deed mostly screened from view by the facing building - as opposed to carrying the boards across the hotel's parking lot at night.

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What I'm coming up with so far is:

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1) Multiple cameras. One camera on the rack area. Two or three others to cover possible parking areas and access/egress to/from the rack area.

The main problem would seem tb selection of instruments that will give the needed definition. I've seen too many clips on the evening news from retail store security cameras that had a full frontal shot of somebody holding up the store, but in which the person is still totally unrecognizable. I *think* I've even seen the same scenario from bank security cameras - which one would hope are at some professional level of quality.

2) A husky-enough PC/interface card to support the concurrent frame rates. I'm thinking full motion (30 fps?) if only because it would make a better impression on whoever the local police send to investigate.

3) Hard wiring. No problem going from building-to-building if needed.

4) A timer, of course... It would be futile to have this thing running during business hours. I'm assuming that this is a standard option in virtually all camera control software.

5) Motion sensing and a couple of 500-gig hard drives. Overkill, for sure, but the reality is that this thing will probably be forgotten about for months and months on end, only to be reviewed if/when another theft is committed - and I suspect that we will get our share of seagulls walking by, small animals sniffing around, and customers dropping by when the shop is closed.

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Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

The chance of meeting an accidental security expert on vacation at home is not high. What I do is froogle instead of google. Get some junks with good deals at eBay to learn something before commit to expensive systems (if ever). There's the option of returning the junk by paying a good portion of it, or safe the junk for later days.

Vengeance, exactly what I wanted. Mess up my front lawn while I took a nap was a challenge. Though it took less than 5 min to clean up; they dont' have much time in daytime.

But then after I experience with night vision, I began to realize the difficulty relative to deterrence. I still have cameras, but to achieve my original aim it would cost me a lot more with doubtful results. OK, no lecture again. Just one thing, software motion detection doesn't go well with night vision!

Wireless is a real option here. The buildings aren't big. You can keep mostly line-of-sight between outdoor cameras and the receiver. There aren't much interference at the beach at night. There are too many ways to make cameras useless other than jamming them. I assume the thieves aren't sophisticated. Even crappy tiny cameras costing $30 will have flawless reception if you place them well - short line of sight. Wi-fi has a much better range - digital my friend! Your router can be put in a more secure place further away from the scene. And you can monitor them at your home rather than at your friend's business. Video motion detection is rather tolerant to flickers of wireless cams. It's too fast for it to detect. And the sensitivity can be adjusted anyway.

Well that's draw of the luck. It depends on whether the perps and their cars are whether you want them to be. You know, as you say, even banks aren't doing it well. Whatever technology you use, it's like a video shoot by a 1/3 to 1/4 camcorder at outdoor light at some distance. You try to do some video and see. Banks are well lit.

My camcorder at night at outdoor lights is pretty poor. So I brought a night vision, different kind of problems and not any better. (Though it may be better if you throw in more money.) The low contrast image couldn't even trigger the motion detection via video processing. I found out that I need bright light to turn on to generate enough 'motion' for the software. This is close to floodlight so I just as well move the PIR floodlight near the camera and install more PIR floodlights. As I have mentioned elsewhere. No more morons walking their dogs after 10 pm near my house, joggers returning late would cross the road first and proceed rather than passing in front of my house.

Software solutions for a 'businessman' isn't suitable, unless he's geek also. The majority of small business use time lapse VCR. So whoever minimum wage employee had to do is to know how to change and rotate the VCR tape at regular intervals. Ordinary PC's running 24/7 with video coder on is just too hot. In contrast, my cheap cmos cameras are possibly running constantly for years without problem.

Wireless?

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Almost all expensive security cameras are designed to deter as well, large and intimidating. For night vision, I have seen 36 high power IR LED on a plate and 72 LED's as the light source. They ain't small and invisible. So I would be thinking of small CCD's with good lighting.

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Unless for expensive custom technology, who would be bulky anyway, the technology is limited to mass consumer technology. Most CCD's are the same used in camcorders. Even for camcorder quality, DVD quality at

720x480, the chance that you see clearly the face of a person is low, as in your home movies. If you zoom in to get a clear head shot or license plate, the coverage area is small, and vice versa. There must be exceptions, possibly in the HD area, but rarely any camera has resolution higher than DVD quality. Unless for wifi cam, which can be had for $100 anyway, the interface is possibly limited to NTSC. There can be many lines of resolution, >1000 for big screen TVs, but the number of horizontal scan lines is fixed, since the dawn of TV.

So you made me doubt if video is ever the solution. You can have a very cheap 3 Mpix camera to take much better pictures. Now the resolution goes to 10 Mpix? You can have a printed picture the size of a wall without grains? Some cam already sacrifice high resolution to give a better picture at low lights. So for high resolution I will be next time looking at cams that would take high resolution snapshots, or something like 10 fps.

You can froogle around and see. But video coders (mp2/mp4) are designed to be much more complex than decorders. So the DVD can run long time and keep cool, but the video cards can't. Mp4 should be "hotter" than mp2. Somehow if your signal comes in digitally, the bit rate are still pretty hot; cable modems have big cases to dissipate the heat. The bottleneck is the PCI (express) bus on the PC, which could or could not stand the 24/7 operation. Same for the hard disk - your requirement easily surpass that of a company with IT guys to maintain the file servers.

Depends what type of video stars you have. You can jam the wifi, the RF, or you can throw stones an use a big cutter.

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Very CSI or Las Vegas. 1G is about 4 hours for mp4. So you have 2K hours, 10 hr/day gives you 200 days? Or 50 days for mp2, DVD quality. With 5 cams you left with only 10 days. Though with motion or lower frame rate you have plenty days more.

Firstly I doubt if anyone walking pass your store a couple of months before will prove anything. Find the associates who get caught?

I doubt if anything not designed to run continuously, like a PC, will stand that sort of torture. A security DVR is under $1000? $700? But the total frame rate is probably 30 fps and the storage is limited. I would think 24 hrs of storage is minimum. You dig up the video when you discover the break in the next day. A few days is good and a week or more is best allowing you go on vacation without losing video.

Realtime software motion detection is probably too hot. You need to decode the 'digital' feed, average some frames and subtract some frames, then count the pixels. In contrast, it's trivial doing it after digitizing the analog signal with simple hardware.

And PIR is pretty fail safe. It does not detect heat, but change in light, which a person is like a torch. That gives you some rest for your hardware too. Say the PIR's tell the recorder which camera should be recorded.

I'm still a little disappointed. With all the PIR and trigged lighting, I can't catch even innocent people walking pass on cam. Should I install an x10 dimmers?

Reply to
accidental plumber

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