Wireless Security Cameras

The most important questions are:

What are the dimensions of the field of view you want to watch?

Do you want to observe (detect the presence of someone or something) or do you need identify (facial recognition)?

With a 1/4" sensor and 3.6 mm lens:

Dimensions of field of view: 60º 47º Dist. width height

10' 10' 8' 20' 20' 15' 30' 30' 23' 40' 40' 30' 50' 50' 38' 60' 60' 45' 70' 70' 53' 80' 80' 60' 90' 90' 68' 100' 100' 75'

For observation, use 10% of the image. For identification, use 30% of the image. Image 10% of 30% of Dist. height Image Image

10' 8' 1' 2' 20' 15' 2' #5' 30' 23' 2' #7' 40' 30' 3' 10' 50' 38' 4' 12' 60' 45' *5' 15' 70' 53' *5' 17' 80' 60' *6' 20' 90' 68' *7' 22' 100' 75' 8' 25'

From the above chart, to view a normal height person the camera has to be 60 to 80 feet from the subject (*). To identify the person, the camera has to be 30 to 40 feet away (#).

Low end consumer cameras have a fixed lens and only one selection of a lens, so you need to use distance to get what you want.

Higher end cameras have a CS lens mount and you can select from several lenses. Almost all of them are NTSC and use coax cable, so you'll need a cable to ethernet converter ($90).

Toshiba had a wireless variant of their IK-WB15 IP networked camera, but its no longer available. The ethernet version is an excellent camera and can be used with the Linksys WAP54G Access Point in client mode. It has

5x optical zoom and 180 degree pan and 70 degree tilt.

If you don't need the zoom and pan, consider a OkiUSA SHM-755AII.

a true day/night camera with 550 line resolution and vari-focus lens.

Oh....a third question. How much money do you want to spend?

You won't be happy with any of the consumer gear that sells for a couple of hundred dollars. The image quality is poor and they are not built to operate below freezing temps.

The cheapest setup is to avoid TCP cameras and go with a traditional closed circuit video system. You can buy a control box that will allow access from a web browser if you want that capability.

Otherwise, if you really want a camera that hosts a web server, something like this is what you should look at:

Note the weather container option.

-- "Tell me what I should do, Annie." "Stay. Here. Forever." - Life On Mars

Thanks Rick, DTC, for the info. Looks like to do it correctly will have to spend a few dollars more.

worth checking out. [I've made a few purchase from them without a problem.] Unless you are going to "run" the camera, I'm not sure I'd spring for PTZ. You could set up a few fixed cameras for less than one PTZ. Conventional TV (basically NTSC using a FM carrier) works well, and there are plenty of channels in the 2400 band.

You can pump conventional video wireless about a quarter mile without much work. You may want to use directional antennas to keep the signal private.

Any chance your town is going to set up a wifi mesh? I've talked to people that have had trouble with outdoor wifi once the muni system goes live.

Using conventional wireless video doesn't preclude putting in on the PC. Fry's sells a card that can digitize 4 video sources. I don't recall the brand, but there are all sorts of multichannel video capture cards.

one open source solution for the PC end, though you would need another PC. Setting up a linux PC for such a task isn't all that unusual since MS OS can get buggy if you don't reboot occasionally, while linux can run for months and stay stable.

I haven't done this myself, but some people use PAL cameras. The resolution is better, and there is a smaller "user base" for PAL, i.e. less people can intercept the video.I am told PAL is used for casino security, but have no way to verify that.

"Don Harvey" hath wroth:

When I worked in a concete tilt-up building and ended up facing a blank wall, I spent much of my spare time painting a large piece of butcher paper hanging on the wall, of what it would look like if there were a large picture window installed. My artistic abilities are rather limited, so it was mostly done by projecting a slide of a photograph taken outside.

I don't see why it needs to be wireless. It will be installed in the same building where you're located. Running cables through a vent is not particularly difficult. It would only need to be a video cable. However, if you planning to try to create a wireless link going through ground level dirt, it isn't going to work. The additional attenuation of the foundation wall, floor, and outside wall, will insure that the path will be useless. I strongly suggest you borrow a wireless access router and wireless equipped laptop, and do a site survey for signal strength and thruput. It takes a rather strong signal to cram high frame rate video through a wireless link.

This site:

seems to have a wide variety of wired and wireless camera reviews. I have my favorites, but you won't like the price. The problem is that the commodity wireless web cameras seem to have lousy imagers. For low light, I like CCD imagers. For a decent picture, I like large imagers with high resolution. Add a PTZ pedestal and a camera server and price is rather high.

I recently setup a wireless camera using:

and a:

for the wireless link. Figure on $400 (used) for the 640x480 camera and lens, plus $70 for the wireless bridge. The quality of the images are really good, especially in low light. Note that the 3 Megapixel imager is CMOS, while the others are CCD. Samples:

Anyway, my point is that you don't really need an all in one unit. You can use a commodity NTSC video camera, feed that to a video server, and link it with either ethernet or wireless using a wireless bridge. If have a digital camera with an NTSC video output, that can also be used.

Nail down a price limit, and I can possibly offer more specific suggestions.

I suggest you reconsider wireless , hard cable is easy to install and offers several major advantages including power supply, you can buy quite inexpensive cams on ebay at 1/3 the price of a reasonable wireless unit , locally I cant help with suppliers for you but I suggest you purchase a cheap p3 and a $30.00 dvr card from ebay on xp or win 2k as a minimum , .The major point with wireless cams is you must spend much more to get even a reasonable resolution (say above

720 which is normally the wireless maximum) which can be achieved for a lessor investment on hard-wired cam with a Sony capsule , anything else you might like to know and good luck .

Thanks Jeff, atec and everyone. The ideas and links are really appreciated.

Thinking about everyone's comments on wireless vs cable I must agree. Running a cable from this office is extremely easy and gives a much better opportunity for better cameras.

Like Jeff facing the concrete wall I feel like I am in a bunker down here, don't know if it is raining, or snowing, or the sun is shining, which is the main reason for the cam rather than any security problem.

Jeff, good idea about projecting a slide - better than a concrete wall.

Going to check this stuff out this week.