My Camera !

Sales of home and business surveillance/security systems have exploded in recent years. Even before September 11th, sales of surveillance systems had been on the rise. But following the terrorist attacks, sales of home and business security systems rose as much as 20% over the course of three months.

The reasons for this increased interest in property and personal security are varied. However, whether you own a home or business, topping the list are the three most common reasons for installing surveillance cameras; protecting your property, family members and employees.

The rise in the sales of security cameras has been more than justified by the results stated by police departments of major cities across the country, which report that the chances of a break-in or robbery are nearly cut in half by the presence of an obvious security camera on the premises. Business owners have reported that theft by both customers and employees is nearly eliminated when they install the right security camera system. And who hasn’t seen the TV footage taken by home security cameras that have led to the conviction of child abusers, ‘peeping toms’ and home burglars?

How Security Cameras Safeguard Businesses
The most obvious commercial use for surveillance systems is the prevention of loss of merchandise through shoplifting. Other applications are:

Logging transactions at the cash register or ATM
Monitoring remote areas of the premises for safety precautions
Observing how employees are servicing/treating customers
Providing evidence in sexual harassment suits/burglary trials/homicide trials
Monitoring premises after hours
Watching work progress at construction sites

But video taped surveillance doesn’t just provide negative evidence; it can also be used to exonerate. In one case, security video tapes of a parking lot were used to prove that the car of an accused “hit and run” driver could not have been used in the accident that took place several blocks away.

Home security
According to police in major cities, the presence of a home security camera can reduce the probability that a home will be burglarized by as much as 80%! Home applications include:

Video baby monitors can watch over an infant
Video door phones can identify callers at the door
Nanny cams, with time lapse VCR’s or DVR’s, can provide the peace of mind that your child is being taken care of adequately
Home surveillance systems can provide a view into what may be occuring in your home when you’re away at work or vacation.

Combined with a remote alarm system, a video surveillance system can not only alert police to a break in at your home, but also provide evidence to assist in the capturing and conviction of the intruder.

A consultation with a professional security installation company can help you choose the best surveillance system to meet your needs.

Vigilance and Security
We offer professional CCTV surveillance systems; featuring wireless baby monitors, video doorphones, multi-room monitor systems, infra-red night vision cameras, nannycams, hidden cameras, security dvrs, time lapse vcrs and much more. Security tips. Free UPs ground shipping.

http://www.vigilanceandsecurity.com

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Every type of CCTV user has different needs and requirements for their install. This can make selecting the right system difficult for many people who aren’t familiar with security camera installs. Generally these needs can be broken up by the type of user you are. The needs of a home user are different then the needs of a retail store. Some needs people think they have to have, they really don’t need. The basic requirements that should be a bare minimum for all users of all systems are Triplex, the ability to back it up, strong technical support, and ease of playback.

Triplex DVR’s are DVR’s that can record, backup/archive, and view live video all at the same time. Anytime you have to stop recording to view playback, you run the risk of something happening while the system is down. You also run the risk of a user leaving the system in a non-recording mode when they finish with it. Given how it’s almost standard on all DVR’s (PC based or standalone) there is no reason to settle for anything less. This is a strong reason to upgrade a VCR system, since very, very few of them have the ability to be triplex.

Backing up the video in case of an incident allows you to give it to Police or others who may need the video. Giving the video to Police can help them quickly identify thieves and increases the chance of getting stolen property recovered. But giving it to the police isn’t the only reason to have a way to backup the video. CCTV systems can be useful in other legal matters such as slip and fall or personal injury lawsuits. Being able to make a CD of an event and keep it for the future can stop costly lawsuits before they begin.

Strong technical support is very important. If the system isn’t working then it offers you no protection. And Murphy’s Law of CCTV is that something will always happen when the system is off line. This system is one that you are trusting to protect something valuable to you. You need a company that will stand behind its products and support you. Ideally you want to work with a company that is either local to you, or has excellent national support. Buying a cheap DVR from China may save a few dollars now but may cost you a lot more in the long run.

Ease of playback is something that should be strongly considered. One of the reasons that tape systems are fading out is that trying to wade through days worth of video tapes can take hours to find an incident. This prevents people from using it to check for simple irregularities. One of the major points of using systems like this is the ability to apply some degree of intelligence to the system. With any DVR you want to look at the motion detection. Motion detection should reduce the amount of total time recorded. Combine this with a good search feature and it starts becoming a useful tool.

These are the very basics that all users should be looking for. Anything less then those features is just an expensive paperweight. The goal of this technology is to protect you as well as make the information useful. If your system doesn’t meet these needs then it isn’t going to help you very much. Here is a list of more advanced features that different users should look for:

Small Companies:

Advanced Motion Detection: Given that most small business have cameras that may view busy streets, the ability to block out certain areas should be something you look for. This reduces the amount of false motion detection you’re looking for.

Support for Dynamic IP’s: Most small companies do not have a static IP address, and the cost with some ISP’s can be extremely expensive. Having software support for Dynamic IP’s can make your life much easier.

Support for DIO modules: These allow you to add an external door contact or window contact to a system. If you have a wired alarm system, this allows the DVR to force recording if any of contacts are tripped.

Remote Playback without a plug-in/, application, or Active-X: This gives you the ability to check on your company from home or any offsite location without needing to install any additional software that may not be compatible with the remote computer.

Synchronized Playback: This allows you to see multiple cameras at the same time in playback. This is great for seeing the sequence of events. Something like vandalism or slip and fall; if it happens in the view of multiple cameras then you can see that child picked up that rock and threw it, even if they moved around the house.

Pre/ Post Motion Recording: This acts as a buffer on either side of the video. This lets you see how things were before an event happened and can help smooth out issues with motion detection.

Large Companies/ Institutions:

Smart Search: Sometimes people leave things where they shouldn’t or take things they shouldn’t. The ability to draw a box and hunt for motion changes in an area can take a three hour task of hunting for something and reduce it to just a few moments.

Watermarks: Watermarks allow you to show that video hasn’t been tampered with. This allows police to use the video without having to take the whole DVR for evidence.

Motion Logs: Motion logs make it easy to start playback when you have a rough idea of when something happened. It’s also useful to looking at traffic patterns.

E-mail Alerts: If someone breaks into the location, you will want to know when it happens. E-mail alerts let you do that.

Scheduled Recording: On some cameras you just don’t care about certain times of the day. Recording on a scheduled basis allows to conserve disk space by recording only when needed.

For more information on CCTV DVR features and products, please visit www.liquidcctv.com

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Although there are many articles on CCTV and surveillance systems, most are for the professional integrator and most are for commercial, industrial or government applications. This brief article is designed to acquaint the average homeowner to some of the key concepts and terms that might be helpful for a simple home surveillance system.

The basic surveillance system is comprised of the camera, lens, and monitor, and if recorded video is needed, then a recording device, such as a VCR or a DVR. Let’s first look at the camera.

The key items to know about the camera are whether indoor or outdoor application, amount of available light for the camera to see, needed resolution of the camera, and last, wireless or hard wire from the camera to the monitor.

Light levels for cameras are usually measured in Lux, which is a measurement of light energy on a surface. A typical office environment might have 500 Lux whereas a residential street lighting might be 0.5 - 3 Lux. Decent color cameras often will have a 2 Lux or lower rating and monochrome (B & W) cameras often under 1 Lux.

A great way to handle night vision problems is with IR lighting. IR LEDs, usually on the camera itself, provide illumination and if a color camera, at night, the camera will switch to monochrome and is, therefore, essentially a 0 Lux camera for the distance of the IR LEDs.

Resolution for cameras is expressed in TV horizontal lines. Standard resolution for a B & W camera is perhaps 380 TV lines and a high resolution might be 550 TV lines or higher. For color, standard resolution is a minimum of 330 TV lines and high resolution 480 TV lines or higher. Professionals need a 500 TVL or higher, perhaps, to read the number of a license plate on a moving car. However, for most home security applications 380 TVL is sufficient.

Two types of image sensors are used in cameras today, CCD and CMOS. They use different technologies and generally speaking, CCD sensors create higher quality and lower noise images then
CMOS sensors. On the other hand, CMOS cameras consume far less power and cost much less to manufacture. CMOS cameras are rapidly catching up to CCD cameras in terms of image quality.

The lens is important and the focal length of the lens tells you the field of view the camera will see at a particular distance. For example, with a 1/3 inch format camera and lens, a 2.8mm lens will see at 10 feet away a 17 ft wide and 13 ft high area at about an 80-degree angle. Using an 8mm lens for the same distance, the area is now only 6 ft wide and 4.5 high and the angle is 33 degrees. The smaller the focal length number is the wider the field of view becomes.

Wireless transmission is increasingly popular because government regulations have changed and allow systems without a license to transmit up to around 100 meters line of sight. This means maybe an average range of 25-30 meters indoors. Although many of these cameras can be battery powered, for permanent use a power supply is still needed. This means no wire is needed between the camera and the monitor, but you still need an outlet, typically, to plug the DC converter power supply in for the camera and the monitor will also need its own power supply. Still, for many homeowners this is far preferable than running RG59 coax throughout their home.

The monitor can be a dedicated professional CCTV monitor, or in the case of most home surveillance systems, just use one of the TVs already available. Most of today’s TVs have multiple A/V inputs and outputs with RCA type of connections.

If recording is needed, again most homes have either a VCR or DVR available. However, home VCRs and DVRs are not designed for 24 hour per day recording, 365 days per year. For this type of recording need, it is best to buy a separate, professional unit designed for heavy-duty recording.

If more than one camera is used then a switcher or quad processor is often used to change between camera pictures one at a time, or to display up to four cameras at the same time on one screen. Remember what is seen on the monitor or TV is what is recorded.

Professional integrators today use multiple channel DVRs for
recording up to 32 cameras, or more, in one box with large hard drives and network capability. For most home surveillance applications, however, a quad processor with a VCR or single channel DVR is sufficient.

http://www.all-thingselectronic.com

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