A little victory

djangel

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A small victory

Just wanted to share a little story and some quick videos from my surveillance cameras.

This one is the first system I purchased just because I've been pondering with the idea of installing some cameras. At the time, I had no reason to be worried and it was just something to play with. Two days after initial installation and tinkering with settings and configurations, I found this little video in one of the motion detection alerts.


Oh oh, what the hell? How long has this been happening? Well, I'm definitely not satisfied with my $200 analog QSee system now. I need to do some research and see what other options I have. Quick google search, and BOOM! ipcamtalk.com forums seems like a good place to start. Let the research begin. Just like many of you, I gained valuable information and understanding from these forums of this fun and scary surveillance world. Nevertheless I decided to just take it easy and buy a couple of IP cams to start. After setup and management using BlueIris software I started to consider purchasing a NVR, but wasn't too sure about it. So far, BlueIris was good enough for my needs although I didn't have a decent computer to run more than 2 cameras.



Almost 6 months passed without any issues! Maybe the fact I have more cameras outside is keeping crooks from venturing this way. Who knows, maybe it was just an isolated incident to begin with... WRONG!

DS-2CD2032-I with 12mm lens

DS-2CD2332-I with 2.8mm lens


Motherf...! Why did my wife left the van unlocked! She claims that was our daughter that was playing with the remote and unlocked it, but I know better. Either way, got these little crooks looking for opportunities and they found one in my driveway. As you can see in the first video his face of "accomplishment" once he found the vehicle unlocked, but thanks to the video I was able to see that around second 19-20 of the recording he touched the back of the van's doors while fleeing with his accomplices. Big mistake! Did I mentioned I manage two AFIS systems for the state? Not only I have video, but might also have fingerprints... Let's see...





That might work! Well, time to call the cops and get a report. Before they arrived I burned a DVD with all evidence on it. Video clips, fingerprint photos and snapshots from BlueIris.





Once the cops came in and looked at all the evidence guess what! A patrol unit in the neighborhood that night, stopped 3 teenagers a few blocks from my house because it looked that they were checking car doors. When they questioned them, they found no evidence of any stolen property or wrongdoing, so they left them go not before getting their names, ages and home addresses! To my surprise the patrol officer was on duty and was able to ID the crooks! Two 17 years old and a 14 years old from the neighborhood a mile away. Since they had clear evidence and positive id of one of them, they left my house to pay them a visit at theirs. Got a phone call less than 30 minutes later from one of the officers just to let me know that all 3 were arrested and charged with auto burglary and en route to the local juvenile center for booking! BOOM! At least those 3 will think twice before venturing this way again.

Only bad thing of this experience is that now I have an extra 2032 camera and new Hikvision NVR, since I want to record 24/7. After all, it should be money well spent. Let's just hope I don't have to deal with any of that again. :)



To IPCAMTALK.COM forums and all the people that takes time to help others and share their expertise; to all of you I say THANK YOU!
 

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fenderman

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Awesome! Nice Job. Its sad that we have to deal with these crooks, but that is some satisfying video...
 

Mike

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Thanks for the great intro post and welcome to the forum. Great job getting those punks!
 

djangel

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The least I could do is share some of the success stories out there for those that might be thinking of installing a surveillance system and close to giving up. My advise, most of your questions are answer here and if not, don't be afraid to ask. There are plenty of good people in this community. Headaches and money spent were "worth" the trouble, specially since I know for a fact that any future shady businesses around my house have a decent chance of generating some type of evidence.

I just purchased an additional 2032 cam with 6mm lens and 2 Wrightwood Tri-Illuminators for the front area. As soon as I get them installed and tested I will post an update.
 

bp2008

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Good captures. It looks like the 12mm lens has proven itself to be useful, and I like the wide angle view showing the big picture.

I have been running cameras for just over 4 years with nothing like that to show for it (thank goodness).
 

harrijs

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Have you thought about moving the 12mm to the right to capture both sides of the vehicle? You missed someone on the drivers side from a facial recognition standpoint. The wide and tight angles together worked out nice.
 

oldrolla

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A little victory?

I would say a BIG victory. The only video i get is of the local wildlife.

Thanks for sharing.
 

catseyenu

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Bravo, good work!
Have you thought about moving the 12mm to the right to capture both sides of the vehicle? You missed someone on the drivers side from a facial recognition standpoint. The wide and tight angles together worked out nice.
Or adding another camera to cover that side of the drive.
 

vector18

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Great job, I love hearing that the bad guys got caught! It seems that checked car door handles is a national epidemic for some reason?
 

djangel

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Just wanted to update on some changes I made. Keep in mind I'm still experimenting with position/settings, but the cameras more than likely will stay at the current locations.

Have you thought about moving the 12mm to the right to capture both sides of the vehicle? You missed someone on the drivers side from a facial recognition standpoint. The wide and tight angles together worked out nice.
Bravo, good work!

Or adding another camera to cover that side of the drive.
My thoughts at the time were to also monitor my mailbox and cul-de-sac incoming activity because of the zoom lens, but after the incident I realized I needed to get a better coverage for the driveway. These are some of the changes so far.


Changed the camera from a 12mm to a 6mm

Relocated 12mm camera to blind side of driveway

12mm set to 3mp


I think this setup is ideal, since I should have better video of someone doing the same as before or lurking around the driveway. I'm still playing and considering changing the 12mm camera to record at 3mp, but it will come down if I can get the new Wrightwood tri-illuminators setup right. Also, I added a new security light with motion sensor to the right of the driveway/house, so that should help some.

The main problem I'm having now is trying to figure out a way to minimize the exposure of all these devices outside the front of my house. I'm going to be experimenting with some weatherproof boxes hoping to have a camera and illuminator together for at least the middle camera, but I'm afraid that this will be hard to accomplish. I'll update of any significant changes as soon as I can, or if some other mofo comes this way again. Let's just hope not. If so, I might be the one relocating to a new place! :D
 
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Well done. The one part of your story that really stands out for me is burning the DVD on the spot to give to the cops. Without that capability, they'd have to watch playback on your phone or PC or whatever. Handing off the evidence in a portable format - very valuable. Makes a long time Linux guy like me consider a win PC so I can run iris sw.
 

harrijs

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Well done. The one part of your story that really stands out for me is burning the DVD on the spot to give to the cops. Without that capability, they'd have to watch playback on your phone or PC or whatever. Handing off the evidence in a portable format - very valuable. Makes a long time Linux guy like me consider a win PC so I can run iris sw.
Why couldn't you have used zoneminder to save off the content as an mp4 and write it to a usb drive or dvd? I don't understand how windows has any advantage over linux in this regard.
 

bp2008

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Why couldn't you have used zoneminder to save off the content as an mp4 and write it to a usb drive or dvd? I don't understand how windows has any advantage over linux in this regard.
I was wondering the same thing.
 
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I was wondering the same thing.

simple, because i'm new at this, and didn't realize that there was viable linux/OSS software in this area!

original poster may or may not be a windows or linux guy, i just jumped into the thread with a comment.
 

pal251

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Did you dust the car for latent prints or police, if you did good job. Ive only beem lucky enough to have one print returm
 

djangel

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Did you dust the car for latent prints or police, if you did good job. Ive only beem lucky enough to have one print returm
The police was able to dust the print and get a good latent, although the picture I took was also good to run it thru the system. Good thing police had a positive ID from footage, since he didn't have any previous arrests until now. Latent hit to finger #9 (left hand ring finger) :D It was just a matter of time before his young criminal background caught up with him and his siblings. Bad thing about all of this is that he will probably learn from his mistakes and be more careful next time he's committing a crime. Hopefully he is just dumb by nature and get caught again.
 

pal251

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Re: A small victory

Hopefully he won't be committing any more crimes.
 
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