Catalytic Converter Theft

sfitz527

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With the uptick in catalytic converter thefts, it was only a matter of time until they reached our neighborhood. Two thieves made the mistake of targeting a neighbor’s vehicle parked in view of a few of my cameras. Below is the footage merged together, unfortunately the ANPR only captured the first vehicle as it looks like the second vehicle obscured their plate. Local police were thrilled to receive quality footage of these guys.

If interested the cameras are all Hikvision rebrands I picked up over the years on eBay.

Driveway Left: ALI-NS2114L (Color Vu/4MP)
Driveway Right: ALI-NS2038R (Starlight/8MP)
ANPR: ALI-NP3022ANPR (ANPR/2MP)

 

wittaj

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Yeah, the police normally get this LOL - this person posted to Nextdoor wanting to know if anyone can help them ID who stole his catalytic converter in the night...how many issues with this can we identify LOL...




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IAmATeaf

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The USA cat thief’s are so leisurely compared to those in the UK, mind you here in the UK they are stealing them during the day so maybe like an Amazon delivery driver they have to nick so many in the day to make it worth their while.

Looking forward one day to a video of the jack giving way, can only hope.
 

SpacemanSpiff

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...how many issues with this can we identify LOL...
That soffit depth is kind of shallow. Looks like the mortar mix has bit too much sand, and the bed joints are a little thick. From this small sampling, I would still consider hiring the mason.

OH! And their exterior light fixture needs a new bulb.
 

TonyR

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Family sues car jack manufacturer and wins millions....will be a future story...it was in California after all :banghead:
So true...lived there for 29 years, worked for municipal gov't maintaining traffic signals...you'd never know by my avatar!

A county traffic engineer told me a story once that he swore was true....local teen dove off a river bridge and broke his neck. Family sued and won. Two signs were posted on both ends of bridge, stating "NO JUMPING OFF BRIDGE" and "NO SWIMMING". They won their suit because neither sign said "NO DIVING."
 
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Parley

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With the uptick in catalytic converter thefts, it was only a matter of time until they reached our neighborhood. Two thieves made the mistake of targeting a neighbor’s vehicle parked in view of a few of my cameras. Below is the footage merged together, unfortunately the ANPR only captured the first vehicle as it looks like the second vehicle obscured their plate. Local police were thrilled to receive quality footage of these guys.

If interested the cameras are all Hikvision rebrands I picked up over the years on eBay.

Driveway Left: ALI-NS2114L (Color Vu/4MP)
Driveway Right: ALI-NS2038R (Starlight/8MP)
ANPR: ALI-NP3022ANPR (ANPR/2MP)

IMHO you need to add another license plate camera. Both pointing in the opposite direction on your street. That way you can get cars coming and going for both the front and rear plates.
 

mat200

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This is a great example why you may want more cameras than you imagined.

I know many of those new to this only want to put up as few as 4 cameras, one on each side of your house. Trust us, you will most certainly need more to get the coverage you are looking for.

Remember, low light image capture is more challenging for cameras, and you still need to get enough pixels on target

Good color data from one camera, and good low light IR image from another camera ( in this example )

As a minimum I recommend
2x cameras to cover your driveway, one on each side of your garage door - and mounted low enough to get a chance at an image capture of someone wearing a hoodie and cap.

If you want also street coverage like this, or license plate capture at night, or have a mail box on the curb, then I recommend getting more.

For the approach to your front door, I recommend anyone approaching it to have to go through at least 2 camera zones.

Add a camera for each side of the house, and you have a minimum of a 5-6 camera setup ( 5 if one of the garage cameras can double to cover the walk to you front door ).

I personally like a little more at the front door, one camera at eye level - and one for a more general view so I can see the package drop area.

This is why I always recommend everyone to consider 8 port+ options ( PoE switch / NVR w/PoE ports )




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note: Please do compare this with the quality of low light image captures by camera which have significantly lesser hardware and imagine sensors. Sometimes you have to at least get 1-2 good quality cameras in your mix.
 
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th182

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This is a great example why you may want more cameras than you imagined.

I know many of those new to this only want to put up as few as 4 cameras, one on each side of your house. Trust us, you will most certainly need more to get the coverage you are looking for.

Remember, low light image capture is more challenging for cameras, and you still need to get enough pixels on target

Good color data from one camera, and good low light IR image from another camera

As a minimum I recommend
2x cameras to cover your driveway, one on each side of your garage door - and mounted low enough to get a chance at an image capture of someone wearing a hoodie and cap.

If you want also street coverage like this, or license plate capture at night, or have a mail box on the curb, then I recommend getting more.

For the approach to your front door, I recommend anyone approaching it to have to go through at least 2 camera zones.

Add a camera for each side of the house, and you have a minimum of a 5-6 camera setup ( 5 if one of the garage cameras can double to cover the walk to you front door ).

I personally like a little more at the front door, one camera at eye level - and one for a more general view so I can see the package drop area.

This is why I always recommend everyone to consider 8 port+ options ( PoE switch / NVR w/PoE ports )




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note: Please do compare this with the quality of low light image captures by camera which have significantly lesser hardware and imagine sensors. Sometimes you have to at least get 1-2 good quality cameras in your mix.
I am up to 24 cameras and I still want more coverage!! That’s just for a rectangle single story rambler house and a small shed.

I have two LPR cameras, one for each direction. Now I’m considering some dedicated street cameras. If something happens in my yard there is a good chance I’ll have a decent shot, but the street is not really covered. Hmm…


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Flintstone61

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We had a converter stolen out of a Honda Odyssey (2004-5) mid February. it was in the back lot. and the PTZ with good Zoom was right on her car ( dumb luck). but she hesitated to report it to me for like 13-14 days. and it was gone off the hard drive by 24 hours when she finally told me. :banghead: this past Weekend (05/1) was the first full weekend running the 5421 z12e mounted under a 5442 2.8mm. Im getting good plate reads with a guesstimate setting made by watching you guys in here. like 1/2000 shutter and day/ night aperature variances. and the Schedule tab i approximated our current sun up/sun down in the slider and let her rip for the weekend. I'm catching 100% of the dawn to dusk plates, and caught all but 1 of the over night plates. But that guy is a speed demon and lives here. So I adjusted today for speed demons ( in a parking lot ffs) with a lower Make Time from 0.7 sec to 0.4 and added 2 seconds to the pre-record from 9 to 11 sec. and changed the .jpg snaps to 0.3 seconds from 0.5 seconds.
But because i had to be a show off and post the photos, I let the BI PC on the Net, anf the motherfucker was waiting for a restart on an update. So i restarted and let it finish the update. I made a Macrium reflect full backup earlier in theday. so if it acts up. I can revert to my stable Image of 5.4.1.1
 

sfitz527

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IMHO you need to add another license plate camera. Both pointing in the opposite direction on your street. That way you can get cars coming and going for both the front and rear plates.
Thanks, i’m really considering it. When I installed our photoelectric beam sensor at the end of the driveway I ran an extra cat5 for future projects. The street is a dead end on the right, so the current ANPR catches both sides of every vehicle anyway. I didn’t add that clip of the vehicles coming down the street to the video because no plates appeared on that shot.
 

sfitz527

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This is a great example why you may want more cameras than you imagined.

I know many of those new to this only want to put up as few as 4 cameras, one on each side of your house. Trust us, you will most certainly need more to get the coverage you are looking for.

Remember, low light image capture is more challenging for cameras, and you still need to get enough pixels on target

Good color data from one camera, and good low light IR image from another camera

As a minimum I recommend
2x cameras to cover your driveway, one on each side of your garage door - and mounted low enough to get a chance at an image capture of someone wearing a hoodie and cap.

If you want also street coverage like this, or license plate capture at night, or have a mail box on the curb, then I recommend getting more.

For the approach to your front door, I recommend anyone approaching it to have to go through at least 2 camera zones.

Add a camera for each side of the house, and you have a minimum of a 5-6 camera setup ( 5 if one of the garage cameras can double to cover the walk to you front door ).

I personally like a little more at the front door, one camera at eye level - and one for a more general view so I can see the package drop area.

This is why I always recommend everyone to consider 8 port+ options ( PoE switch / NVR w/PoE ports )




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note: Please do compare this with the quality of low light image captures by camera which have significantly lesser hardware and imagine sensors. Sometimes you have to at least get 1-2 good quality cameras in your mix.
Great point. That’s exactly why I went with a 16ch NVR on this property. I do have 5 additional cameras at the front alone, 2 of those did get a bit of this incident but not nearly as good as the driveway cameras. The focal point of both these cameras is my driveway for when my vehicle isn’t parked in the garage. Capturing this far out was not my goal as we rarely park on the street. Additionally, we have our PTZ parked on our driveway with people tracking enabled for when someone enters our property line. I just need to convince the wife to let me install a few more cameras focusing on the street for the next crew.
 

wittaj

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Sounds like time to use some of those other cams as spotter cams for the PTZ, at least for the middle of the night!
 

bradner

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With the uptick in catalytic converter thefts, it was only a matter of time until they reached our neighborhood. Two thieves made the mistake of targeting a neighbor’s vehicle parked in view of a few of my cameras. Below is the footage merged together, unfortunately the ANPR only captured the first vehicle as it looks like the second vehicle obscured their plate. Local police were thrilled to receive quality footage of these guys.

If interested the cameras are all Hikvision rebrands I picked up over the years on eBay.
This is EXACTLY why I have 5 cams alone plus a PTZ covering the front alone of where I live. It would drive we crazy if I missed capturing clearly something like this right in front of my own place. Many times the perps will organize away from the target location so just covering the driveway is ok but I want multiple angles of the same area. At least you caught something. Another reason I like the big sensor color cams but I did upgrade my own front lighting to assist.
 
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