How do you protect losing your video recordings from a thief?

[thomas2013]

I am getting ready to put together a surveillance system and concerned with losing the only video recording that I have saved onto a NVR or Blue Iris/computer. How do you prevent a thief from destroying or taking away your only copy? Do you:

• Put NVR or computer in a safe?
• Backup to a secondary NVR or NAS?
• Backup to cloud?

 

[Fastb]

Thomas2013,

Other options might include:
- sending snapshots (from events such as tripwire, MD, or external PIR sensors hooked to cameras). Text or email.
- Using SD card in camera, assuming they can't reach/steal the camera. Redundant storage. I suggest that for license plate info, useful if NVR stolen.
- Installing a "decoy" NVR. The real NVR might not be stolen.
- Backup to cloud, sure. May be expensive. Alternatively, send video to an ftp site off-premises

Check this forum for posts by fenderman and nayr. They recently discussed this very topic, in a thread that was an NVR/BI pro & con comparison. That's a bigger topic, but backup of data was touched upon.

Another approach is to make it difficult for the thieves to have the time to search for the NVR. Sirens & strobe lights. Flashing lights outside the house. I even used a sound generation pcb from Adafruit ($20) that will play pre-recorded clips, such as "you're being recorded", "video stored off-site", 'Police on the way", etc.

ie: deterence. Instead of relying on video footage to identify the thieves, through their hoodie, cap. I use a laser line across the only way to drive onto my property. I get the email, w/ snapshot. I can surf in to view live. I can listen to what's going on. When I call 911, I have info on a "burglary in progress". I wanna stop them before they enter the house (and look for the NVR).

Good luck,
Fastb

 

[Q™]

Hide the NAS in the basement ceiling and be done with it. Great throughput and a thief will never find it; don't get caught up in fantasies which will never come to fruition.

 

[Fastb]

Q2U:

Q: Does that mean he's locking in to a BI approach, versus NVR?

If using an NVR, how does footage reach the NAS?

A: Setup the NAS as ftp backup in the NVR config settings?

Fastb

 

[Masejoer]

Stuff recorder into a basement, attic space, whatever. Security companies may do things a consistent way, but when you have a DIY setup, unless you have a ton of bright red cables dangling from a ceiling, at a location that is obvious, then they likely won't know what to look for.

Offsite should mostly be for other purposes such as fire.

Burglars don't spend an hour in your home. They usually want to run in, get into the master bedroom and grab whatever cash/jewelry or weapons they can find, and take off. Obvious smaller things like ipads, phones, watches, etc may be snatched, but they're lower reward for the risk.

 

[thomas2013]

Thomas2013,

Check this forum for posts by fenderman and nayr. They recently discussed this very topic, in a thread that was an NVR/BI pro & con comparison. That's a bigger topic, but backup of data was touched upon.

Good luck,
Fastb

Do you have a link to that thread. I can't find it. TIA

 

[nayr]

I simply buy cameras with onboard SD storage, the cameras can easily fit 24h of full quality video locally.. and my NVR is hidden and not easily discovered, but if it is then the whole network is down, so are the cameras and any chance of recording over the video stored on the cameras is minimal..

If they found the NVR, found my ladder and removed all my cameras.. then they had to be some really smart professionals to accomplish all that without leaving any other evidence behind.

another cheap option is get something like a PogoPlug, and use FTP to store the video and a cron script to remove files older than a few days old, you dont need alot of storage space for the backup.. just enough to get the event after you get notified and retrieve the video.. if someone burglarizes your house and steals your NVR you should be aware of the event pretty much instantly, not like something disappearing out of your yard and you not noticing for a few days/weeks... hide it well.

 

[JBoyle]

Nayr, I had thought about doing exactly what you said, hide the NVR, but if its in a crawl space how do i control it to monitor or review from home?
Thanks.

 

[nayr]

i dont think you should put your NVR in a crawl space, if you want your precious multi-terabyte harddrives to give you a good long life..

Mine's hidden in the basement, so its nice and cool down there.. and I use my webbrowser and smartpss to control and monitor the NVR..

 

[bp2008]

Just hide your NVR behind the living room television. No burglar will ever find it there.

 

[JBoyle]

Ok, thanks! But I want to be able to view my cameras on my tv, which will be plugged into the NVR. How about having the NVR in the rack with my other TV devices in the den and an external HDD in my hidden space?
BTW I really appreciate the feedback.

 

[nayr]

just hide the NVR in your rack, if you want to get clever rip the guts out of the NVR and put it in an old game console or receiver.. thats what I did when I lived in the Ghetto and wanted to keep my computers safe, I had a HTPC hidden in an original Nintendo and when my house got broken into they stole my TV and most of my stero equipment.. but left the nintendo behind.

 

[tangent]

just hide the NVR in your rack, if you want to get clever rip the guts out of the NVR and put it in an old game console or receiver.. thats what I did when I lived in the Ghetto and wanted to keep my computers safe, I had a HTPC hidden in an original Nintendo and when my house got broken into they stole my TV and most of my stero equipment.. but left the nintendo behind.

Old computer cases work too and usually have provisions for locking. In college I had a C2D stashed inside a Gateway PII case that was beat to hell. Old computer cases were also a great place to stash liquor and other things in the dorms.

 

[nayr]

true story, a friend of a friend went to jail and his old lady started cleaning out the basement and giving away computers before she sent em all to scrap.. my buddy invited me over to rummage through the equipment before it was hauled away, there was this nice rack-mount dell server I took home to refurb and sell on craigslist.. When I got home the front pannel was locked so I grabbed a standard key and opened it, only to find several ounces of mushrooms sealed bags shoved into the empty disk slots.. Wished I had spent more time looking inside the gear, who knows what else he had stashed in the stuff I left behind.

had some fun that summer, thanks to that anonymous benefactor..

 

[JBoyle]

Let's just accept that I need to have a HDD external to my NVR (is that NAS?) and that will be the storage for all my video. Does anyone know if and how I can set up a Hikvision NVR to write direcctly to an external HDD?
Thanks!

 

[JBoyle]

Stuff recorder into a basement, attic space, whatever. Security companies may do things a consistent way, but when you have a DIY setup, unless you have a ton of bright red cables dangling from a ceiling, at a location that is obvious, then they likely won't know what to look for.

Offsite should mostly be for other purposes such as fire.

Burglars don't spend an hour in your home. They usually want to run in, get into the master bedroom and grab whatever cash/jewelry or weapons they can find, and take off. Obvious smaller things like ipads, phones, watches, etc may be snatched, but they're lower reward for the risk.

What exactly do you mean by 'recorder'? An external HDD?

 

[tangent]

Let's just accept that I need to have a HDD external to my NVR (is that NAS?) and that will be the storage for all my video. Does anyone know if and how I can set up a Hikvision NVR to write direcctly to an external HDD?
Thanks!

It's been a while since I used a Hikvision NVR, don't remember the options.
Some NVRs treat external storage as a backup you have to manually transfer stuff onto. If you can't do what you want, pick up a "super mini nvr" and stash that and an external hard drive somewhere.

 

[nbstl68]

I ran across this cloud \ broadcast \ time-lapse offering.
https://www.angelcam.com/pricing

Don't know anything about them, security of your video and what not, but they have an entry level package that says they let you cloud store 3 days worth of footage for unlimited number of cameras forever for free.
No data limit.

Been playing around with it for a simple Foscam right now and seems to work ok....was super simple to set up.

 

[nayr]

NVR's should be reliable, with a NAS now you have to keep the NAS up.. this is just backup incase someone does steal your NVR.. so you dont need ALL your video, you just need a copy of the last day or so..

but I digress, increase complexity and points of failure if you want.. fix one potential problem by creating a handfull of more potential problems and it'll never end.

 

[JBoyle]

Stuff recorder into a basement, attic space, whatever. Security companies may do things a consistent way, but when you have a DIY setup, unless you have a ton of bright red cables dangling from a ceiling, at a location that is obvious, then they likely won't know what to look for.

Offsite should mostly be for other purposes such as fire.

Burglars don't spend an hour in your home. They usually want to run in, get into the master bedroom and grab whatever cash/jewelry or weapons they can find, and take off. Obvious smaller things like ipads, phones, watches, etc may be snatched, but they're lower reward for the risk.

Hey Masejoer, What do you mean by recorder? I need to have the NVR accessible, as in with my TV. What exactly do I stuff in the basement? can I stuff a HDD there and make the NVR think its on-board?
Sorry if I'm being dense, but this is all new to me and I really appreciate all the input.
Thanks!