Mostly a newb

[LittleBrother]

After some neighborhood car break-ins several years ago I decided to set up a camera. I first bought a Foscam, as many do, and returned it within a few days, unhappy with its software and horrendous image quality. Bought a half decent 2 MP POE-enabled camera, set it up, and had it going for a year. The most I caught of nefarious activity during this time was one of my kids' friends ignoring my pleas to not knock down some Christmas decorations.

Tiring of the hassle with this setup I "graduated" to two Dropcams which, while incredibly easy to use--and I still wholeheartedly recommend them to people--do cost money per month and, even with the Dropcam Pro, lack the clarity and night time vision I would prefer, so I'm thinking of getting back to higher quality (albeit higher maintenance) equipment.

In a more general sense I have an interest in surveillance (hence my username), both private and public (government). In addition to home security I also run a dash cam in my car via a smart phone app, and will be installing a dedicated one in another vehicle in the near future.

I think we live in an amazing time because for the first time ever (within the past few years) it's possible on a low budget to have high quality recordings of the things that are of interest to us.

 

[bp2008]

We all start out as newbs

High quality cameras are a lot of fun! To me it is almost like a super power, being able to see a place without actually being there.

I started with a cheap 4 camera analog system + DVR little better than foscams, but it let me see around outside my house even when I wasn't home and that was amazing.

Later I added some 1MP AirCams with no night vision, some "IPS" 2MP PoE cameras from China with blurry night vision, then 5MP PoE cameras from China with good overall vision but extremely glitchy video. I was never truly happy with any of these cams until the Hikvision 2032 came along. Image quality of these isn't quite at the level of the older 5 MP cameras but the feature set, ease of use, and the stability are so far beyond anything else I've tried that it isn't even a contest. Not even Dahua, my second favorite camera company, has matched Hikvision for reasons I won't go into right now.

 

[LittleBrother]

High quality cameras are a lot of fun! To me it is almost like a super power, being able to see a place without actually being there.

Agreed. For whatever reason I haven't been able to convince many people to get cameras. I did convince one guy to buy two dropcams to monitor a house out of state, and another guy at work got a neighbor to on my behalf, but most people just look at my demos and shrug their shoulders, despite spending $30-40 month for a conventional security system, which only works when your house is invaded, and even then still lacks video. I now feel I need to be able to monitor outside of my house and feel naked without it!

 

[bp2008]

LOL.

I'm sure it doesn't help that popular media makes it look like all the governments of the world have direct access to every security camera in their respective countries, and they can all identify your face and read your license plate from hundreds of feet away and around corners through the reflection in the neighbor's window.

I think a lot of people have a strange aversion to security cameras. Like owning a security camera makes them look paranoid. And some obviously think they are an invasion of privacy: http://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php?621-Neighbor-doesn-t-like-my-camera

I've never actually met any of those people though. In fact some end up getting a camera of their own after seeing what mine or my dad's can do.

 

[LittleBrother]

LOL.

I'm sure it doesn't help that popular media makes it look like all the governments of the world have direct access to every security camera in their respective countries, and they can all identify your face and read your license plate from hundreds of feet away and around corners through the reflection in the neighbor's window.

I think a lot of people have a strange aversion to security cameras. Like owning a security camera makes them look paranoid. And some obviously think they are an invasion of privacy: http://www.ipcamtalk.com/showthread.php?621-Neighbor-doesn-t-like-my-camera

I've never actually met any of those people though. In fact some end up getting a camera of their own after seeing what mine or my dad's can do.

Having cameras myself is my little way of fighting back I am actually extremely opposed to the invasiveness that the US gov is clearly applying (e.g. Snowden leaks' education) to us. On the other hand, I'm a drop-dead, unapologetic supporter of more surveillance in some cases, most notably I won't be happy until 100% of police have vest cams. I guess I'm pretty okay if not supportive of more public surveillance, but think that the delineation to private information must be firmer than it is.