Re: residential outside TV camera - suggestions?

["Frank Olson" <feolson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"Scott Berg" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:s2A3e.14158$ZB6.6148@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I want to install one (maybe more) TV cameras to watch the outside of my
>house or the street in front of my house.  There has been a series of
>vandalism incidents at my house and some neighbors.   The requirement is to
>get a clear picture of an incident, probably at night, with a timestamp and
>enough detail (resolution) to be able to identify suspects.  Everything
>I've seen so far has given a grainy image that tells you it was a light
>colored car with two people, possibly male.
>
> Is there anything out there with better performance?  I have some
> flexibility with cost and installation difficulty.


Scott, you really need to think this through.  How wide an area do you
expect single camera will cover and still provide "enough detail to be able
to identify subjects"?  The narrower your field of view the more likely
you'll be able to pick out the details you need, but for that to happen
you'd have to pretty well have a multiple camera installation (similar to
what they have in banks).  The alternative is to have a camera that "pans"
the area you want covered which will mean you may not catch the perps "in
the act" while the camera's looking the other way.  If your concern centers
around a particular area (like around your car which is parked in one spot
on your driveway for instance), you're still going to need at least two
cameras to cover both sides of the car.  It's not good enough for most
courts to simple see a perp enter and leave an area.  You have to be able to
"catch them in the act" of committing vandalism and have a clear enough
image to identify just who's doing it.