Re: CCTV at night

["accidental plumber" <aplayerinla@xxxxxxxxx>]

Cameras have their uses but not high in the priority of things.  Look
at the two example links.  In the 1st one, the camera really did
nothing.  The house owner got a call from the auto dialer.  Obviously
the security system detected the intruders, not the cameras.  He call
the police when he saw the thieves on camera.  12 cameras?  You can
have a very reliable system for much cheaper, and can pay for a
monitoring service here in US.  Relying on yourself to receive the
phone and call the police isn't that reliable.

The 2nd example is bad if you have any valuable to protect.  The 1st
priority is to deter, detect and scare intruders away before they can
do anything.  A fairly simple alarm system will do.  As some say, you
need a decent camera and recorder to catch real thieves - not those
tiny CMOS camera, even worse for night vision camera.  You have to
understand in that part of the world, they are stealing a 21 inch
curved screen TV, and perhaps a toaster.  In that case, a tiny camera
may work, but it just serve to capture the face of a local thief well
known to the local police.

My opinion is that camera is really deterrent for business who have to
let everybody into their premises.  And for perimeter security to deter
potential thieves and vandalism.  It's difficult to avoid false alarm
outdoors.

To protect the windows, simple magnetic detector will do.  And if you
are serious, vibration glass detectors or better, acoustic detectors
turned to the breaking sound of glass.  Then PIR indoor is almost fail
safe, unless you have a pet roaming around in the same room.  If an
alarm doesn't scare the thieves away, they can always smash your camera
and your recorder, unless you have some sort of internet camera with
remote file server to store the images.

Most security can be battery operated, but cameras are two high powered
for batteries.  In California they can just turn off the main switch at
the front of my house.