Re: Longest distance between camera and PC?

["(PeteCresswell)" <x@xxxxxxxxx>]

Per accidental plumber:
>You better start with your object or specifications.  Running something
>digital for a few hundred yards doesn't make much sense.  For audio you
>can run PCM and even lay fiber.  For digital the closest thing is DVI,
>which is miles apart, and has a range about 2 ft.
>
>Again to protect something, cameras are the last thing in the priority
>of things.  Can you afford staff to monitor the cams 24/7?  You hope to
>give the video to LE and hope that they catch the thief AFTER you
>building is broken into?  Only in public places like shops that they
>have no choice but use camera to deter robbery.  In private homes you
>have lot of choices to guard against break in.
>
>You stress quality, but it depends on what you want to achieve.
>Camcorder grade, DVD resolution at 720 (640) x 480 is the most you need
>for security.  That's sufficient for high quality internet porn too.
>
>The distance that you are monitoring affects the quality.  Normally
>cameras are best to protect inside corridors, entrances etc.  The

Thanks for the detailed and informative reply.   You just told me more than I
could ever hope to glean in a week's worth of Googling.

As far as requirements go, the primary requirement is to allow a total
dilettante (myself) play around with TV/motion detection implemented via a PC.
The secondary requirement has nothing to do with protection.  Vengeance is more
like it.

A friend has a small windsurfing retail shop on the beach on the edges of a
multi-story hotel's parking lot.   He's got three small buildings: two
side-by-side and one facing the two.   Next to the two side-by-side he has
rental racks where customers store windsurfers.

The vengeance part comes in if/when we can identify whoever has been stealing
windsurfers from the racks (bolt cutters... and so forth...).

These are felony thefts and given clear photos of the perps and a shot of the
vehicle - preferably with legible license# - I'd hope the police would regard
such a case as low-hanging fruit and go after it.



So far, the scenario doesn't seem all that unrealistic.

To wit:
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- The rack area is lighted and can be lighted even more, no problem.

- All three buildings have AC power and are weather tight: no problem
  having a PC in them.  In fact one building has had a weather sensor PC
  in it for some years now with no problems.

- The distance from the facing building to the rack area is less than 25 feet.

- Due the visibility and the size of the things being stolen, we'd be hoping
  that somebody would back their vehicle into the area closest to the racks.
This make sense in that they might feel more comfortable doing the deed mostly
  screened from view by the facing building - as opposed to carrying the boards
  across the hotel's parking lot at night.
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What I'm coming up with so far is:
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1) Multiple cameras.  One camera on the rack area.   Two or three
   others to cover possible parking areas and access/egress to/from the
   rack area.

   The main problem would seem tb selection of instruments that will give
   the needed definition.

   I've seen too many clips on the evening news from retail store security
   cameras that had a full frontal shot of somebody holding up the store,
   but in which the person is still totally unrecognizable.  I *think*
   I've even seen the same scenario from bank security cameras - which one
   would hope are at some professional level of quality.

2) A husky-enough PC/interface card to support the concurrent frame rates.
   I'm thinking full motion (30 fps?) if only because it would make a better
   impression on whoever the local police send to investigate.

3) Hard wiring.   No problem going from building-to-building if needed.

4) A timer, of course... It would be futile to have this thing running during
   business hours.  I'm assuming that this is a standard option in virtually
   all camera control software.

5) Motion sensing and a couple of 500-gig hard drives.   Overkill, for sure,
   but the reality is that this thing will probably be forgotten about for
   months and months on end, only to be reviewed if/when another theft is
   committed - and I suspect that we will get our share of seagulls walking
   by, small animals sniffing around, and customers dropping by when the
   shop is closed.
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PeteCresswell