I saw this on harbor frieght, any good? I wanna put something in my dads house he passed so i want something to moniter the house while im away, but dont wanna go crazy expensive either.

 

http://www.harborfreight.com/surveillance-dvr-with-4-cameras-and-mobile-monitoring-capabilities-68332.html

walmart has a better one for $199 I think it was Swann brand.

try here... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=4442

Wow that's alot of systems, is swan good? What feature should I be looking for? I'm looking for one that is motion activated recording.

Swann is motion activated and has night vision etc... It's $150 less at walmart then radio shack.I was looking at them at my walmart a week ago I been shopping for a setup for a while. I wanted a wireless plug and play set up so  I bought a uniden wireless setup w/ a moniter but returning it tomorrow since I dont like the small sdcard setups I'd rather have a dvr setup so I don't have to keep deleting files to make room. I will probably get then swann setup my budget is around $200.

 

If your not on a budget you can read thru the other threads about them lately.

I am just refering to your original Harbor Freight question with a good affrodable alternative.

Swann systems aren't too bad.

 

I would also suggest going to Costco and wait for their Q-See systems to go on sale. Here is one for $250, free shipping and it's not on sale. They have their $500-$600 systems on sale for $299 sometimes. But this link below for $250 is a good deal as well.

 

Q-See's customer support has been great for years and their iPhone and Android apps are great!

 

http://www.costco.com/Q-See-4-Channel-Full-D1-Real-Time-DVR-Security-System-with-500GB-and-4-High-Resolution-Cameras.product.100036400.html

 

The main things to look for are camera TV lines, DVR recording rate, night vision ability (60ft or 120ft, etc), and obviously the size of the hard drive.

"TV LINES", which is the resolution. 480 is like standard definition TV. 600 is definitely a step up and 720 is when you hit HD.

Recording rate: I would suggest D1 or higher which is minimum of 480 lines real time recording to each channel.

Hard drive you want at least 500 GB. Most of the time you will have motion sensor recording. You can also set time when you would want a curtain channel to record from say 10pm-6am for burglary or something.

 

You can also setup an "alarm" speaker to the system if someone motion sensors at a curtain time, like if a door was breached or a window, etc...

I'd also add that while the appeal of wireless is great in that you don't have to make holes or snake wires, in practice it just doesn't work nearly as well. I was network engineer for some time and every wireless network we installed, always had some sort of issue later on.  This was true of both $50 Linksys routers and $10k Cisco setups. There are going to be dead zones, random drop offs, errors in transmission, etc.  For something as critical as a surveillance system, I'd go wired 110% of the time.

 

My advice is worth exactly what you paid for it...

+1 to all what Nickjc mentioned.

 

I bought several inexpensive Z-Modo systems from cctvhotdeals.com. I actually found cheap CCTV cameras to be the worst part of the setup, but let's face it - can you really expect any decent video quality from ~$20 unit in outdoor casing, with IR illumination (absolutely crappy - makes things even less visible in most instances) and 50ft cable already included? :-)

 

Nonetheless they somehow do what they are intended for. A mere presence of the camera can deter some bad guys. In one of the locations I combined a camera with motion activated light - IMO this works even better.

i hear FOSCAM is good  there is a thread on this somewhere

i hear FOSCAM is good  there is a thread on this somewhere

They are ok but need constant attention i have two i purchased a while back that are wireless, they keep losing there connection they would be ok hard wired..

 

other than that they work pretty good i can video boats going down the lagoon  and the dogs in the backyard so the motion part works good.

 

I purchased the iris software..

Your post is a fail on so many levels...

 

The OP is asking for a "affordable" system so he can monitor a remote house. Instead of criticizing another persons post, why don't you actually TRY to help out the guy asking a question here. Ridiculous.

 

He's not asking for pan tilt zoom and variable focus lenses with a perfect motion sensing algorithm. He's not monitoring a business in downtown Camden...

 

Get your panties whad outta your a$$ and relax a little bit. Or go back to the beer and popcorn you originally started with.

 

 

I am sorry but this is a fail on so many levels....

 

1)  120FT night vision IR illumination with THOSE cameras and emitters is NOT going to work

 

2)  Motion sense for video record is NOT going to work outside using the analytics in THAT machine

 

3)  It is a FIXED 5.0mm lens...not varifocal etc.

 

4)  HD only applies when you get to the megapixel range........

 

Time and again i have said..............  when BUYING cctv surveillance you do GET what you PAY for..........

 

A proper exterior surveillance system that is useable, is going to cost you much more than 500$ etc...

 

A good analogy.....if you were going to try to shoot a 25yr handgun small bore competition would you try to do it with a 5 shot saturday night special?

I definitely am funny, thank you.

 

You are all lord cctv master and I bow to you.

 

I do not suggest any wireless systems. For someone looking for an affordable system, my info was spot on. Like I said, he will do fine to "remotely monitor" his father's home.

Some of the q-see systems at Costco have the ability to add triggering devices to a couple of the feeds.

 

From a budget minded perspective, a cheapish base is kind of consumable. The bundled cameras are not awesome, and most promise 40ft of night vision and deliver less. A reasonably capable base station can be had for a reasonable price if you shop around and catch a sale. Judicious purchase of quality cameras where needed can help control cost. Running a dedicated 12v power supply and routing cables well makes it possible to keep a frankenstein system going.

 

You get what you pay for is mostly true, but none of these guys design the guts. Most don't even design the software. Add to that a lot of middlemen, and there's money to be saved.

 

I wouldn't save that money at harbor freight.

 

Costco does steeply discount certain models if more established names from time to time. The wired cameras are very standardized and mostly bundle up commodity components. There's a lot of price shopping to be done there.

From what I read tvl should be at least 600 and up to see bad guys face, That Costco system has 600 tvl, should be good enough, right?

I know two individuals who run the FOSCAM systems with no issues, they love them. Paid under $300 for the whole setup. This is by no means a representative sample but for what it's worth...

There is a setting in Blueiris that will reboot the camera if it fails to connect... Not sure how it works because I never lose connections that often.

 

They are ok but need constant attention i have two i purchased a while back that are wireless, they keep losing there connection they would be ok hard wired..

 

other than that they work pretty good i can video boats going down the lagoon  and the dogs in the backyard so the motion part works good.

 

I purchased the iris software..

I know there are haters of cheap wireless systems. I also know there is a massive thread about them that a lof of us partaken in so I won't add any more to this thread other than do what you can, get what you pay for and so on. Nick is not wrong and neither are most of us here because it boils down to what you can afford at the moment and my line of thinking is something is better than nothing. I also have over 23 years in the business, now retired. So I'm not quite up on ALL the new techno-stuff. So take what you want from these threads and let it go. Do some reading in the others as well. There is nothing more aggravating to me to see a brand new thread start over with the almost a mirror of the same exact posts IMHO of course.. :}

 

Here is a shot with a Foscam in a small office I made. It's a morning shot today with sun shining in. The colors are correct and it's clear.

Which model foscam was that? Very clear! I plan on getting something affordable for now, and then upgrade when things become more affordable. I found another deal here, what do guys think? http://tech.woot.com/offers/zmodo-8ch-8cam-security-system-w-1tb-hd?utm_campaign=Amazon+Daily+-+20130913+-+Tech.Woot+-+zmodo-8ch-8cam-security-system-w-1tb-hd&utm_source=Amazon&utm_medium=email

Not taking a side on the cheap vs. reliable debate, however I do wish to state one fact:

 

Remember this home invasion/assault in Millburn?:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvvHMM6TF50

 

The camera that captured the video was a FOSCAM FI8910W

Woot.com has cheap systems from time to time. All you need to add is a hard drive and you're good to go.