Advice Needed Reccomendation required for CCTV IP camera

[Journey]

Seems to be more and more home cct / ip cameras around these days and it is something i would be interested in getting for added security to the front of my house

It is a mine field tbh, i want an external ip camera that is preferably 720p hd, it would be under the shelter of the doorway arch so wouldnt get wet, i would like one that feeds into the router so i can monitor/record on a web browser on laptop or smart phone

That is about all i need tbh, would perhaps consider a second camera for out the back if it was a twinpack or something but not essential

I dont have a very big budget, would deffo be under £100 (the lower the better) and to be complete with all the fittings, screws etc.. to be mounted

Any advice from those in the know is appreciated as always, thanks guys

 

[Journey]

just a quick addition..

After a google search i found this product under £60 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foscam-FI8904W-External-Wireless-Viewing/dp/B00426FEL8

It also uses wifi, so after the inital setup wouldnt require ethernet plugged in

Would love to hear from any other members who may have dabbled in this or have something different to suggest or reccomend

 

[Terryl]

It still needs an DC or AC power supply to run the camera, so why not run a CAT 5 cable?

WIFI cameras are OK if you don't have a bunch of other stuff running on the same WIFI setup, if you do then they can be tricky to receive correctly after a power failure.

You can go with a better specked camera if you go with one that is hard wired, I have done lots of CCTV setups, and the ones that are hard wired to a central HD DVR recorder with a LAN connection work the best.

If you know what your doing you can even watch the setup from work or when your out on vacation, but most of the LAN camera/recorder setups need to use Internet Explorer 7 or 8 to watch them remotely, FireFox or Chrome (or others) will not work, this due to the DVR dll files needed to view then from a web page, they are not compatible with other browsers then IE 7 or 8, even IE 9 has problems with some of the DVR recorders, this due to the incompatibility of the viewing software.

So if your going with a DVR or IP camera setup be sure is compatible with your current IE version.

Also remember that the cheaper the system is, the higher your disappointment will be with the quality of the picture at night.

 

[Journey]

Thanks Terry for the advice and info there, certainly gives me more to think about. The power wont be too tricky for me tbh as there is a power point not to far from the proposed install location

As for the hard wired ethernet connection that may be a little tougher, due to the location of the router, so looks like more thought needed on this

I appreciate your time and again thank you for the info

 

[Terryl]

One other thing is that someone can pop your WIFI security and watch you, I have had a customer say that their WIFI pan and tilt cameras move by them selves, on investigation and monitoring the local WIFI I found an intruder on the WIFI system, changing the WEP codes worked for a bit but not for long.

We replaced the WIFI cameras with hard wired ones (my first recommendation) and the problems went away.

Also the DVR systems need to use a password, I use 16 digit passwords on my systems, why? It takes someone with the right software on a laptop about 3 hours (or less) to break an 8 digit password, it would take them several thousand years to a billion years to break a 16 digit one.

You can check at the link below to see how long it would take to break a password like the one you use now.(don't use your real password but one close to it)
https://howsecureismypassword.net/

 

[Journey]

That is really great advice Terry, i really do appreciate the time and effort you have taken to post

I really need to have a hard look at the logistics of hard wiring it, thats my only problem

Plus, looks like i may have to spend a little more than i thought if i go down the PVR route also

 

[Terryl]

Remember this, the better the DVR (or PVR) and the bigger it's hard drive (or drives) the better the recordings will be.

Look for how fast the frame rate is on the recordings, (as it records one channel the info on the others is lost) the higher the better, some can also have a priority channel where there is no frame rate, so the recording on that channel will be seamless.