Home Security Cameras

So you want to watch your home, pets, kids, the nanny, the postman from your phone?  Here's what you need to do!


The choices are either to use a 1) "webcam", or use a 2) CCTV system.  The better choice is the CCTV system, if you own a drill and/or can run a wire between rooms.  If your DIY skills consist of piling up books and taping things together, then likely you'll be using with the webcam solution.

1) The "webcam" NEST thing.

Pros -

"Wireless" "view on your phone"

It sounds easy to install

No need to run a video cable

Cons-

Very high cost per camera ($100 and up) and you'll end up buying at least 2-3 and still not be able to see much.

It's not really easy to install, because you still need to run a wire (for power).  So you are either tied to installing the webcam only near outlets, or streching extenstion cords in awkward and dangerous ways.

Recording is tricky, either you need to record in low res or your SD card fills up in a few hours.  Otherwise you can record the stream on computer, for which you will need to buy at least another 1TB drive to have enough space to record on to, and you need keep the computer running always.

Wireless video quality is terrible, it's choppy, slow and or too low res to see anything, because your wifi router is either too far from the webcam or can't handle the streaming video bandwidth, because you also are using your wifi router to do other things, like stream Netflix and buy webcams on Amazon.  So you need to buy another wifi router and place it closer to the webcam, and run a network/power cables to support your "wireless" webcam.  And don't forget to buy another extenstion cord!

2) CCTV/DVR system

Amcrest 960H DVR

Pros -

Great video quality, like looking out a window, since you are on a Closed Circuit Televison system

View on your phone, or computer, or TV.

No need for a computer, or SD cards, storage is built into the DVR.

Low cost per camera ($20 for 1000TVL)

Can have 8-16 cameras attached.

Cons

Need to buy a headend/DVR ($99) and drive ($60 1TB)

Need to run video cables (which power the cameras too)

Types of CCTV systems

CCTV/DVRs today can be split simply into two catagories without getting into too much detail, one is "960H" which are the 1000 lines of resolution models, and two the "1080p" 2000 lines of resolution models.  Sure the 1080p models looks fantastic, but we're not watching hours of great enterainment on these DVRs, just the mailman on the porch everyday, and maybe an inturder breaking in once in a while, so I think  960H is good enough picture quality, and the DVR/cameras for the 1080p units cost around 4 times as much as 960H systems do.  So if you spend hours every day watching what your cat is doing on your phone, then maybe you should spend $1000 on a 1080p DVR/8 camera setup for the cutest pics.

I upgraded from my older Swann DRV to the Amcrest 960H 8CH ($170 including the 1TB drive).  There are many, many makes and models of security DRVs out there. I saw from the number of reviews Amcrest is shipping a lot of units, so it should have good community support for problem solving and there's lots of how-to videos from Amcrest on YouTube.

Swann SW245-SBD DVR4-Pro-Net 

Buy a good data plan!

One thing you'll find out about real fast is streaming cameras to your phone will burn up all the data on your phone's wireless plan in no time.  That's another reason why 1080p systems are not worth it, they use up 4x the data rate if you actually want to view in HiDef.

What you may want to do is have two configurations on your phone app for each camera.  One with the internal IP address of the camera (your LAN address) and two, with the external IP address (or DynDNS name) of your internet router.  Google "port forwarding" and the brand of your internet router to set up access to your cameras from the internet.

Some different "960H" cameras reviewed:

Jennov Metal Dome 

These are all about 1000 lines of resolution cameras, most having the 1/3" CMOS CCD chip, so in picture quality they are all very close and what I'm really looking for is viewing angle, how wide a image can each camera capture?  Four of the cameras I tested all claim to have a 3.6mm lens, yet I found with the same spec CCD and same size lens they have very different fields of view.



Operation
The Amcrest is pretty easy to use with a good menu system on the console and a good web app.  Except for one problem.

The three cameras below are very similar.

The EWETON and the ZOSI are very close, with maybe the ZOSI being a couple
of degrees wider field, and the HIS being a few degrees wider than the ZOSI.
Qualitywise, they are very close.  I might pick the HIS for best picture.
However the HIS enclosure and mount are very flimsy.  The ZOSI and the
EWETON are very soild and would be much more vandel proof.

EWETON 1/3" CMOS 1200TVL 3.6mm lens

 HIS VISION 1/3" CMOS 1200TVL 3.6mm lens 90 Degree?

ZOSI 1/3" CMOS 1000TVL 960H 3.6mm lens

The Jennov 1200Tvl  Dome camera has the widest field of view by far, maybe 90 degrees.  None of the product listing on Amazon accurantly state what the field of view is for any of these cameras.

Jennov HD Color 1200Tvl  3.6mm 72°view 1/3"CMOS

The ANRAN 1200TVL is different, this one claims a 1/2.5 CMOS Sensor and the lens is 4mm.  It has 1 IR LED where the all the other cameras have 30+ IR LEDs.  But for sure the ANRAN is plent bright, possibly the brightist of the lot.  However I'm not too interested in IR power, as I colo my cameras with motion senser spotlight.  So when anyone steps in the field of view the lights come on and I get a great picture of their face as they turn to look at the light.  Having motion senser spotlights is also a great deterence to would be thievies and vandels.

ANRAN 1200TVL 75ft Sensor:1/2.5" 4mm Fixed lens

Of all the cameras, I would say the ANRAN 1200TVL has the best picture, but the narrowest and most close up field of view, which is great for getting lots of picture detail.  It also has a tiny joystick on the cable that lets you set options and it's the only one that comes with the power supply.

Jennov 1200Tvl 3.6mm Bullet Cam



Logisaf 1200TVL 6mm

Another pic from the EWETON  1200TVL 3.6mm

Three older 420 lines cameras from Swann:

Swann Super NightOwl  53 viewing angle 1/4-inch CCD 420 lines

Swann Bulletcam, 420 lines

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Swann Alpha C9 SWA31-C9 Wide Angle

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Latest $14 1200TVL camera

Swann Alpha C9 at night

Formula 1 - Verstappen closes gap and overtakes Raikkonen under yellow flag

Storing comics and magazines

First, what type bag to use?

Top half is Mylar, bottom half is Poly

The "cheap bags" types are polyethylene or polypropylene.
The expensive type are Mylar.

The poly bags are somewhat opaque to begin with, over time they degrade, turn yellow and may harm your comics.  The Mylars bags are "archival safe", they are clear as glass and don't degrade over time.

So why doesn't everyone use Mylars?  Cost! Poly bags cost $9 per 100, standard 2 mil Mylars are around $35 for 100.  So we're talking 9 cents a comic in polys vs 35 cents a comic in Mylar.  But - there's a way to get Mylars for less than poly bags. Here's how.

Start with ordering the thinnest Mylars, know as Mylites+.  They're super strong, so no worries around the thinness.  These cost $27 per 100. Next, double bag, put 2 comics in 1 bag with the covers facing out.

This has method has many advantages:

Only at the very right middle can the glare be
seen from the Mylar bag, otherwise it's invisible

1) cuts your costs in half, now we're talking only 13.5 cents a comic in Mylars.

2) Makes the package more rigid.  I don't find I need backing boards now, so more cost savings!

3) Damage proof!  Mylars are suppose to be super strong, such that mice, bugs, etc can't chew threw them.

4) Looks better.  The Mylars are so clear they're invisible.

5) Saves a lot of space.  Just compare a stack of 50 Mylites+ bags to 100 polys bags, you'll find you now have 2-4 inches more space in each storage box after you double bag. If you remove backing boards too, you'll end up with a foot of extra space, and you'll save money on not having to buy as many storage boxes.

So that is how you end up with an actual cost savings by double bagging in Mylar vs single bagging with polys.  Considering boards are $27 per hundred and boxes $17 each, your cost per comic bagged and stored is now much cheaper. Of course if you want to keep using backing boards, now you'll only need 50 instead of 100.  You may need to use larger Mylar bags for older comics.

Oh, and best part?  Once you're in Mylar you're good for a long, long time, maybe forever, check back in a few decades.  In poly bags, experts say you need to rebag every 2-3 years due to the way polys degrade, so you'll be rebuying those poly bags again and again.


What happens to comics after 20 years in Poly bags?

Just below Storm's face starts
an oily mark

Recently I pulled out several hundred comics which had been 15-20 years in poly bags.  All were yellowed, "oily looking" and wavy.  Most were bricked, adhered to each other, so you could not pull a single comic out, you had to pull a brick of a dozen or more out and pull them apart.  Some runs of bags were in better condition than others, I assume this means some brands of polys were better than others. The comics themselves seems ok, but I think I pulled them out just in time.  Except for the 3 ring binder bags.  These were the most expense ones, they had holographic logos on each, I guess to show how "high quality" they were.  I had comics in these for less than 7 years, they were severely wavy  patterned and the wavy pattern was impressed on the covers of the comics.  I think in time all my comics would have been ruined by the poly bags.  The dozen or so I had in Mylars look like they were bagged yesterday.

In one comic particularly something was going terribly wrong with the back cover.  It looks like oil leeched into from the bag?  (right pic)

The "wavy pattern" that poly bags acquire after a while, the one on the right is only 1 year old. 

Left is the view through 5 Mylites, right is through 5 Polys.

Do you need backing boards?

Backing boards prevent the spines from creasing.  So if you're bagging for long term storage in boxes, you don't need boards.  If the comics are going to be handled, like for sale, then use boards.
Personally I'm very careful in handling my comics so I never use boards, unless it's a very expensive comic.