With a couple of 914's going missing in the last while I'm thinking about putting a video camera outside. One in the front of the house and another in the back. Any one have experence with these? Both would cover a distance of about 50' I'd want to record and watch on a TV to see what was going on.

Ya right you just want a perv-cam.

look-up pinhole cameras

maybe I'm lazy but a computer system is way easier to do.

Ok, tell how?

You'll need infrared cameras that work. We have three infrared cameras on our house that don't work. The surveilance outfit is having a hard time getting them to work in both daylight and night. We have installed extra infrared emitters to help, yada, yada. The problem with recording is the length of loop you use to go back and check. I would think a large hard drive would be the best solution. You need all the software and someone to clean out the bugs in the system. It's more hassle than you can imagine.

I use these at my office...

http://www.trendnet.com/en/products/TV-IP300.htm

You can program motion sensor activity on it to start recording if it senses a certain percentage of motion or it can also e-mail you.

I use a secondary program for more advanced monitoring, but the web-based monitoring that comes with the camera isn't too bad.

I have built two computers for DVR.....if it's windows based, it's shit and will crash on ya. There may be better software and cards out there.

For the company, we finally bought a DVR system with the operating system imbeded on the chip....not further problems, but the unit (16 camera) was about $3K.

The cameras are crap unless you spend multibucks on day/nite.

For night vision, we use a motion sensor to trigger lights otherwise you don't see crap at night. We don't buy expensive cameras. Oh, our cameras are motion sensing so you don't record all the time.

The video we take, we burn to double layer DVD for archive.

250 gig harddrive will go about 30 days with 4 cameras on motion sensing and activation time of 6 AM to 6 PM.

What about a analog system like this one:

http://www.surveillance-video.com/co2bwaninsec.html

People actually steal 914's in Manitoba? I could see why they would want your pick-up or snowmobile, but a teener in Winnipeg? Everybody knows that 914's are useless and prone to rust outside the borders of California.

Seriously, I can see why you would want a surveillance system. Crooks and punk-assed kids have stooped to new lows in their disrespect and disregard to other people's personal property. It's worth protecting what you've worked hard to aquire. I'm sorry I don't have a recommendation of a system for you, but maybe you could check and see what your local 7-11 is using - their systems seem to work good.

I want one for two reasons. I have had stuff disapear (house broken in to, motor home twice). After those occasions I did a security update of long dead bolts with renforced door plates, alarm system, 6' solid fence around the back with smooth edge on the top plates (Smoothedge is the strips of wood that are used to hold carpet down, 1000's of tiny sharp nails). If they try to climb the fence they leave lots of DNA.

The main reson is the puke that moved in across the street last fall. The V8 car was parked out front and the Porsche logo valve caps went missing. I come home from work and go WTF. My neibour says the kids (9-10yr olds) from across the street where hanging around it today. So I go knock on the pukes door. His kid answers and I tell him I want to talk to his dad. The dad comes to the door and I tell him why I'm there. The kid says I didn't do it but Dustin (his buddy) did. He has them on his bike. The dad/puke says he will get them back. Well it's now 8 months later and still no caps. Tonight I go to let the dog out and his kid and another kid are throwing rocks at each other. I open the door just in time to see the kid throw a rock and hear it clang off my big red truck. The kids also seem to think it a good idea to open the gate to let the dog out of the front yard. The fact that cars pull up, people go inside there for 10-15 min and come back out makes me believe he's dealing. The fact that I saw a meth whore I picked up while at work go in there really makes me wonder wtf.

The front camera will be pointed to watch the cars on the street in front of my house, if it happens to catch his front door too bad for him.

GWN7 ....if you can "tinker" with electronics a little, want to save a few bucks, and build one yourself, check out jesseshunting dot com. They have a forum for building game cameras ....film, digital, and video. I have built a few digital ones and really want to build a video setup. I set mine up around the house during the summer, and at the hunting lease during the fall. Really easy to build and not really that expensive.

Check out the security system they sell at costco, it comes with IR cameras with nightvision that activates automatically when it's dark. It also has a monitor + DVR box that records on a hardrive (which can be pulled out like hot swap drives) and can be watched over the web. All you need is an internet connection connected to the DVR/monitor box, and yes it can be a dynamic address.

We installed this set at my cousin's business and it works great. Allows you to playback recording also over the net. The one he got is ~900 and comes with 4 IR cameras (color in daytime) and recorder/monitor. There are other configurations also....

Our driveway is lit at night and I use a simple webcam and this software Digi-Watcher to moniter activities. It turns any webcam into a motion sensitive camera and writes to your harddrive. It's a simple and cheap solution.