Hi,
Due to the rather sad and disturbing thread by Mr. Howard Zane called Reward where he had the unfortunate loss of a prized locomotive during a open house I would like to share my experience with my surveilance system. In the discussion from a number of forum members the one subject that came up over and over again was to install a camera. I hope that the following information will be of help to someone who contemplates such an installation.
Due to the questionable activities in my multi-unit dwelling it came to a point to install a camera system which also records at the same time. The first number of trips was to the big box stores which offered package deals. The cameras where too large to hide and it looked like your typical computer system with some cameras attached. Along with a large sticker price.
So the next set of trips was to a security specialty store. Great idea but huge prices for their systems. Some more research revealed that one can easily build it yourself. Here is how:
The first and most expensive item required is a computer which can accept some more circuit boards. Since most of us use a home computer to get on the internet to communicate on this great forum means that this expense has already been covered.
Next is a DVR (digital video recorder) board. A DVR board is something that will take the input from a single or number of cameras and store the information on your hard drive. There are many different manufacturers of DVR boards and systems. The one I settled on was the Avermedia NV3000 DVR board http://www.remote-security.com/NV3000.htm . I have two of these boards in my computer running together for a total of 8 inputs and they have now worked great for me for the last year 24/7. What they claim that these boards do in the advertisement they actually do perform.
For Cameras there is a large selection of cameras of all kinds an