Note: Barring this one lucky incident, my current cameras are not very helpful (beyond 20 feet) in the day, and worse at night.
A few years back I bought my off-the-shelf security camera system, nothing special, and maybe six weeks later the police informed me there had been a break-in next door. Someone had busted through a neighbor's window, encountered a resident inside, and thankfully just fled without harming anyone.
I reviewed my video, and what I saw made my blood run cold. A man had aggressively approached our back door while my wife and I were both inside. He stopped suddenly, glared at the camera, and left. The deterrent effect had spared my wife and myself from a home invasion experience, whatever that might have been.
It puzzles me that the cameras were enough to deter him from our home, but not enough to prevent him from breaking into another house 60 seconds later knowing there was now video evidence.
He was close, and the bright morning provided clear face shots. When the detective saw the video he recognized him. It was one of those great moments where the dice roll your way. Even that hard ass detective almost smiled. He had this guy dead to rights.
He eventually got thrown back in prison for the better part of a decade thanks to good luck and bad criminal judgement.
Since then the local criminals have been more typical. They prowl at night, trying car doors, stealing anything they can. The reports I see on the Nextdoor app show that they usually don't get much, but on occasion they score something like a trailer with tools they can drove off with.
Then there are the creepy reports such as a female home alone who heard her doorbell ringing aggressively sometime after midnight. She had a doorbell camera, and observed an unknown male standing at her front door. This stranger patiently waited, with God knows what intent. She called the police but the man was gone when they arrived. He got close enough to the doorbell camera to provide a decent image, but the police didn't recognize him, and he hadn't committed a crime so nothing more came of it. It might have been a mistaken address, who knows? But a good video system could have provided much more information, such as a license plate and multiple high-definition face images.
Then there was a recent nighttime prowler on my property who brought home how worthless my cheap cameras are.
It also got me thinking about the fact that a nuisance criminal is one impulsive thought away from becoming a home invader, and a home invader is one impulse away from…?
My new video system (currently in the planning stage) is going to improve my day and night capabilities exponentially, and will be able to provide clear face pics, maybe license plates, day or night.
I intend to post before/after pictures to show the differences in picture quality between my current budget cameras and the quality cameras I will be buying.
This forum is helping me zero in on exactly what I need. I hope my experiences will allow me to provide useful information to others in the future.
A few years back I bought my off-the-shelf security camera system, nothing special, and maybe six weeks later the police informed me there had been a break-in next door. Someone had busted through a neighbor's window, encountered a resident inside, and thankfully just fled without harming anyone.
I reviewed my video, and what I saw made my blood run cold. A man had aggressively approached our back door while my wife and I were both inside. He stopped suddenly, glared at the camera, and left. The deterrent effect had spared my wife and myself from a home invasion experience, whatever that might have been.
It puzzles me that the cameras were enough to deter him from our home, but not enough to prevent him from breaking into another house 60 seconds later knowing there was now video evidence.
He was close, and the bright morning provided clear face shots. When the detective saw the video he recognized him. It was one of those great moments where the dice roll your way. Even that hard ass detective almost smiled. He had this guy dead to rights.
He eventually got thrown back in prison for the better part of a decade thanks to good luck and bad criminal judgement.
Since then the local criminals have been more typical. They prowl at night, trying car doors, stealing anything they can. The reports I see on the Nextdoor app show that they usually don't get much, but on occasion they score something like a trailer with tools they can drove off with.
Then there are the creepy reports such as a female home alone who heard her doorbell ringing aggressively sometime after midnight. She had a doorbell camera, and observed an unknown male standing at her front door. This stranger patiently waited, with God knows what intent. She called the police but the man was gone when they arrived. He got close enough to the doorbell camera to provide a decent image, but the police didn't recognize him, and he hadn't committed a crime so nothing more came of it. It might have been a mistaken address, who knows? But a good video system could have provided much more information, such as a license plate and multiple high-definition face images.
Then there was a recent nighttime prowler on my property who brought home how worthless my cheap cameras are.
It also got me thinking about the fact that a nuisance criminal is one impulsive thought away from becoming a home invader, and a home invader is one impulse away from…?
My new video system (currently in the planning stage) is going to improve my day and night capabilities exponentially, and will be able to provide clear face pics, maybe license plates, day or night.
I intend to post before/after pictures to show the differences in picture quality between my current budget cameras and the quality cameras I will be buying.
This forum is helping me zero in on exactly what I need. I hope my experiences will allow me to provide useful information to others in the future.