What motivated you to get started

[saltwater]

I read a thread in relation to issues with the exported image recorded in low resolution when it should be in high resolution, or the best possible resolution. In one of the comments was this:

When the detective handling the theft complimented me on the quality of the video, I explained I wanted to put together a system that I wished people had when I was a detective.

How true that comment is.

I've also retrieved CCTV snippets from victims of crime or neighbouring houses and the quality and presentation of the footage is generally sub-optimal.

Number one problem is that the date and time was never correct. Hell, it wasn't even out by an exact 60 mins to account for daylight savings.

There are other issues generally in relation to not knowing how to use their system. I have on many occasions politely asked, "Would you like me to have a go?" and then all I did was follow the bouncing ball to export a file.

I've even seen exported video clips where people have taken a video on their phone of a recorded clip on their monitor and submitted the phone video recording.

The above is what motivated me to install a proper system, understand how it works and maintain it accordingly. So during our house build three years ago, I wired to nearly every conceivable point and now 13 camera locations later, with five spare CCTV points, I know if I'm asked for footage, it'll be the best that my system can offer.

 

[bigredfish]

For me it was having our home burglarized while we were at work in 2012. By 2014 I had 8 cameras around the house.

 

[JNDATHP]

For me, it was about our safety because of my former occupation.

 

[Parley]

Back when I was into hot rodding, I bought a 1965 Buick Skylark. It was a little too long to fit into my garage, so I had to park it outside. Insurance would only cover it if it was garaged. So, I hired someone to help me install around 6 security cameras to cover the cars outside. From that my cameras multiplied up to the 20 that I now have. Also, the quality of my cameras has greatly improved since then. This was like 10 years ago when I first started.

 

[Mike A.]

Think originally it was just because I thought cams were kind of cool and useful to have around. The first that I had at home probably was an old X10 thing that sent signal to another receiver box that you'd connect to a TV or VCR. Something like this:

Was pitiful. lol Had some other odd balls along the way and a cheap old analog system that I don't even recall the name of. All terrible.

Later had experience doing networking/wiring and wanted to be able to watch the house since I was traveling a lot for work so started with IP cams. Made the usual mistake of buying a boxed GW Security system. Sucked. Looking for something better found Amcrest/Dahua/Hikvision/Axis/Bosch etc. Found BI. Trying to figure out Bi led me here. Still trying to figure out BI.

 

[dudemaar]

For me it was an experiment with real ip cams in my very first house vs analog cctv 30 yrs ago as a apprentice.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

There are other issues generally in relation to not knowing how to use their system. I have on many occasions politely asked, "Would you like me to have a go?" and then all I do is follow the bouncing ball and export a file.

It was really surprising the number of people who had a system but had no idea how to retrieve any video from it.

 

[Flintstone61]

I took a job as a maintainence man at a 74 unit condo......from time to time they had " incidents". Mail theft, door checks( cars and the Building, and an in house nasty gram writer who left shitty comments on the bulletion board posts,,,,etc...
The system they had was antiquated for 2017.....mostly B&W mini bullets...and some 960's- 480's etc....I had been on the job only a few weeks when somebody ripped open the Outgoing mail box on a 3 day Labor day wknd.
I didn't know how to extract the footage from the system....so I took iphone video of the guy....and I was visited by a Lakeville Detective, who had bank footage of 2 suspects trying to cash or transact in some manor the same check at different banks....of our residents stolen check(s).
The best I could give him was this grainy Iphone capture off the screen......later I found out how,,,but it still was crappy video....
Later I put cameras in the Bulletin board areas ( the 3 Laundry rooms) and had 3 elevator landing cams as well,,,,as soon as they went active,,,,we never had another " nasty-Gram" on the bulletin board.....

 

[Flintstone61]

So then I ended up with a legacy coax infrastructure,,,,So i went with some 2Mp amcrest 2.8mm turrets, and shit canned the " eyemax" proprietary PC that was all locked down and funky....with a Nightowl 16 channel analog DVR that would accept 4Mp cams....
But I found out the IP cams were they way to go.....for fine tuning and ease of acces to the GUI's.....and POE and Varifocals....yada yada.....
So I ended up with 2 systems ( Nightowl and BI) going to one monitor,,,and 2 Mice.....
I had no eyes outside on the legacy system.......and the back lot was the Centerpiece of problems....so now it has 3 cams on overwatch....and 3 in the front lot 2 of the 6 cams are designated LPR....When you have better evidence to be Credible to LEO's they will come and generate a case #
and talk to the Victims, and give you an upload link to post the evidence.....

 

[Flintstone61]

 

[looney2ns]

I started because my wife wanted to see the critters in the back yard she was feeding. I started with an ultra crappy Zmodo POS.
Now we have 15 cams running, that do a great job.
I've provided footage 3 times now to Police, and they were more than impressed with the "EXPORTS"
If you are going to put in a good system, don't ruin it by taking a crap video of the monitor with a cell phone.
Take 5 minutes to learn how to properly export a video BEFORE it is needed, so your not fumbling around when someone needs the video.

 

[Ssayer]

Haha, we mostly have ours for the critters as well, along with keeping an eye on our mailbox at the street. And here too, had two sheriffs here looking at the road cam after a break-in in the area. They liked my setup.

I've only recently added a "good" camera at the street and that was probably a big mistake as I now use it for a benchmark against all my other cams (obviously they don't stack up).

 

[CanCuba]

I'd always planned to get cams but hadn't gotten around to it. Then the pandemic hit and since the economy here in Cuba is essentially tourism and tourism went to zero almost overnight, I knew that crime would rise.

And it did. I'm now up to 15 cams (including the VTO and second channel on the BoobieCam). Have plans for more when I'm able to move to a PC-based VMS (maybe BI now that it supports Coral).

Provided great footage to the cops on several occasions now leading to several arrests. This includes the problem neighbour who stole another neighbour's patio chairs. We were able to see him pass the chairs over the fence to his accomplice and then both of them walk them through the front door of his own house. Cops loved it. Chairs were there the next day when they arrested him. I had my 15 minutes of fame with the neighbours.

Also aided in the recovery of a couple electric motos which were then returned to the owners. Great feeling as something like that represents a significant investment for a Cuban.

Thanks to this forum, I've been replacing my 2431-S-S2 cams with tiny sensors for better cams. Will keep this up until I'm happy. Which may be never but I'm having a blast here in the meanwhile.

 

[bigredfish]

I should have mentioned, and I think most of us here would agree, this forum was a tremendous help getting started in the early days.

Thank you @fenderman and and others who make IPCT work. Its a fantastic resource and I'm grateful for the help I found here.

 

[Mike A.]

Absolutely.

 

[Swampledge]

My son had installed a couple of Nest cams at his very rural house and was pleased. So I installed a few, and thought it was cool that I could check on the outside of my house whenever I wanted to. Then I built a new workshop on my property. I was working in the building when I heard a noise outside. I went to the window to investigate, and found a vehicle parked outside that shouldn’t have been there. When I went outside and confronted them, they said they were just turning around, which didn’t make sense, given how far into my property they had driven.

After they left, I checked my Nest cam footage and saw that they gotten out of the vehicle, grabbed something from the back of it- I think a crowbar- and went around to the back of the building. I suspect they planned to break in through a window, but saw me working inside, so they ran back to their car. The noise I had heard was them closing the car doors in haste.

I was concerned they might return, so that night I checked the cameras frequently, and was dismayed by the long delay in bringing up live footage. I vowed to install a system that ran completely within my network, not dependent on web connection. That was the start of my journey.

BTW, a few months after the incident, I saw a Facebook post showing a guy from a neighboring town that had been arrested for burglary. The guy in the photo was the guy who was in the passenger seat of the car that had been on my property.

 

[Swampledge]

I should maybe add that the incident I described served as a model of what I wanted to “defend” against. If they were to try that today, I would have captured their license plate before they entered my property, and again where they were parked. I would also have got I’d quality photos of their faces at two locations outside my building, including at the rear window.

This strategy was confirmed the summer after my quest was started, when I had an ID quality photo and license plate photo of a Good Samaritan who came onto my property outside a different building to verify that smoke from my gas grill wasn’t a house fire. I figured out why he was on my property by viewing video from another of my cameras.

And, I owe thanks to many of you here who have helped me more than you can know, simply by reading your posts. And, damn I miss @sebastiantombs.

 

[looney2ns]

I should have mentioned, and I think most of us here would agree, this forum was a tremendous help getting started in the early days.

Thank you @fenderman and and others who make IPCT work. Its a fantastic resource and I'm grateful for the help I found here.

Absolutely!
I ran across this place after having the Zmodo crap a little while, and found the error of my ways. The rest is history.
Thanks @fenderman, @Mike and @bp2008

 

[IAmATeaf]

It was to stop the wife nagging, sad thing is it didn’t as she still does just not about security cams!

 

[sdkid]

I was plotting my escape from Commiefornia, and got a great deal on a house in South Dakota in 2012. Pretty wild deal-- the house was the one I SOLD when we moved TO Commiefornia in 2003-- We bought it back and set the stage to literally move home. Owning an empty house 1,500 miles away was anxiety-inducing though, and I thought a few cameras would be helpful. So...

My camera adventure BEGAN with Dahua-- a 1.3mp bullet and a 2mp dome sending video to a computer running BI... We made a winter trip from Cal to SD and "camped" in our empty house for a few days. I installed the cameras and got all of it connected and running-- and that was thanks to the forum here. I had not heard of BI before looking here, but I loved the idea of running software myself and not relying on some proprietary box nvr. The rabbit hole has gone deep in the 11 years since. I don't even know what BI version I started with...