If you feel the need to keep one eye on your home when you are not home or when you are sleeping, you will want to make sure that eye is looking in the right direction. The use a home video security system is becoming more popular as prices for the cameras and recorders fallen in recent years and with the use of home wireless security system cameras installing them has also become easier.
However, unless your home video security system provides for someone to sit in front of a bank of monitors and watch everything going on in and around your home, it will be better as a prosecutorial tool than anything else. Additionally, the number of cameras you install as well as their location will determine how effective the system is going to be in helping the police catch the bad guys. The type of device used to record images from the cameras can also help or hinder any investigation in case of home invasions or break-ins while you are away.
Looking at the basic system, you will have cameras usually aimed at the doors showing anyone entering the house and possibly a camera or two in strategic locations around the house. If you have a home safe, do not point the camera at the safe door as chances are if someone does get in all you will see is the back of their head as they fumble with the combination. The image should be taken to show their face while approaching the safe or walking away towards the door of the room in which the safe is located.
The same is true for cameras recording the entry doors. When considering the location of cameras for the home video security system before anchoring them make sure the image received is going to provide footage of their faces for positive identification. It may be tough to recognize someone with a clear shot at the back of their head. Additionally, the cameras will need to be out of reach of someone attempting to break into your home. Being able to reach up with a baseball bat or a can of spray paint will put the camera out of commission while the burglar enters the home. Inside cameras should be also be hidden from plain view, unless you want everyone that comes into the house to know they might be recorded.
Videocassette recorders and multiplexers enable these systems to record up to 16 cameras at one time. However, even with some of the best time-delay recorders will need a new tape installed at least every 24 hours. Unless you have someone you trust to change the tapes every day, you might want to consider the extra expense of a digital recorder and motion sensor cameras.
With many of these units, recording can occur for 15 to 30 days, depending on the size of the hard drive, before they begin recording over previously recorded images. They can also be fed directly into your home computer and the recording can be recalled by time of day or by when the camera was activated to make finding a specific image on your home video security system fast and easy.
