best wireless home security camera system with night vision?

2 comments to best wireless home security camera system with night vision?

• silvaconsultants

  March 7th, 2010 at 11:11 am

  There are tons of companies that sell security camera equipment on the web. Two of the larger companies are:

  http://www.supercircuits.com
  http://www.scdlink.com

  You may need to buy several individual components and put them together to get the system that you describe.

• www.keepsafesystems.ca

  March 7th, 2010 at 11:30 am

  I have pasted one of my articles below. It pretty much covers what you need to know about camera’s and the technology involved. Simply put, stay away from CMOS and cheap chinese knock-offs. Unless of course you are not worried about image quality.

  The thing to remember about night vision is, most camera’s use IR emitters. Black and white camera’s can see IR, colour can’t. To work around this, there are colour camera’s which switch to black and white at night. There are also true night vision IR camera’s which can see in total darkness without IR illuminators, they are just really expensive. A middle of the road solution would be a Wide dynamic camera with slow shutter. These camera’s are great at picking up low light detail on stationary objects – don’t expect them to pick up a moving person.

  As for DVR’s in my years of experience in the industry I have found PC based systems (Particularly those based in Billyware AKA Windows) are crap. In my opinion, you are better off going with a dedicated embedded Linux based unit. Although these can also be considered computers and have similar qualities, they are running on Linux (Less memory issues) and their sole purpose it to record video. PC’s are designed to do many things at an acceptable level. DVR’s are designed to record video therefor more attention is paid to the functionality between components. As for the difference between Linux and Windows… well just ask yourself how many times you have seen the blue screen of death. I’m thinking you might not want to loose important surveillance info just because your PC decided to freeze up.

  Now here is the article I promised:

  The starting point of any C.C.T.V. system is the camera. Simply stated, a camera is a light sensitive device that converts particles of light into electrical impulses, however, there is a vast difference in the quality of cameras available to the consumer. Factors that differentiate the various cameras include whether they are color, black and white, light sensitivity, image resolution and image transfer technology. The consumer must also consider the inherent advantages and disadvantages in each of these different camera technologies and decide which features best fit their individual needs and goals.

  In the past, color cameras have been both very expensive and lack-luster in their image performance, when compared to black and white cameras. New technology is now bringing the innovative technologies closer together in both the price and performance scale. The current differences between the two technologies are almost entirely limited to light sensitivity and light reactivity.

  Light sensitivity is measured in LUX. The lower the LUX rating, the higher the sensitivity to light. It is important to keep in mind that even the best-rated cameras are limited by the technology of the day, as well as the visibility conditions present at the time of the surveillance. Although great advancements in low light surveillance continue to be ongoing, the image quality in a low light situation will rarely be up to the standards of daylight surveillance.

  Color cameras, although much more appealing on the outside when compared to their black and white counterparts, generally offer less low light sensitivity than a black and white camera. The other advantage of black and white cameras over color cameras is its ability to “see” infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye. You can test this by aiming a standard television remote at a black and white camera while watching the monitor, the flashes you see are bursts of infrared light. The advantage of this becomes apparent in the ability to light up a dark area with infrared light, thus making images visible in almost pure darkness. With the color camera the area will appear unlit, however, to a black and white camera, the area will appear almost like daylight.

  The black and white camera‚s reactivity to the invisible light spectrum can also pose a disadvantage in certain applications. Infrared light, although not visible to the human eye, is found in abundance in many everyday situations. For example, when aiming a black and white camera at hot pavement, it will “confuse” the camera resulting in an unbalanced image. Professional grade black and white cameras often incorporate infrared cut-filters. These cut-filters inhibit the infrared light spectrum in turn decreasing the cameras low light sensitivity.

  The C.C.T.V. Industry measures image resolution in horizontal lines. The higher the line rating, the clearer the image will appear. With this fact in mind, consider that all electronic components within a C.C.T.V. System, from the camera, to the VCR, to the monitor. These items are all rated in the same way. The actual resolution of the entire system will only be as high as the lowest rated item. For example, if you have a camera rated at 450 lines and a monitor rated at 300 lines, then the result will be 300 visible lines of resolution because the monitor is the lowest rated item in this example. Another point to keep in mind is that the line rating is “Total lines” not lines per inch. Therefore a 12″ monitor with a 300 line rating has a far better clarity than a 17″ monitor with the same line rating.

  The most recent and predominant advances in the C.C.T.V. Industry are the changes in image transfer technology. This technology deals with how the camera takes light particles and converts them into electronic images. Without going into too much detail, image transfer technologies include the following:

  Phosphorus Tube Cameras – This camera has low quality, old technology and is susceptible to “image burn”. Image burn is when intense light sources will burn themselves into the camera‚s light receptor resulting in the image appearing “memorized”. Although this is not a problem with modern day cameras, image burn can still occur on monitors. Tube cameras are also known for poor low light sensitivity.

  C.C.D – Also known as “Chip cameras”. This camera is the most standard of cameras in the professional realm. C.C.D. cameras do not suffer from the problem of image burn and can incorporate various methods of signal processing, which offers a high level of flexibility to the installer.

  CMOS Transfer Cameras – These cameras are very small and continue to get smaller as the technology advances. Although very attractive in their size, CMOS cameras generally do not offer the signal processing, image quality or low light sensitivity of the higher priced C.C.D. camera models. However, the technologies are slowly growing closer together to the point where CMOS cameras may eventually take over the Surveillance Industry.

  The Surveillance Industry has continued to move towards the implementation of color cameras that switch to black and white, or even infrared in low light conditions. Although there are some models currently available on the market, the technology is not at a point where it is affordable enough to be manufactured on a large scale.

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