Not to Disparage Anyone

"Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection" (itsalwayssteve) 11/24/2015 at 10:58 • Filed to: None

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But seriously FFS. With high-definition cameras costing under !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and high capacity hard drives !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , why do we put up with grainy, low-definition security camera footage? What business owner would not be willing to spend under $1000 to ensure that their security video is clear so if something does happen, suspects and vehicles are easy to identify?

(image from PC Ninja)

KatzManDu > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:00

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More modern (past 5 years) security DVRs are good quality. Most stuff in your average 7/11 that gets robbed is very old.

Ash78, voting early and often > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:02

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Because all you need to do is send to a CSI lab to ENHANCE a few times, then it’s 4k resolution.

Opposite Locksmith > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:03

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My fathers business sets up it and security and they asks clients this every time. A Motorola razr Shames some footage

georgechristensen > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:03

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That infographic never specifies what resolution and bitrate the videos are. A 1TB hard drive will definitely not hold 40 days worth of uncompressed HD video directly from a camera.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > georgechristensen 11/24/2015 at 11:06

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True, but that’s just a generalization.

HammerheadFistpunch > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:08

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I think the business owner who bought their equipment not today and has no interesting in upgrading every other year.

Funktheduck > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:09

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I think a lot of it boils down to “good enough” mentality. They assume the risk of crime is low and the presence of a camera will be a deterrent.

“Why pay $1000 when this is $300?”

HammerheadFistpunch > georgechristensen 11/24/2015 at 11:10

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My math tells me that 1TB will hold a little more than five and a half HOURS of uncompressed HD (1080p24 8 bit)

georgechristensen > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:11

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A generalisation of what?

jariten1781 > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:14

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Security cameras are more a deterrent than anything else. It’s not like the store is going to get anything back when the jobless thief gets caught. Because most places are on low margins they only do security in block upgrades every 10-15 years and many just allow them to lapse and break.

Basically, there's not a real drive for it.

GhostZ > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:24

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Good security camera quality doesn’t really prevent people from robbing you, just more visible cameras do. It’s an adverse selection problem.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > HammerheadFistpunch 11/24/2015 at 11:48

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Sounds about right. But you don’t need full 24 fps security footage. Why not do 1 frame per second? If its a good camera and the store is decently lit it should resolve any motion and you would have a bit less blur. This bump you up to 132 hours of footage, or over 5 days worth. And if you go to 720p, which is still good quality compared to existing systems you’d end up with almost 300 hours of footage.

HammerheadFistpunch > Snuze: Needs another Swede 11/24/2015 at 11:52

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Well, that’s just for comparatives. Obviously you wouldn’t be shooting uncompressed security footage in the first place. Even at 1080p you could drop your rate down to something as high quality as gopro (12mbps) and still get nearly 8 uninterrupted days at 30p

Snuze: Needs another Swede > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 11:55

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My brother in law installs systems for a living and I’ve asked him about this. A few things - one is your math is a bit skewed on cost. You linked to some webcams. These are fine for indoor use but not good for outdoor. A quality security camera rated for indoor and outdoor use is going to be a bit more expensive. Same with the hard drive, those are computer hard drives, so you’d need to buy and setup a computer with it, etc. They do make dedicated security DVRs that work standalone but they are still going to be a few hundred bucks.

Additionally, that storage doesn’t go as far as you think. As has been pointed out by others, 1TB holds about 5.5 hours worth of 1080p at 24 frames per second. You can get more storage by going to 720p (about double) and lowering your frame rate. Going to 720p and 1 fps and compressing 60% gets you about 300 hours worth of storage. For one camera. This might be ok for a 7-11 where all you want to watch is the cash register. But if you want a second parking lot camera you cut your storage in half. You can see where I’m going with this.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > HammerheadFistpunch 11/24/2015 at 11:58

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Right, I understand. And I was just making the point that 1080p24 is pretty unrealistic for security needs.

I know very little about video compression, I had no idea GoPros were that efficient.

HammerheadFistpunch > Snuze: Needs another Swede 11/24/2015 at 11:59

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They go as low as 8 and as high as 60, .mp4 is pretty efficient at the cost of being a PITA to decode.

Bozi Tatarevic > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 12:21

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I am actually planning a camera install for my shop right now and while it’s not as cheap as the items you listed, the prices have come down. The main issue I see is that many people that install cameras want to keep them for 7-10 years.

The system I am setting up will be based on 4 outdoor rated IP cameras at $90 a piece

The DVR will be a Synology unit at $270

That will have 2 WD Purple 4TB hard drives at $160 each.

The POE switch and all the cabling will add another $200.

My total cost will be around $1200 since I will install it all myself.

This is a custom build but a business owner would likely pay around $3000 for a similar system and install.

Here is a night shot example from the camera I will be installing:

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 11/24/2015 at 12:25

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Those numbers are all subjective to quality. A hard drive will hold magnitudes more 480 video than say, 1080.

That 100000 photo measure assumes a 3.2 mb image size. That 320 gig HDD will hold a few million image files if they’re less than 500kb.