Instead of buying your own CCTV kit would you fancy on knowing how to build your own? Well this clever video shows you how to design and source secong hand parts to get a complete recording and monitoring system. It details camera mounts, monitors, DVR and cables. It is for anyone starting out or someone who wants to design their own system.
Great video but i thnk i’d rather stick to paying for my own out the box system. Less stress! Now if you want to know how to set up a fully blown recording or streaming CCTV system here’s some info from Lifehacker about using iCam and WebcamXP. It’s a pretty useful article as we know many of you will be interested in recording and saving your video footage and not just live streaming. You can’t stay up at night and monitor your premesis can you?
iCam + WebcamXP
The only real downside of iCam is that you can’t record and save video. You can watch it live, but if you see that someone’s entered your home, you can only save snapshots of it on your phone. If you want a few more features (like saving video, uploading saved video to the web, or only monitoring certain parts of the frame for motion), WebcamXP is the most user-friendly program we tested. The basics are pretty easy to set up—just start up the program, right-click in the video frame to choose your webcam, and tell it to alert you via the Security tab. You can also set up more complex schedules, telling it when to record, when to monitor for motion, and when to upload videos to the web.
The main downsides to WebcamXP are its price ($60 for single-camera use), its Windows-only availability, and the few extra steps it takes to forward the necessary ports and set up DHCP reservations. You don’t need to do any of that in iCam, but if you want to view WebcamXP’s stream from the internet, you’ll need to fiddle with a few router settings. Neither is especially hard to do, it’s just an annoyance you have to deal with when you first set it up. For more information on setting up and using WebcamXP, check out its very thorough documentation. – Lifehacker.com
So what would you rather do- delve into it DIY stylee or grab an out of the box solution? It’s nice to understand the technical and engineering sides of CCTV systems as it can give you a lot more versatility when it comes to programming and configuring your system. It is not necessary with the right system but it can allow you to fine tune elements to your perfection.