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paulz
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# Posted: 9 Feb 2016 06:45pm
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Thinking about buying this Harbor Freight setup so I can record nights at my cabin in case of theft or other mayhem. Any advice or opinion? Also, can the DVR be hooked up to my TV set to record TV programs (I have over the air roof antenna)?
http://www.harborfreight.com/8-channel-surveillance-dvr-with-4-cameras-and-mobile-mon itoring-capabilities-61229.html
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Soggy McBottom
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# Posted: 11 Feb 2016 01:52pm
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Link didn't work for me 
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paulz
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# Posted: 11 Feb 2016 03:20pm
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http://www.harborfreight.com/8-channel-surveillance-dvr-with-4-cameras-and-mobile-mon itoring-capabilities-62463.html
Thanks for the reply. In the mean time I have been reading up on home surveillance cameras, a totally new subject for me. Indoor, outdoor, wireless, infrared...options go on and on. One thing I think I've decided, I don't really need the DVR to record countless hours of nothing, the cameras have motion activation and take pictures or short videos and store them on a chip or something.
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gsreimers
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# Posted: 11 Feb 2016 06:53pm
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Paulz, sounds like you've done a little research, maybe you or someones else can answer a question or 2 for me.
I've thought about a trail cam for security at my cabin. Haven't had any issues but as we get more done, there will be more valuable items there so, since it is remote, it would be nice to have a record if anyone shows up uninvited.
Ideally, I would like a battery operated, motion activated camera that would capture if anyone paid a visit while I wasn't around. Do trail cams capture images without a flash or light of any kind. If it did something to tip off a would be burglar, I'd just end up with the camera added to their take. Also how long do the batteries last? Could I set it in the fall and check it in the spring.
I realize you may not have considered these, but I'm guessing some helpful soul on the forum has and will chime in.
Thanks
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Shadyacres
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# Posted: 11 Feb 2016 09:42pm
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gareimers , they do make trail cams that do not flash at all. As far as going all winter that may be questionable because the colder it is the harder it is on the batteries but I have gone 9 months already but not over winter. But I love them. I always have two or more up , usually with one watching another. They give you the time and date when activity is happening. And they are fairly hard to pick out if you try to camouflage them a little bit. Hope this answers some of your questions.
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MtnDon
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# Posted: 12 Feb 2016 09:48am
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The lithium cells have great cold weather performance.
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bugs
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# Posted: 12 Feb 2016 10:14am
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We have five trail cameras (Bushnell) at our property. They seem to work fine night and day (black led flash that cannot be seen) altho there are issues with false positives from wind blowing and in winter the contrast of snow and shadow can cause it to fire as well. (You can track down my cabin blog if you want to see some examples of pix.) Eight lithium batteries work well but alkaline will do too. The former seems to get us about 5 months of use through the SK winter. Altho it will depend on how many pix are taken and how long it is -40c.
One issue is how to secure your camera so they don't get stolen. We had one stolen. They cut the cable and pried open the armour box. You can add some fake cameras up in trees just to make the intruders think a bit or at least they will think they will need a ladder.
You can try a wifi camera that saves on camera and also sends the image to another card in a box that can be secreted away from the camera up to 200 feet line of sight. We have one although have not tried it out fully it does seem to work.
As to the dvr setup. We run one at home and it works quite well. We have a simple two camera system with its own wifi which saves to a sdcard stashed in the house. It has worked very well capturing videos of intruders, rabbits, skunks. It can be viewed real time too. It has sound which is really neat. We also have a Samsung unit that saves to a card and also uses our house wifi to send off videos to some unknown site. It sends texts to our iphone when the camera sees something. We can access the camera and stored video anywhere in the world. We have had varying success with this one as it often seems to have issues of storing the videos online. Unfortunately both these systems the cameras need to be plugged into and outlet. So if the power is out then there is an issue but we could run some trail cameras as back ups too.
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bugs
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# Posted: 12 Feb 2016 10:34am
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Forgot to mention there are some companies now offering a game camera that uses the cell phone service to notify you when it sees activity as well as saving images/video to card and online and you can view things real time if you wish. For these your cabin will need very good cell phone service tho and there is a fee/plan etc. This sounds like an interesting option if one can afford it. However if you have a land line to your cabin then that would be half the issues solved.
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hueyjazz
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# Posted: 12 Feb 2016 11:58am
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Paul
Part of my job has been security of my facilities so I've done many camera installations. first thing is you don't want the harbor freight system. There's many good but fairly inexpensive systems out there. They all pretty much work of a Linux based micro processor. Camera technology has gotten cheap and much better as far as resolution day/night. But as with many things the price you pay reflect on what you get. The cheaper cameras tend not to last.
Security DVRs are suitable for TV recording. They are time lapsed so you only recording a few images of each minutes. I can also tell you watching a time lapse images for security purposes is a real joy. You can key cameras to only record for movement. Well there can be a lot of movement in the woods so you really what to focus you camera on a stationary area.
You can also have too many cameras. I try not to do more than four cameras to a system which is hard enough to playback and watch. Good luck with a sixteen camera system as I know some systems are capable.
If you have internet at your cabin these systems are very sweet as you can key in and watch a live feed.
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