Surveillance

[Joel Jaeggli]

Decent dv camcorders  have ir modes (generally refered to as night mode 
or nightshot) that can record relativly high-quality video at very low 
light levels... They will typically also be able to accept external 
microphone's through a minijack and you can capture from them continously 
using their audio/video-output to something like a bt848/878 capture 
card or through a firewire connection. you can of course use the camera 
freehand as well whihc will make it more flexible... it's doesn't have to 
be terribly high-end such a camera can be had for < $500...

joelja


On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Bill Gradwohl wrote:

> I need some recommendations on equipment thats FC2 supported to perform 
> surveillance that will provide video and audio that will stand up in court. 
> i.e. high enough in resolution to be regarded as credible. Just reading the 
> specs on equipment I've Googled for doesn't tell me what I'm going to need. 
> That requires experience I don't have.
>
> One of my neighbors, directly across the street, is a nuisance. The rest of 
> the neighborhood (5 homes) just got done having a meeting with local law 
> enforcement to discuss how we go about altering his behavior. Long story 
> short, we have to record that behavior, file charges and bring evidence to 
> court. As the only professional computer geek I volunteered my help.
>
> Among many many other things, Mr nuisance has a habit of going into his 4 car 
> garage and revving the engine on one of his customized vehicles to red line 
> at all hours of the day and night for a few minutes. No one knows why he does 
> this, and its never long enough for the police to catch him at it but it does 
> wake up the neighborhood, especially the kids. He will do the same for a 
> vehicle parked in his drive way before he peals rubber onto the street and 
> blasts thru the STOP sign. Every vehicle he owns (3 pickups, 2 cars, 1 
> Harley, 2 dirt bikes, 2 ATV, 1 mini motorcycle for his son) has the bare 
> minimum of mufflers, and he marks his territory by constantly annoying his 
> neighbors.
>
> I need recommendations on equipment suitable to capture such action at a 
> distance of 200 feet. Audio only at night would suffice as long as we can 
> show video and audio of similar events during broad day light. The audio is 
> the part that concerns me. I may have to have the equipment outdoors to get 
> good audio.
>
> I plan on training the camera at the street in front of his house which would 
> also capture his house in the background, and connecting it to a video4linux 
> setup running 24/7 with several hundred Gig of disk space.
>
>

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu 
GPG Key Fingerprint:     5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2