Cheap home CCTV & local storage

Sessen Ryu

We've had some petty vandalism in our car park at the flats I live in, - I would simply like to put a camera on my window ledge, and have it record locally when it sensors motion.  Is there a cheap, reasonably reliable option out there?  Could anyone recommend anything please?

I think it would give me peace of mind as I am permanently worried about my car.

Many thanks

neonplanet40

What is distance/height etc from the window to your car? Inside the window or outside the window?

Budget?

I think everyone will need more to go on.

Sessen Ryu

Thanks for your reply. I'm in the first floor, so not that high up.   We don't have allocated parking.. My car can be directly below, or across the other side, approximately  20 meters away.

Budget as cheap as possible, what's realistic, £60? £100?

Many thanks.

Puntoboy

Is the car park well lit?

neonplanet40

Others will know much more than me. But I'll just give my own limited advice.

If the car park is well lit at night, then getting a good camera (with a decent high mp sensor) will allow you to zoom in for details, etc. Hop[efully there would be enough light to do this at night.

However, if people are doing this at night, then I don't know if you could expect much from a budget camera to pick up facial details, etc. If there is little light, it will be even less likely to pick up USEABLE video for police, etc.

Also, if your camera is pointing at a car park (that isn't solely yours and other people use) then I believe there may be legal issues to recording them via CCTV.

However, others will be able to help you more than me. I just think you're going to have to spend a lot more money than you think to get a CCTV camera that would actually be useful as evidence.

Sessen Ryu

Hmmmm - thanks - the carpark isn't *well* lit, - it has a few lights dotted around so there is some light, but it's certainly not light... -

Even if the evidence isn't submittable in court, I would still like to get an idea whether the perpertrator is someone living in our block etc or not...

Ianandanne

You need to factor cost of camera and then cost of storage device whether it be Cloud, SD card or NVR with Hard Drive. You could spend £100 and get a solution and it might be a deterant but if something did happen again in all likelihood it would not be enough to convict if needed..

Puntoboy

Personally, I would go for a Hikvision Dark Fighter camera using an SD card mounted inside. It's going to cost more than your budget, but your budget is just too small to get anything worthwhile.

Ianandanne

SD Card is good call if on a budget..

6Antique9

I think the question of recording outside your property is not a legal consequence any more, the law has changed. I have a OAHD 720p system which has served well with 2 successful prosecutions, one entered as evidence in court. I did at one time register with the Information Commissioner but you no longer need to. With regard to a cheap good system mine is from HDCCTV.co.uk. they do a new 1080p DVR £70 without hard drive and cameras at £23. Hope that helps. I am about to upgrade myself to this DVR setup