Webcam for security?

Anyone here have any experience in setting up a wireless webcam (outside)? I've got some miscreants trespassing on my front yard tearing down my Obama sign. I've gone through two "Obama for President" yard signs and I want to catch the bums who are tearing it down. So I figured I'd set up a webcam and try and see who's doing it.

The sign is being torn down at night. There is a light on at the side of the house that can be aimed more directly at the sign. I've avoided doing this because I don't want the light to shine right into the road. I could move the sign a bit of course.

Any ideas on what webcam to use? I use OSX, not Windows, that may be a factor. There is a window that I could put the camera in, but I'd rather the camera be outside for a better picture, but I also don't want to pay a fortune for the camera.

Well, that's the long and not so short of it. Thanks for any help you guys can provide!

Peter

I bought one each of these:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=351

http://www.4netonline.com/ebiz/images/edimax_ip_camera_ic1000.jpg

http://www.hawkingtech.com/products/productlist.php?CatID=33&FamID=14&ProdID=180

The dlink sucks and needs active x to be viewed, and was twice the price.

The other two are both pretty good. I like the edimax best 'cos it's smallest.

All three support activation when something comes into it's field of vision.

All three have the same resolution, which I found wasn't good enough to be able to identify anyone doing something you would want them identified for.

I ended up putting them around the office so I could watch the plotter and printers from home.

Oh, did they drop the Java interface that the DSC-G900 had? That one also had Active-X, but the Java alternative works fine, as do the automatic snapshots via FTP etc..

But the wireless on it is flakey, and (ISTR) not WPA2 capable.

We have one of those here to track our cat's escapes from the yard (using automatic 3-second snapshots via FTP), and it works well for that, but only in daylight. It's not a night-cam. And we use wired ethernet for the connection.

"Wireless" isn't all that useful in a webcam, because it still needs the power wire..

Cheers

You could just replace them with a sign saying "Face it, Hillary, creeping round the neighbourhood at night vandalising people's signs won't save your campaign now"..?

Peter

Thanks for the tips guys. At first I did think it might be some Hillary folks. But I'm not leaning toward racist rednecks either, probably just some foolish kids I hope. My area is pretty mixed, with all sorts. I've got Hatians, Jamacians, southern whites, jews. So anyone living here has to deal with all types of neighbors. They just can't deal with the sign I guess.

I think I can get away with a non night cam if I move the light and sign a bit. I've got a power out let near by that I can plug into. I've got more signs ordered. I also have some solar powered lawn lights that I can shine onto the sign if needed.

And to think I used to blow up people's mail boxes when I was a kid and I'm now setting up a webcam.....hmm...

Even a really good camera will have a poor image in low lighting conditions.

Maybe an IR camera and an IR spotlight? Then they wouldn't feel like they were lit when they tore the sign down.

Axis all the way. I've had great results from the one I bought, the low light performance was spectacular.

This .mpg (11.2MB) shows a kid tagger stopping to write on the back of the left vehicle.

The BW camera is one that is "good" in low light and has a high IR sensitivity. There is also an led IR panel flooding providing illumination. That illumination falls off about half way down the vehicles.

There was some degradation in the transfer to mpeg, but I couldn't have id'd the kid from the original.

Axis 211 combined with SecuritySpy. The axis cameras aren't cheap, but you can actually identify people. Luckily we had a G5 that sits there doing pretty much nothing all day.

Since you're looking for something temporary, perhaps a digicam taking a picture every 15 secconds? There should be plenty of tools out there for time lapse photography.

Mattew

Naw, you're going about it all wrong. Getting pictures of them isn't going to help anything. You need to go the Gabe and Tycho route.

I'm thinking of just putting up a dummy cam and a little notice on or near the Obama sign saying "smile your on camera!"

BTW today my wife found some egg remains on the side of the house....

I'd go with a normal camera, some kind of flash arrangement, and a motion trigger of some sort...

Only if the camera is well hidden, and the flash is located somewhere else. They'll see the flash and steal it, but hopefully not find the camera to steal that as well.

tanstaafl.