With four cameras, this amounted to about 120 GB of video a day. For each camera, SecuritySpy was recording over 30 GB of data per data. I had the cameras set to output H.264 video at 15 fps. For the first week that I used SecuritySpy, I had time lapse recording turned on and it recorded lots and lots of video. The second is to do something when it detects motion. SecuritySpy has a few main functions that I have used the first is time lapse recording that gives you a new recording every day for each camera. (As an interesting side note, PhotoCapture was effectively a security program for capturing still images, but was either triggered on a timer or when someone hit a web page.) SecuritySpy grew out of a product called BTV which I had played with a number of years ago when I first started experimenting with video on the Mac at about the time I wrote a program called PhotoCapture, if I recall correctly. ![]() The other candidate crashed while I was testing it, which made it unreliable for a 24/7 system. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options for the Mac.Īfter playing with the 2 leading candidates, I decided that SecuritySpy was the only option. So the last decision to be made was the software to handle the recordings. I’ll cover the Q-See cameras I got in another review. With that decision made, I had to go with networked, IP cameras. The latest Mac Minis use about 85 W and are super quiet. That quickly changed my thinking and I decided that since my Mac Mini that acts as my media center runs most of the time (6 am to 11 pm), I was probably better off having it run 24 hours a day and have it handle the recording. ![]() The most common theme among reviews on systems was that the fans in the DVRs was noisy and that the boxes were power hogs. When I started investigating camera systems, the reviews on full featured systems were so mixed that I didn’t know what to believe and what not to believe. Some people may think I’m a bit paranoid, but I think that knowing who is around my property while it is being remodeling as well as down the line knowing if solicitors come to the door or a package gets dropped off is invaluable. I never got around to installing cameras and it is probably best that I didn’t as the technology has gotten so much better, that the quality of cameras and systems from just a few years ago doesn’t compare with what we have today. However, neighborhood kids did toilet paper our house once and someone (or a group of individuals) graffitied a number of houses including ours with anti-Semitic words and symbols. We all know that not every student is perfect and we wouldn’t be surprised if a student toilet papered our house. In our last house, I considered adding security cameras as my wife was a teacher in the area and some of the students knew where she lived.
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