Surveillance Cameras System to record Haunt Footage?

[Evernight]

So each year we film groups going through our haunt...and each year I hear from my actors how I missed their best scares...go figure hahaha. So I was wondering if anyone has ever used a DVR Surveillance System to achieve the same idea....Put a camera in each room and just let it record each night.

There seem to be some pretty decent packages online with up to 16 cameras with night vision. I have never used one of these systems so I wasn't sure if each camera can be viewed separately after recording or not.

Any suggestions would be great - Thanks

[Jim Warfield]

One screen divided showing all4 pictures from 4 cameras. Later they can be seen one at a time,enlarged, all4 pictures get recorded. Some DVR's automatically erase stored info after a certain time period expires.
I really like the ones that have motion switches built in the cameras so recording dead air and then if someone has to spend their time looking over allthose hours... YEEgad!
Make sure and read and then think about what you will be needing as far as the cameras being weather -proof or not?
A very damp location or one with tempersture changes can sometimes condense drops of water on the lense negating most of or all of the picture.
I had to install some cameras low enough that some AzzWhole could jump up and smash his fist against them. I built a backing to mount the cameras to,they were pieces of 3.4 inch thick plywood about the sixe of a football, with long spikes driven through the wood making numerous sharp points to puncture any drunken vandals paws! The nails were not the least bit hidden and guess what? nobody punched any cameras! No blood stains either!

[N2SPOOKINU]

We have a total of 42 cameras in our haunts. We purchased our systems from cctvhotdeals.com They have great pricing and all the acessories needed to make your own custom cables for long runs.
You can view 1-16 cameras on one screen. They are all recorded even if you are viewing one camera. Check out their site. They have some great stuff.

Greg
Fearfest
Zombie Safari Paintball

[Evernight]

Thanks for the replies that's what I needed to know - I was definitely going for the motion activated ones, especially the ones where you can mask off the area to avoid false triggering.

[rfsystems]

First of all let me say that I think every haunt should be using a CCTV system. But there are things that people that aren’t experienced with them should know. They are not the same as having a number of home video cameras hanging around your halls and walls. There are differences in image quality and colors, especially in a dark space with a night vision camera. Doing a little research before you buy a system will go a long way and minimize your frustrations down the road. CCTV systems have become relatively affordable to the public but the physical functions of them are bare minimum at best. (Hardware speaking) Some of the software that comes with these systems can be quite extensive and capable of doing some pretty cool stuff. But just like everything else, if you throw enough money at it you can achieve Hollywood type functionality and quality. These are my own thoughts and opinions on what I’ve come to understand and expect from the systems I’ve personally used. Take it for what it is…

Things to note about CCTV camera systems;

FALSE COLORS:
Images captured with Night Vision can be deceiving. Things that you take for granted like being able to pick out the colors of customers clothing appear nothing like they are to the natural eye. A White shirt will still appear white, but Dark Hair on someone’s head appears light! It all has to do with the materials the objects are made of.

Hint: Pick out unique features such as a hooded jersey with a teams logo on it, a hair style or a hat.

FALSE RECORDING;
Motion activated recording can be triggered by even some of the smallest particles floating in the air, especially in a dark space with a night vision camera. Real spider webs will even trigger a recording if there is the slightest air movement.

Note: Check to see if you can adjust the sensitivity on the recording trigger.

CAMERA ANGLES:
Most of the CCTV cameras that are available at a reasonable cost online today are what is known as FIXED LENSED cameras. There is very little adjustment that can be done to increase the cameras viewing aspect. (to the home video camera person I’m referring to zooming in and out to get more in the picture) With most haunts being built with tight hallways and small rooms, (a 10’ x 10’ room is small for a CCTV camera) you are generally limited to the angle you have to place the camera in order to get a good shot.

Placing a Fixed Lens camera at the end of a hallway or higher up a wall to allow for more distance between it and the object you are trying to video will help. Check the distance focal point of the camera, most are 12-15 feet, and don’t offer much of a viewing area at that distance. Look at wide angle lens that can give you more viewing area in a shorter distance.

DVR CAPACITY:
The amount of recording time that a system will record before over-writing old footage or stopping, depending on what settings you tell it to use, is determined by the size of the Hard Drive the system has. The larger the hard Drive the more footage it will store. The more cameras your system has the more Hard Drive space the system needs. Don’t buy a CCTV system and think that you’re going to record your entire haunt season on it and be able to go back months later and watch it. You’ll be surprised to realize that most of it isn’t there.

BACKING UP YOUR DRIVE:
Most systems are not well equipped to back-up the entire Hard Drive. Generally they have a USB port for backing up selected time frames of a recorded event. The size of the device recognized by the system is dependent on the hardware and software used to build the CCTV system. Some older systems only recognize up to 2G, so the use of a 4G flash drive isn’t even possible. Some newer systems are capable of adding additional Hard Drives to increase recording time or allowing for drive duplication. Some have the capability of connecting external Hard Drives to back-up footage in larger quantities.

Check the back-up speed! CCTV systems such as the all-in-ones with the monitor and DVR built as one unit are sometime built with old technology. The functions of a CCTV system are not that of a computer and require far less resources to accomplish their designed goal, recording. The processor speeds and amount of RAM used in your standard CCTV DVR are ridiculously low. They just don’t require it. Most CCTV systems are not designed with the intent to have to back-up the footage recorded except for when a notable event occurs such as a burglary. Even then there is no need to have to back-up the entire Hard Drive, just the time frame surrounding the event. Do you research and know what you’re buying.

ENBEDDED CODEC ENCODING:
Play back can be easily done on most every CCTV system, but saving the footage to your computer and playing it back on something as popular as windows media player can be a bit more tasking. Every CCTV system uses a Codec to encode its video to make it secure. (hence the term Security Surveillance Camera System) The Codec keeps you from being able to just pop the footage into another device for viewing. You’ll probably have to export it to a separate file and play it back with the CCTV company’s own version of a player. SOME PLAYERS DO HAVE A “SAVE AS AVI” FEATURE. This will let you save footage to an AVI format that can be used in a wide variety of video programs.
Codec – A codec encodes a data stream or signal for transmission, storage or encryption, or decodes it for playback or editing.
See link below for more info on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec

I personally use CCTV Security Systems daily at my regular job. They are great pieces of technology and their capabilities are amazing. I’ve used footage from our CCTV systems for police investigations in robberies, video tutorials on how-to’s and training, I’ve even used remote viewing to help fellow employees repair equipment so that I didn’t have to drive 3 hours to fix a problem.

I’ve been using a CCTV system in the haunt I work with for the past 4 or 5 years. It has its pluses and minuses, but overall I would say it’s a plus. You just have to learn what to expect form it or learn from the frustrations that come from thinking it will be just like watching people on TV, which it is but its not. You get all the movement but it lacks some of the details.