Little background.. my house just recently got broken into and the alarm scared them away before they managed to get anything... the police seem to think they'll be back as they've seen a similar pattern in the area... 1st time they break in, look around, 2nd time they come after 1 or 2 specific items.

So... I'm looking to install a 4 camera system at my house...
I'd like 4 IR cameras... I don't care what shape/size etc.. In other words, if it needs to be big, so be it.

I need one that covers my front door, one for the back door, one for the driveway (75ft long or so), and one that covers my back yard.

DVR... I'd like a standadlone DVR that can keep 2 weeks or so worth of live recordings.

Ok... I can spend $2000.00 on this and eBay is fine with me but I just don't know what to get...

What's the best I can get to have the best picture using 4 cameras and a standalone 4 channel dvr?

Thanks!!!

you first have to determine the requirements for your system.
what do you want the resulting capture to be ? facial recognition ? fields of view (can you do it with 4 cameras?)

Even though $2K sounds like a a lot to spend, it isn't..but it depends highly on the quality you want.

Low cost systems suffer from poor images. In my experience, if you don't get a decent quality DVR and cameras, you will get blurry images that you can't discern squat from.

If you don't really care so much about quality, costco (groans from the audience) has a bunch of cheap systems available. but I warn you that when it comes to getting clear images to the police, those cheapie setups will usually fail you.

For your $2K budget, I would suggest spending atleast $300 per camera, and the remaining on DVR. For $800, the DVR won't be awesome, but will work ok. you will have to kick in extra for the cables, power supplies, etc.
Also don't forget to add a battery backup unit.

The better IR cameras will have atleast 550 TVL, IR cut filter, and a decent lens. And also just because they advertise these specs, it doesn't mean the camera is all that great.

there are hundreds of products out there, some are good, much of it is fair to poor.

I'd post names of products, but that might just mislead you. and make others unhappy.