I'm looking for a camera to monitor the front of my house. I want decent night vision and good weatherproofing that will withstand a harsh Canadian winter. I'm looking at the MACE DM-69FCIR but I'm not reading very good things about Mace on other threads.

I'm looking at dome cameras since they seem more vandal proof?

What features should I look for?

What's a good value in cameras for about $200 to $300 USD?

I am not familiar with MACE product line and chances it could be a good product... and can not make any comment good or bad.

However for the price range, you have quite of few options... I can only make recommendations on major manufacturers, sorry do not have any knowledge on others...

Look into CBC, Sanyo, Bosch and few others... In order to give you more precise info, you did not mention if you want color and B&W solution... Will Minidome be the only route for you or will you consider well made bullet camera with all the essentials? With some more info, I am sure our members can give you several options to choose from...

I've been looking at color for now. Are there any advantages to sticking to b&w?

I've also looked at bullet cameras. I started to look at dome cameras because I heard they were more vandal-proof.

I want to mount the camera on a wall in front of my house. I'd like for it to view the front driveway (which is wide enough for 2 cars) and the stairs. I'm not sure if I need to get something with a wide angle view. That's why I want to start with one camera and then get a few more later on.

I've had a few funny things happen to my home. Last week, someone vandalized a framing around the licence plate of my car. There have also been some other funny things going on like someone stealing a plant or moving one of my chairs and just placing it in the middle of a driveway.

I'm looking for advice from those of you who deal with these cameras everyday. It's very hard to make a decision just by browing cameras on a website.

Here are some more questions if I may.

1. Do you want to catch these bastards on video? Lets say you did, can you have your local police department to use your video to prosecute them? Dependent where you live, cops may not even do anything, rather may tell you to take these people to court and take your chances.

2. How about installing a camera housing with built in fixed camera and lens? A lot of time, when people do see that camera housing, they could be deterred... If not, at least you gave them a chance to back off (sometimes courts will insist on the fact that if you have taken measure to deter rather to catch... something has to do with the laws and people's privacy... and again, it depends where you live).

3. How is the lighting conditions on front of your property? If you do not have good lighting, then install a motion detector based lights or you have to consider more expensive camera equipment...

4. B&W cameras will respond better at night, as their LUX levels are much lower than most color cameras.. Again, do you want to see these bastards in action and also see what color shirts are they wearing? Color cameras will not cut the mustard.. you have to use day/night cameras so that you can observe picture in color during the day and B&W during the night..

Be careful on our selection... and the models you select.

What is very common now is people using good quality bullet cameras, that give you excellent color during the day, very good picture quality during the night (with some light present) and even viewable picture during pitch dark (certain models of such bullets cameras are better than most).

Please get back to us with some more answers and then I think you will have several solid options for your home use... By the way... which DVR do you have or consider to purchase and why?

You would be much better hiring a local CCTV dealer. They can come out with various cameras, and "live" test them, and match a camera that fits your unique "environment".

Cameras that say 10 meters, or 30 feet of infrared will not cut the mustard! You will not see the guy if he is standing at the back of your car, (such as going for your plate, or setting down your chair).

You will need infrared that will travel farther than 10meter/30 feet. Your environment is going to dictate which camera will work for you.

This is not the right formula, but I will give you some advice that should get you close for a DIY job. Measure where you want to put the camera out to the area that you want to watch. Take this distance, and double it for infrared distance. Depending on trees, or if it is an open area you may need more IR, or less.

Go to a local CCTV dealer, and buy from them. Be honest with them, and let them know what you are doing. Tell them that you are going to buy it, and you are going to test it before you install it. If it does not meet the environment, then see if they will let you bring it back, and upgrade to the next level, and then test this as well before you install.

To test the camera you will need an extension cord, a 13" color tv with a composite video input (yellow connector) on the front or the back. You will need a power supply for that camera, and a video cable. You can buy a 25' premade cable for this test. Plug in the power to the premade cable, and plug the video cable to your TV. If you do not know how to "activate" the composite video (yellow connector) then you will find out how in this article:
http://www.cctvforum.com/cms_view_article.php?aid=41
Scroll down to here.....

On some TVs to activate the composite signal it is a simple as pressing the channel down button until you get to channel 2. When you press the down button one more time this will activate the AUX, or GAME input.....

Now plug in your camera, and stand on a ladder to simulate where the camera is mounted. What you see on the TV screen is what you get!
Does it look good? Then you are good to go.

For options where you only need 10meters/30feet you should be fine in your price range.

To get out to the end of your driveway is where the boy cameras, and the men cameras get seperated real fast, and the price goes with it!

I would sacrifice a vandal dome with something less so that I would have a better picture, a kind of trade off if you will. I would not want to demand a vandal proof camera, and not see what I need to see. A cheap 'bubble' cover should do as long as it is a weather resistant/proof camera.

Is this what you are looking for?
http://avssys.net/?s=product&sub=camera&cat=ir&p=vnd49ir

Please do not call this company, and please do not embarrass me as they do not sell to end users, and they only sell to dealers. I posted this only so that you can see a color outdoor dome camera with vandal resistant, vari focal, with 50 feet of IR. If you call they will automatically know that it was me, and they will call me, and yank my chain a little. I would really hate to lose my dealer status.

This should get you going!
Good luck!

We have had good luck with Vitek day\night ird 30 only thing to watch is power them from and individual power supply or a multi that is isolated outputs. or you may have ground loop problems

1. I would like to catch the bastards. I'm not sure on the laws. I have a friend who did have cops look at video of his dvr system when a neighbor's car was stolen. The cop was very impressed.

2. PTZ would be nice but it's way over my budget. I want to stick to less than $250 per camera.

3. Lighting conditions are excellent. There is a street lamp right across the street and I have motion sensing lights in front of my entrance.

4. I'm fine with a day/night camera like the Mace one I wrote about in my first message.

Are bullet cameras generally better quality than domes?


Scorpion, thank you for the detailed message. I won't call that distributor, no worries. I have a computer company and I know that revealing suppliers is a sensitive issue.

BTW, I passed a RG59 cable with 2 conductor 18 gauge wiring to my camera location. Do I need to pass audio cables too or will the rg59 support sound if the camera does too?

Also, the board i'm looking at getting is the Geovision GV-604. A local dealer said they are the best. Well I'm sure there is better stuff out there. But this should do for a simple home system with 2 - 4 cameras.

There is a camera I'm looking at now; it's the Sentry 5342IR. I can't post the link to it cuz I'm new here. But it has 480 lines of resolution, 42IR leds and they say it has a usable range of 150'.