Plate reader equipment

Hi all! Does anyone have any experience with licence plater reader cameras as an effective crime fighing tool? I work on a university campus (police department) and we are having a big problem with stolen and damaged vehicles on campus (15 stolen vehicles in a 2 month period!). We have CCTVs in most of our lots but unless the camera is pointed directly at the crime taking place, its hard to get an ID.

 

I'm looking at installing plater reader cameras at the entrance to our most vulnerable parking lots (if I can convice the bosses to spend the money). These cameras have a searchable database and "hot list" integration.

 

Another option is to have decoy cars installed with GPS technology but that is way beyond our budget and we have to rely on the city police to set this up on campus.

 

Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with plate reader technology? Any comments would be greatly appreciated! Thanks and take care.

Ive used The Extreme CCTV Reg Camera .. here are some shots: White Plate: [img]http://www.cctvforum.com/images/imported/2010/09/135364_1.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.bahamassecurity.com/reg/5.jpg[/img] Red Plate: [img]http://www.bahamassecurity.com/reg/2.jpg[/img] Blue Plates: [img]http://www.bahamassecurity.com/reg/4.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.bahamassecurity.com/reg/6.jpg[/img] [img]http://www.cctvforum.com/images/imported/2010/09/135364_1.jpg[/img] Edited February 26, 2006 by Guest

Extreme is the best guaranteed plate reader for the money.

Also Extreme has 3rd party software for handling the plates, or you can use something like the GeoVision or other LPR software. If you want to demo either let me know via PM.

Extreme is the best. However you are looking at paying top dollar. Around 2K for a REG camera that Rory recommended. U get what u pay for. The cheaper route would be going with a Bosch Ultra View cam & Tamron IR lens. Licence plate #'s aren't quite as defined but you are looking at under $500.00 for the whole setup.

Thanks for the responses! I met with an Extreme dealer on Friday and I have one of the brochures. Extreme seems to be the way to go. My next issue is; how versatile is the software? What I would really like to do is download a long list of stolen vehicles around the city and input that list into the Extreme software and set it up so that if one of those plates is caught on our camera, it will set off an alarm or something similar. Will the software allow me to import data (from Excel for example) or would I have to manually type in all of the plates I want to flag? Thanks again!

 

(Rory, PM coming your way)

Both can be customized by the developers im sure.

 

Just looking at the Geo one again, it uses an Access DB so you can just import into that, either write a basic VB program or script to do it or there are free ones on the web. Also, im sure Geo probably has something for it, this is only the Demo i have. Importing data into a DB from other files though is a very simple task.

 

Extreme's, would have to check with them on that as the Demo is very limited.

 

Rory

Extreme is the best. However you are looking at paying top dollar. Around 2K for a REG camera that Rory recommended. U get what u pay for. The cheaper route would be going with a Bosch Ultra View cam & Tamron IR lens. Licence plate #'s aren't quite as defined but you are looking at under $500.00 for the whole setup.

 

I regret that I must disagree with you, I have used that exact same combo, and the picture was if anything, usable. I swapped the lens to a Fujinion with a higher apperture setting and the picture quality was much better, plus to me, the tamron IR lens line is over rated. I have 16 lenses with toshibas 64dna cameras on a job that I did last year, and to be honest, I wasn't that impressed.

There ar so many ANPR (plate recognition systems) on this side of the pond, that some surveillance specialist companies won't even look at the application anymore. It's just so common and .... getting so much cheaper everyday.

 

In fact, there is an ongoing project to link all the countries highway agency cameras into the first national ANPR system, which is due to go live within months. This will in theory ( ) allow the police to track any vehicle anywhere in the U.K.

 

Daedalus, it may be worth researching the software package first, to see what fits the bill for you, and then look at the imaging part in relation to each location (your Law Enforcement colleagues around the country, may also be able to point you in the right direction ... including any Homeland Security grants that may be available).

 

Without wishing to state the obvious, there are literally hundreds of cameras that could successfully be configured for plate recognition, and it really doesn't have to cost a fortune to do the job right.

OK some people need to stop drinking before posting on this site like the Master and Queen above and I can't believe Rory didn't get this but Bosch doesn't do Ultra View, GE does, Bosch has the Dinion. I do agree Tamron's IR lens are not very good as I have had alot of complaints. In Fact one of my good customers tried Tamron, Computar and of coarse some cheapo's first and then I sent him a Rainbow lens and he will never go back he says, although I have some customers who love computar and tamron. Security Master, I have had alot of problems with Toshibas IK64DNA and the 65WDA not being very good for the price.

I thought Bosch maybe was using a kalatel Product again ..