How much does a video surveillance system cost for ADT or Brinks?

Question on making home surveillance system?

• I bought a camera for surveillance. But now i need to know how to actually record the video and capture it. I have looked at dvr's with hard dives in them but they cost quite a lot. I don't mind using vhs tapes but i don't know anything about timelapse vhs. so i need help please! what do i buy?

• Answer:

  A normal video has 30 frames per second (fps) of video . Maining that 30 individual pictures make up a single second of normal video. THis mean that each picture was taken in 1/30th of a second. In time lapse pictures are taken with munch more time in between sucessive photos but they are still shown at the 30 fps speed of a normal video . So if you took 30 pictures 1 minute apart and made a 30fps video you would have 1 second of video that shows 30 minutes of elapsed time. THe higher the frame rate the smoother the resulting video. You can slow the fps down to 15 before you will start to notice a flicker in the video. With old VHS technology the tape machine does nothin more than record a brief second of video onto the tape at some defined interval that can range from a second to several minutes. How long the tape lasts depends upon how quick that interval is. When making a time lapse the camera is locked down so it doesn't move. You can take a series of still pictures with a camera or webCam and then compile the series of pictures into a video with software. Other types of software skip the step of recording individual pictures and instead insert the picture directly into a video file. Using seperate pictures at a high frame rate for playback results in a very smooth video it also lends its self well to customization of teh play back by editing individual pictures or changing the frame rate for the paly back. A direct entry timelapse doesn't offer this flexibility. Such concers would only matter if the video is to be used for presentation. THe video in the link below uses both techniques. Can you spot the difference? If you use a newer digital system a picture is taken at an interval and inserted into a movie file