Here's Looking At You

I wanted some CCTV cameras for the house due to some recent burglaries in the area and so purchased one, a Dahua 1080P, as a tester from an eBay seller. Well, to be brutally honest, I wanted to play with boys' toys too. Received it last week, fully expecting to be able to connect it quite easily to the new TV. You guessed it - couldn't do it.

For a start the CCTV camera has a BNC video connection, it's analogue, whereas there's no BNC socket on the fully digital TV. "OK," I thought, "there must be a converter." No - everyone I asked said I had to buy a DVR, or Digital Video Recorder. If the DVR can convert the signal from analogue to digital, why the hell can't you get a small adapter that performs the same function, but without the recording gubbins?

Anyway, I duly purchased a cheap Sannce 8 channel DVR without a hard drive for £38 - I can always fit a hard drive for recording at a later stage - and received it today. managed to bollocks my way through the installation procedure without the aid of the Chinglish instruction manual, connected the DVR to the router, downloaded the remote App, entered a few codes and - Bingo!

I can now see the living room from anywhere in the world. The above still photo was taken in Chipping Sodbury High St using 4G. Doesn't use much in the way of data either.

The main problem thus far is that the image is in black and white. I'm sure there's a colour facility, but I'll have to muddle through the camera instruction manual to find the relative setting. It also has a motion detector that sends you an email if it detects someone moving around.

I'll have to play with the setup a bit more, but on the strength of the trial I'll probably be ordering another 3 CCTV cameras in the near future; however, I've since learned that you can get IP TV cameras that don't need to go through a DVR, so the system would be fully digital (with the exception of the one already purchased). Think I'll also plump for Wi-Fi transmission to eliminate all the cabling. You can even get ones with batteries to eliminate all cabling completely, and even solar powered ones.

Had to order a shed-load more HDMI cables and USB lead plugs - the area behind the telly is a veritable rat's nest of cables at present, what with 2 routers, the TV, the Sky box, the DVR and a Bose speaker, not to mention the 5V power supplies for all the converters and adaptors. Didn't have half as many cables with the old telly, yet I had the same number of appliances.