Sunday, May 19, 2013

Can you really be 'caught' on recorded surveillance camera footage?

Q. If cameras weren't supervised live, only recorded. And you find out that some inventory was missing, say $1000's worth. Would it make since to hire someone to go back and review the recordings? For example, you hire someone at $10/hr, to check out 3 month's worth of video. 3 Month's worth is about (12 hr days x 6 cameras x 7 days a week x 4 weeks x 3 months = ) 6048hrs worth of footage. Let's say that the footage is viewed 4x speed, that would still leave 1512 hrs of tapes to observe, that's 1512hrs x $10/hr = $15,120. Even half of that would be $7560! With this in mind, would it make since for a retailer to investigate their loss? Because at places like Best Buy, Costco, and Sam's Club, your receipt will get checked - which in my opinion is the most effective and economical theft deterent. At other places like the newly understaffed Circuit City only seems to be some employees, recording cameras, and an unguarded door, which I think is a haven for crooks. Your thoughts?

A. If the film is digital, then a computer can analyse the recordings. There are several ways to do this.

What you are looking for is when the inventory in question gets moved by anyone. You are not interested in people walking past the inventory, or taking inventory other than what is missing.

One computer program can compare one frame to the next frame ... if identical, because no one there, and nothing moved, then you are not interested ... only when one frame is different from the next, are you interested ... the computer copies what changed, to another tape ... now what needs human review is dramatically reduced, puls you have highlighted human actions only with the missing inventory.

With this and other techniques the computer can fast forward at 100x speed through the parts of the footage where nothing relevant happening.

This leaves you footage where people moved the inventory in question, in which some of it may have been legitimate ... maybe there was $ 4,500.00 worth of inventory with $ 1,000.00 missing meaning that $ 3,500.00 was legally moved.

There's all kinds of crooked possibilities.

Customers come into a store ... they see one product with price tag of $ 50.00 & another with price tag of $ 40.00, they switch tags & buy the $ 50.00 item for $ 40.00 ... the more similar the products appear to be, the more difficult it is to detect this.

The poster about the gas station reminds me ... the gas station convenience store people are constantly changing the prices on the pumps. Some customers have figured out how to do this ... they drive up to the pump, the price is $ 3.50 a gallon ... they fiddle with the dials ... the price is nos $ 1.50 a gallon ... they buy 10 gallons at that price. A string of other people buy at that price. No one tells the store keeper that there's a bargain here.

Some of the biggest financial crimes have been by sub contractors ... the retail store gets some other company to come in to take inventory, or do an audit, or install some cameras, or whatever, and the other company has employees with sticky fingers, or who are careless about computer security.

There was a union at one of these places, whose membership knew how the retailer ordered inventory, and they found a way to cause the retailer inventory records to get erased. They did this at the same time as going out on strike.

It would be inappropriate in this forum to spell out in detail how the various crimes can be done & how to deter them, because then some crooks might get ideas they do not already have.

You can be sure that the major retail stores have people working for them whose job it is to figure out economical ways to fight insider crime, but we can tell from the news, such as computer breaches, that many of these places are a bit unconcerned about security when it is their customers being ripped off by identity theft.


what kind of slr camera is there where it can record videos?
Q. i am looking for a slr camera that not only can take a picture, but also video.
with a decent price.
please help me out and thank you.
any advice is welcome

A. There are a number of good brands so don't be sold on the idea one brand is better than another. I would keep your costs down. I would get a DSLR with a short zoom (like a 18-55mm) to start for around $550 to $1100. Either a 12MP or 15MP will do just fine.

Below, I listed some links where you can look up reviews and see what camera works best for you.

The first link listed below is to a web page that lists the 4 DSLR cameras I am recommending you compare. This list will let you compare features and specs, also it has links to reviews of the cameras, the reviews include sample images from the cameras.

Also I included some links to some dealers so that you can try and get the best price. Some of these dealers are including some nice extras, free shipping is very common, and sometimes they are offering a free memory card and/or camera bag. Sometimes you have to click in the “add to cart” button to see the actual price.

Here are some models that I think are well worth researching with estimated prices:

Nikon D5000 12MP DSLR Digital Camera w/18-55mm VR Lens - $649
Nikon D90 12MP DSLR Digital Camera w/18-105mm VR Lens - $1089
Canon EOS Rebel T1i (500D) 15MP DSLR w/EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens - $769
Pentax K-x 12MP DSLR with 18-55mm Zoom lens - $550

Of a quick side note: I am a Nikon user, but think all three cameras are excellent. I like that the Nikon D5000 has the movable LCD screen, that would seem to be valuable in doing video. I am very intrigued by the Pentax K-x partly because it does HD video but also because of how impressive it seems to work at high ISO settings which can be great help in low light situations (see the photo.net link below). Do some research, I would ask some questions in the discussion forums at photo.net where photographers can share their experiences and samples of their work. I think the Pentax could be a good option given the quality and price point.

Hope this helps. Pick a price range, some features you know you want, and even consider which camera feels good in your hand a factor. Plenty of great cameras, get one you like and start learning the principles of photography and you will be on your way to making some great images. If you think I can be of any help, please to do contact me.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Mark

marksablow.com


On Insignia digital camera, model # NS-DSC10A, how do you switch from camera mode to video mode?
Q. How do I get the camera into video recording mode?

A. Whenever I have a question/problem such as yours, I read the user's guide
(aka "the manual").
It is amazing just how much I always learn from that.

If that doesn't help (or if I'm interested in a product I don't own), I check the manufacturer's website.
They have descriptions and specs for their gadgets, often have user forums, and the decent manufacturers all let you download the manuals in electronic form (so losing the book is no longer a problem).
Getting the PDF is also useful for those times where the printed book is rather small and useless - the PDFs often have more detailed information.

99% of the time reading the instructions does the trick.





Powered by Yahoo! Answers

No comments:

Post a Comment