IP cameras seem to be all the rage for home monitoring (as opposed to 'boxed' recording solutions with their own protocols, etc). I'm considering putting some in after a recent break-in, but there's a possibly significant cost and time component involved.
Does HN have any firsthand experience with them in the long term, specifically with regards to:
1] Usefulness (have they helped prevent something bad?)
2] Quality (could the cops use a pic pulled off the camera?)
3] Hackability (do they expose an API of some kind so that I can set up triggers, actions, etc?)
4] Robustness (obviously dependent on setup, but how do they cope with power outages, data outages, etc?)
5] Autonomy (do I need to hook them up to a small server, or does it have a reasonably amount of capability build-in?)
The above would differ from brand to brand, so if anybody has had good success with a particular brand/model, feel free to post :)
Analog security cameras are standard definition or worse after DVR compression, but you can get a DVR + cameras in a box for a few hundred dollars. It might be worth it just to learn what you really need and want.
Just like you can't recognize someone from a convenience store security camera, your IP cameras won't be any better unless they're HD.
Ideally, you'd have 720p or 1080p video cameras as well as still cameras capturing at a high megapixel resolution, both interior and exterior.