Who knows video cameras?

We want to set up a "better than closed circuit" quality, low (or no) maintenance video feed from our church worship spaces to a flat screen TV in the church nursery. The idea is so that anyone, parents or nursery workers, can see and hear what is happening during worship. Even if they are too busy to pay much attention, they can easily see when the service is almost over (and hopefully still get something out of it).

Anyway, finding TV's is obviously easy, and finding video transmitters to wirelessly connect the cameras to the TV's is still pretty easy. But there are 1001 kinds and variations of cameras out there. Some of the closed circuit cameras are actually of pretty good quality and have the benefit of being pretty small and unobtrusive so they can blend in on a back wall. But are they good enough? Do I want something more like a digital home video camera? Which of those would have the outputs that I would need to connect to the transmitters?

Ideally, since our two worship services are not in the same room, it would be sweet if we could set things up so that "channel 3" was one room and "Channel 4" was the other. Or something like that.

I think that this is all possible, but I'm just not sure about choosing cameras.

Has anyone done anything like this?

I had a similar Thread awhile back, and while it was more directed at Security than simple Passive Observation, I'm sure you'll find some useful Information in it, and get an Idea of what's available.
Let me go find it, BRB.

Here ya' go. https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?61353-Recommend-Me-A-Surveilance-DVR-System

https://www.marshall-usa.com/ is a company with a lot of different camera options. The simplest to set up would be an IP camera system through a LAN if you have one in your church. It is not all that cheap, but you simply plug everything into you LAN and you can configure it any way you want. You can even have two way conversations.

Bob

You may find it convenient to have this set up as a security system, so that you can defray some of the expense through insurance premiums reduction. Certainly, you could make a case why this would be both a deterent, and also help security, if those closed circuit cameras were available in the church office.

Kirk G said:

You may find it convenient to have this set up as a security system, so that you can defray some of the expense through insurance premiums reduction. Certainly, you could make a case why this would be both a deterent, and also help security, if those closed circuit cameras were available in the church office.

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That would present a whole other set of problems. We have security cameras on the building exterior with the DVR and monitor in the church office. What I have in mind would be a two camera system, specifically for the benefit of anyone needing to use the nursery. The nursery is on the second floor and so is one of the two worship spaces. But that does lead me back to one of my questions.

Are security cameras good enough to look good on a decent sized flat screen TV?

Are security cameras good enough to look good on a decent sized flat screen TV?

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I'm no expert, but I have seen several camera setups that look decent displayed individually on a TV monitor. I think the grainy "security camera" look comes from the way that most people configure the RECORDING at a certain resolution in order to save storage space.

My Lorex Security Cameras have excellent Resolution and I would gladly view them on a Flat Screen TV instead of the Flat Screen Monitor anyday. I don't sit there watching it though, so it would be hard to justify buying another TV for just that.

bobkrech said:

https://www.marshall-usa.com/ is a company with a lot of different camera options. The simplest to set up would be an IP camera system through a LAN if you have one in your church. It is not all that cheap, but you simply plug everything into you LAN and you can configure it any way you want. You can even have two way conversations.

Bob

Click to expand...

if your goal is to display the camera on a tv, an ip camera is not the way to go.

regular video cameras with analog or hdmi outputs will be much easier to interface with the tv.

does it need to be wireless?

monoprice has some decent analog security cameras that aren't too expensive. I'm not suggesting only looking at security cameras, but they are designed to be bolted to a wall or ceiling and run power and video cables to. ebay is full of security cameras, too.

but a couple of go pros or hd camcorders could work just as well and will have a higher resolution. they just might be more difficult to power.

as far as seeing two cameras on channels 3 and 4, that will require a modulator or two. you might be better off just using two different inputs on the tv to switch between the cameras. less equipment, expense, etc.