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John was on a business trip in Europe, when his cell phone rang. He picked it up and there was a text message that read 'motion has been detected at your home on camera #2'.

No one was supposed to be in his house while he was away, so this could only mean one thing, 'someone has broken in'.

John immediately logged on to the Internet and in less than 2 minutes he was watching a stranger rummaging through his house. By comparison, the 10 minutes it took him to contact his hometown police department seemed pitifully slow.

'Yeah' John said 'I'm watching the guy on my surveillance cameras right now, you can still catch him if you hurry'

A few minutes later the police arrived at Johns house and caught the thief just as he was leaving with a bag full of Johns stuff.

John thought to himself, 'this surveillance software has just paid for itself, unlike my neighbors alarm system that calls the police every time his cat triggers a sensor'.

Home security and surveillance can be an indispensable tool for keeping an eye on things while your not there. Video surveillance software allows you to use your home computer monitor as your viewing platform, and involves minimal set up using inexpensive software to connect your security cameras with a home network.

Applications can include doorway or gate security, grounds surveillance, or you can even view a hidden nanny cam right from a computer monitor inside your home. Or by logging in through the Internet to view your surveillance cameras, you can view what your security cameras see from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.

In the past, it was quite expensive to maintain and implement such security systems because they were tied to expensive recorders and other fancy hardware components. CCTV Systems and other high-tech surveillance systems can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to many thousands of dollars. But now, you can turn your computer into a powerful surveillance system at a fraction of a regular security system cost.

These surveillance software packages have no monthly fees, which means that for a small one-time cost you can have remote video surveillance for a lifetime.

Most of these software surveillance systems are easy and quick to setup and require only a very basic knowledge of networking. Some of them only require you to place the CD in your computers CD drive, and the software will walk you through the process in about 5 or 10 minutes.

These surveillance software packages can be used with wired or wireless security cameras. A high quality video stream will be viewable from a computer within your home, or from anywhere with an Internet connection. One such software package that I have discovered is the Visec security software. For around $100, you can install, set up, and immediately start viewing up to four surveillance cameras, remotely, from anywhere in the world.

Using your computer's IP address to log on, you can view live or past video, and many of these software packages even allow for a 'motion detection mode' which will record video activity just when motion is detected.

They can even be set up to alert you by email, cell phone or PDA when motion is detected.

While these streaming surveillance videos can be viewed with a dial up connection, a High Speed Cable or DSL Internet connection is recommended. The use of a dial-up modem will tend to give you a choppy video due to the slow bandwidth speed of the connection, whereas a high-speed Internet connection will allow for a much smoother real-time video.