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You'll have a hard time finding a member of the political or celebrity elite who doesn't have his own team of specialists monitoring his gates and home video surveillance system at all hours (not to mention his bodyguard, who ensures that any trip past the perimeter of his private estate is as safe as humanly possible).

The sad truth for the rest of us is that people are expensive commodities and, since Abe Lincoln had his way with the constitution, not something you can purchase once off. Machines, on the other hand, well, you can rely on your dishwasher to keep washing those dishes until one of the parts gives or the power cuts out. Built-in obsolescence aside, technology will work for you forever. Now, a well-designed, fully-integrated home security surveillance system certainly won't be able to protect you from intruders - but a wailing alarm siren coupled with the fear of being identified on camera will do a lot to scare would-be burglars away.

Of course, in order to record high-quality footage for days or weeks at a time, you'd need an extremely powerful computer system capable of storing terabyte upon terabyte of information. Many people do just this, purchasing expensive Hybrid Digital Video Recorders (HDVRs) that record multiple camera feeds at once. Other people subscribe to online storage clusters, to which data is wireless transmitted as it's recorded, ensuring that there's no possibility of intruders tampering with recorded home security surveillance footage. Both these solutions use a system of looped recording that copies over footage a few days or a week after it's recorded, ensuring your data pool doesn't become unreasonably large.

On the other hand, you could just use PIR motion detectors to regulate the active recording done by your home security surveillance cameras. PIR motion detectors require negligible quantities of electricity and need zero storage space insofar as data usage is concerned. Your can rig (or have a professional rig) your PIR motion detectors so as to activate your home security surveillance system, thus eliminating the need for recording when there's nothing going on in front of the cameras. These nifty little devices cover a cone-shaped area in front of them., and are set off by any significant change in the heat of that area. In other words, if a person moves across the visual field of a PIR detector used to detecting the thermographic radiation of couch or a wall, the device will perceive that change as motion, setting the siren sounding and bringing your cameras to life for a specified period after the last detected movement or change in the observed regions.

All you need to do for an efficient home video surveillance system is to have your PIR motion detector rigged to activate the recording function of your cameras, and BAM - your information storage costs just dropped to negligible levels. Your system will now record only when it has to, for a fixed period. It's possible to make such a system even more effective, if you're willing to shell out some cash for panning, tilting and zooming (PTZ) cameras. These are capable of tracking motion, shifting to follow the actions of intruders. If that's too expensive, you can get motion-activated dummy PTZ cameras, which could do a lot to scare off thieves before they even enter the premises.

One can make a fully functional home security surveillance system using the most advanced technology, or the most basic, bargain-bin level materials. If you're deliberating as to what components to use, decide first if you'd be able to do the job as a DIY project. While this might take up some time, it could significantly cut down on your setup costs. Be sure to research the subject thoroughly before you make your decision - if you're in doubt, your best move would likely be to subscribe to a good neighborhood watch or security agency, along the lines of ADT or Chubb. Such agencies, if you can afford them, will offer you the peace of mind inherent in having armed force to call on when your house is under siege.