Do-it-yourself CCTV

Hi all --
I have been partially sighted due to RP for a number of years and am now at the point where I need to buy a CCTV because normal size print is just out of the question.
I'm considering the SmartView Graduate. If you're not familiar with it, it is simply a camera on a stand, and it hooks up to your computer for display. I really like this, as it doesn't require its own dedicated monitor and it's very portable.
But here's my problem. The camera has a resolution of 640x480 pixels, which produces a noticeably blurry image when displayed on my 24" monitor (maybe I'm just not blind enough yet, ha ha). Considering that the system sells for a retail price of about $2300, I would've expected better resolution than 640x480.
Interestingly, I see that consumer grade HD camcorders with a resolution of 1024x720 are readily available at Best Buy for under $200. This started me thinking about how I might be able to make my own high resolution CCTV. I figure there are basically four components: the software to display the image, the stand to hold the camcorder, the camcorder itself, and the optical system.
The software component is not an issue. I'm a professional software developer and can slap this together easily. For the stand, there should be some kind of off the shelf solution. I don't think I would need to make my own. The camcorder can also easily be purchased off the shelf. This leaves the optics as the last component. It's likely that a consumer grade camcorder simply lacks the optics required to make it useful as a CCTV. So I might need to purchase a higher-end camcorder or at least one with a swappable lens system.
It seems like I ought to be able to do this for a total out of pocket cost under $500, and the real cost would be my own time spent writing the software, debugging, and optimizing the system.
So that's a summary of my limited thinking about this project so far. Has anyone attempted something like this? We're all programmers here, so maybe someone else has some ideas about how to make this work? Or am I nuts and I should just shell out the $2300? 

Thanks,
   -Paul

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