jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Apr 9 12:02:11 CDT 2010
I bought four little USB no name webcams from Newegg the other day. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826717012R http://www.imcorpusa.com/products.asp?id=486 I took a chance just because of the price, I ended up paying $10 each shipped to my door. What peaked my interest is that they are an actual 1280 x 1024 sensor. Getting more than 640 x 480 is tough and usually very expensive. Thus I figure if they worked I win. They work! Windows Vista eventually figures out how to load a driver for them. I say eventually because it takes a good minute before the message pops up. Once that happens I can use them in any application that needs a camera, and the resolution and picture quality is just outstanding! For example, once the driver loads, Skype picks them right up and uses them at max resolution. GREAT picture!. So what I really want to do is experiment with them and use C# to read them and display them. Between now and then, does anyone have a favorite "surveillance" software that isn't too expensive that would allow me to connect these to machines around the house and record video? Movement triggered etc. I have a system in the living room that sits under the TV that I would like to put one of these on just to be able to record a burst of a few seconds when it senses movement. Then wait for no movement before resetting to record another burst. Kind of a poor man's (that would be me) surveillance camera. I actually went looking, found and downloaded a half dozen packages last night. Some worked, all were klunky if they worked. There are a bunch that are designed to publish the video to a web system so that I could see them from outside the house "when I travel", but I don't travel so I really just need them to snap a few seconds every once in a while when there is movement. And someday play with them in C#. -- John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com