WEBCAM Programs for HS

[HomeTech]

I hope i put this in the correct forum. I am looking for some recommendations for the best way to display camera video with HS. I have a win2K 3.2 P4 /1gig mem USB & Firewire running HS & Hi-phone.
I would like to have 4 to 6 Cameras displayed on a page that I can see from work and also have them trigred with motion or changes to email me. So what is the best way to do this with a plugin or seperate app? Is there a hardware box that could take 6 video inputs and then USB it to HS server? I ask because it is a little tough for me to get all the video cables to the HS computer. Let me know Thanks

[Ranger02]

Good question.

I am also about to try to incorporate video and would like to hear any advice people have.

I am unsure if I should use video cameras or IP based network cameras.

[Rick Tinker]

You hit the nail on the head on the first decision to make - you can go with IP cameras and find cameras where you can integrate the images into one web page served by HomeSeer (ASP page) and that also has the email capability you want, or you can go with a camera where the output somehow gets to a video capture board on the HomeSeer computer and use the WebCam plug-in.

If you can get the video sources to the HomeSeer computer, then the WebCam plug-in will allow the other things that hometech asked for.

Some people use the X-10 cameras and the WebCam plug-in does have the ability to turn a device on/off during a capture, so it is possible to set up an event that turns on a particular camera, takes a picture, and then turns it off. Rotating through the cameras like this during the day will insure a web page that has the latest images available to it. Using this method will not, however, allow for motion detection because the video source needs to be monitored constantly to do that, and with 4 cameras that means 4 different video inputs.

I hope some other people's experience with this will help out - I have used the plug-in with an inexpensive USB WebCam and a few models of ATI capture/TV Tuner boards (which work fine if you don't mind going through heck trying to get the right drivers loaded for it).

[HomeTech]

Thanks Rick for the feed back. There is a lot tp pick from. Question on your USB cam does it happen to be a Logitec I was wondering because I do have a few of them altough I dont thing the image quilty is to good. I would try them out with the plug in if some one has gotton them to work. also is there a trial ver of the plugin I think it is called webcam? any one else with feed back please chime in thanks.

[Rick Tinker]

The USB camera actually says "WebCam" on the box and I got it from Best Buy. The camera has "Labtec" stamped on it, but sure enough it is a Logitech Quickcam Express. Yes, the image quality is not the greatest, but it is darn good for $20!

All of the plug-ins and scripts available through the updater have a 20-40 day trial period. When you click on the package name in the updater, not the "Trial Code" area on the updater - it will show a trial code that you can write down to enter after installing the plug-in or script and it asks for a code. If you have already tried the plug-in or script or have a fully registered version, it will not display a code.