Consumer Webcams With High-Quality Sensors?

xmas2003 writes "Since 2005, I've had a live webcam watching my grass grow — another is currently watching a bird nest on my front door — five babies! While I appreciate the 802.11g wireless and Pan/Tilt/Zoom (10x optical) of the five-year-old D-Link DCS-6620g, it has issues, especially image quality. I've investigated getting a new webcam, but except for high-end/security-related gear from companies such as Axis, there doesn't seem to be much improvement in the consumer space, as most offerings are just cheaper and USB-connected for tethered video conferencing, etc." So where, the reader wants to know, are the high-quality, reasonably affordable webcams? (Read on below.) "I have an 18 Megapixel Canon 7D DSLR that shoots gorgeous 1920x1080x30p hi-def video. While I don't expect that in a consumer webcam, their recently released T2i uses the same chip and sells for $800. And heck, point-n-shoots are a couple of hundred bucks, and now many cell phones have cameras built in, so there're plenty of low-power, speedy CPUs in small packages these days to handle the signal processing. So why hasn't someone taken a sensor with good image quality, downsized to around 1024x768, and put it in a PTZ webcam package with 802.11n wireless for around $500?" Even if it's not that exact combination, what are the best options going these days for high-resolution webcams?

Comments

Great question

[jgreco]

Especially with the advances in storage technology, it would seem like higher resolution for security purposes could sometimes be handy, certainly enough to justify paying at least a modest premium over 10-year-old technology.

Re:Great question

[MoonBuggy]

As with so many things, it's easier and safer for the companies to keep pumping out the same old products. Any innovations that do come about are pushed straight to the uber-niche end of the market where an extra few hundred dollars doesn't matter.

Luckily (and a little unusually), however, there are two pretty simple DIY option in this case. The first is to get a point-and-shoot for $200, load a custom firmware (I know some Canon models are particularly good for this) and write a quick script to take a shot every 'x' seconds, then throw in an Eye-Fi SD card to grab the pictures wirelessly. I haven't used an Eye-Fi card myself, so I don't know what happens when it gets full - maybe add another script in the camera to wipe the card every day or something.

The second is to get a firewire camera. No wireless on this option, but many consumer camcorders support firewire for control, not just for data transfer - I was using these years ago as extra high quality options for video conferencing, but I see no reason that they couldn't be rigged up for stills too.

Re:Great question

[spacey]

From what I remember, the eye-fi doesn't delete content locally, it just uploads. so you'd have to play around with some way of having the modified firmware delete the oldest N photos or something.

Ahh... it seems that the newest cards will auto-delete: http://www.dpreview.com/news/1001/10010501eyefiprox2.asp

-Peter

Re:Great question

[MoonBuggy]

Most cameras in that class could take maybe a few hundred non-flash images (and the Eye-Fi is probably going to cut into that BIG TIME) and can't take external power supplies easily.

It might limit your choice of cameras slightly, but there are actually plenty of point-and-shoots that can run from AC adapters. The prefix that Canon uses for the kits is 'ACK'.

Re:Great question

[theheadlessrabbit]

The battery for the Canon SD1100 is pretty good, it can go for about 1200 no-flash shots with the display turned off, (and thats with the cheap dealextreme knock-off batteries) but the highest rate i can get for timelapse is about 1 shot every 4 seconds-and thats without a break to transmit the image to a computer.
The Canon point and shoots I've worked with all have an option for an external power supply, but its a hard to find proprietary adaptor that is way too expensive (can cost about as much as the camera itself)
The cover for the battery compartment should have a tiny hole with a cover (a door-within-a-door) The power adaptor is shaped like a battery which goes into the camera, and the wire goes through that little hole in the battery cover, and into the wall.

That would be a fine solution (about $500 for camera, plug, and wireless SD card) for high quality (well beyond 1080p) stop-motion or timelapse footage, but I don't know if CHDK +Eye-Fi cards would work with continuous streaming video. At the highest quality, your 2 GB card only holds 17 minutes of 640X480 30p video.
You MIGHT be able to write a script to record video in 5 minute chunks, send, erase, record, etc. I'm not sure. I've only worked with BASIC scripts, more might be possible scripting in Lua. that might be better than timelapse, but it would still be intermittent video with long breaks between each scene.

Re:Great question

[Miamicanes]

Having just had my house broken into ~2 weeks ago and spending most of the past two weeks researching good-but-affordable security cams as a result, here's a bit of what I learned (and bought):

The best-yet-cheap hi-res IP camera I've found is the Compro IP70 (available in the US from Directron, widely available elsewhere in the English-speaking world and a big chunk of Europe).

* The good: 1280x1024 resolution and 1/3" CMOS sensor, awesome low-light performance, onboard microSD card for persistent storage of snapshots triggered by motion or inputs. Dual codecs, so you can have it simultaneously grabbing 1280x1024@15fps for snapshots or web viewing, as well as 320x240 or 640x480 (among others) for viewing on your Android phone/iPhone/other phone. It explicitly supports MJPEG, h.264, and MPEG-4, plus 3GPP (apparently, this means it might work on Java ME MIDP phones and Symbian).

* The bad: mediocre room-light performance with color that's utterly dire if you have the IR activated, and once an event triggers a snapshot (that can be saved to SD, FTP'ed, and/or emailed), it can't take the next pic for ~4 seconds.

* The mitigating: telnet ${ip} to get a real, honest to god root shell complete with busybox. Very little public documentation, but looks almost shockingly straightforward to figure out what's going on, and maybe even replace the onboard apps with my own. According to 'top', the camera has at least 50-100mb free ram running normally, so implementing a burstmode that can grab a bunch of shots to ram once triggered, then upload/save them to persistent storage later shouldn't be too hard. One big tip if you get this cam: "low light" mode != "IR mode" -- low light mode cuts the framerate to interpolate more gray and average out the noise. The problem is, it utterly ruins the camera's ability to take meaningful event-triggered snapshots. So, if I could request just one improvement to it, it would be, "implement a burst mode whereby the camera will (optionally) take 1-4 pics immediately, turn off low-light mode, then take 1-N pics... saving them to a ramdrive, with another daemon pushing them to persistent storage in the background. If nothing else, this camera has serious potential as a fun embedded linux box with onboard USB (the optional wifi is USB), two isolated inputs, and one isolated output, plus 10/100 ethernet. I bought one so far.

* Other details: it's not PTZ, and it's not weatherproof. It's also pretty huge (~5" x 5" viewed head on), so think twice before planning to stick it somewhere aesthetically obvious in your house.

The IP70 has a baby brother with the same resolution, but without the IR called the IP60 for about $40 less (also available at Directron). I haven't used it, I'm just mentioning it to be complete. Officially it has no IR capabilities, but to some extent just about all CMOS cameras seem to be at least slightly IR-sensitive.

For cheap PTZ Linux-based fun, you can't beat the Foscam FI8908W. Their official US distributor is foscam.us, and they're readily available for less than a hundred bucks on eBay (a non-wireless variant exists; it's rare, but about $10 less). Just be careful and make sure the seller LITERALLY specifies "Foscam FI8908W", as opposed to "Foscam-Type" or just shows a pic. There are a LOT of fakes on eBay. I haven't seen them side by side, but from what I understand, the fakes are basically the same camera body and electronics, bought from the same ODM, but have different firmware, and apparently tend to ship with visibly lower-quality lenses. Apparently, some can be reflashed with Foscam firmware, some will get bricked if you do.

Foscam cameras only do 640x480@30fps with MJPEG, but they make up for it by being one of the only cheap IP cameras that doesn't need Internet Explorer to work. They're also very hackable, with several individuals who've made lots of public progress documenting their hardware, bootloaders, and onboard i/o ports (they support 1 in and 1 out, plus JTAG and a few other ports as well. I'm pretty sure I reme

Re:Great question

[Miamicanes]

I forgot to mention -- don't put ANY of these cameras anyplace where you wouldn't mind being viewed by members of the internet-using public unless they're sitting behind a bastion-host firewall/proxy and/or you have a way to physically power them down when you're at home, because their security is largely ceremonial, and trivially easy to bypass if you know what you're doing.

My own setup: my new cameras sit on their own network. The cameras are all powered through X-10 appliance modules, and connect to their own wireless router/access point (itself plugged into an X-10 appliance module). When my security system (Elk M1G) goes into 'away' mode, it cycles through them all twice and sends their 'on' codes once per cycle. When my security system gets disarmed (and hasn't been set off), it sends the 'all off' code to power them down. For now, the second access point is connected via UTP to my main router, with the relevant ports forwarded and double NAT, but at some point over the next few weeks, I'm going to repurpose an old laptop with Debian and use it as both a persistent storage drive and bastion host firewall/proxy (so there will literally be no way to connect directly the cameras from the internet, and so I can use SSL). I'm not thrilled about the wifi security, but it's mitigated by the fact that they're only physically powered up when I'm not at home.

Re:Great question

[Miamicanes]

While I'm at it, I might as well share the rest of my notes from the past few days...

A lot of info about Foscam's cameras in general, by a blogger whose postings about it became quite popular:

http://www.gadgetvictims.com/2009/06/foscam-wireless-pan-tilt-ip-camera.html

http://www.gadgetvictims.com/2009/07/foscam-ip-camera-part-two.html

Info about hacking Foscam cameras. The last time I checked, they'd figured out how the bootloader worked, and were working on getting its Linux distro to run under an emulator to make experimentation easier:

http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/category/ip-cam

http://irishjesus.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/hacking-the-foscam-fi8908w

http://www.makehackvoid.com/computers/hacking-foscam-fi8903w-linux-based-ip-camera

Foscam's CGI-based web API (for integrating its video into your own app). It's far from perfect, but it's several orders of magnitude better than anything I've seen from companies like D-Link, Linksys, etc. In any case, it beats trying to reverse-engineer what some buggy ActiveX plugin is doing by sniffing the traffic with Wireshark. For comparison, my old PTZ camera is a D-Link DCS5300-W. Its bundled software was quite dire compared to the software that came with my new Compro IP70 and my Foscam FI8988W cameras, and the only thing the D-Link camera has a straightforward means of doing is grabbing a single 320x240 pic (no way to grab 640x480 from it), and I spent HOURS hunting for the elusive URL online.

http://www.drivehq.com/file/df.aspx/publish/bubbah/PublicFolder/IPCAMCGISDKV1.7.pdf

If you have an Android phone, there's one app I know of for viewing many IP cameras: IP Cam Viewer by Robert Chou. Search for it in Android Market (I think it can also be downloaded directly if you're in a country without access to Android Market).

There are also lots of low-cost thirdparty IP camera apps -- viewers, spoolers, etc. Don't be afraid to ditch the app(s) that came with your camera(s), especially if it has a known public API and/or implements known standards.

If you're planning more than a half-dozen cameras (especially if you can easily run new wires for them), you might be better off with a proper security DVR -- you'll be able to use smaller cameras, and pay about half as much for them.

The cheapest web-accessible host I've found is the Aviosys 9100A (roughly 85 bucks online, including from Amazon). It can host 4 cameras and one mic. HOWEVER, I believe it multiplexes them, so you can only watch one at a time. However, I think it can iterate through your cameras, capture a frame from each, and show them all at once in a single grid if you'd like. In any case, if you're looking for a quick & dirty way to get 4 conventional cameras online, this is probably your best bet. If it had an onboard (micro/mini)SD slot, I probably would have bought one of these, too.

Aviosys also has some interesting "Kameras" that do high-res (like the Compro IP60/IP70), but were more expensive and seemed to do a bit less than Compro's. Still, they might be worth investigating, too.

For small, cheap, and cute, the prize goes to the "IP510" camera (sold online under lots of different names and model numbers... IP-510 from buy.com, IP-400 from dealextreme.com). Alex Kuklin has some good info about it on his blog (kuklin.ru), including the

Re:Great question

[Miamicanes]

^^^ Argh. Memo to self: never use the back-arrow when actively posting to Slashdot. It'll repost the same comment you made earlier under whatever comment you happen to be viewing at the time :(

Re:Great question

[Miamicanes]

I'm a step ahead of you. I already have switches on the doors and windows. They didn't work in this case because the burglar smashed a 4x8 sliding glass door (tempered glass) instead. The sensor on the broken door didn't trigger, because the magnet was glued to the door, and the switch was glued to the frame -- neither of which moved. I have glassbreak, shock, and motion sensors in the room... but all three were disabled because my cats, loud motorcycles, and cars playing loud bass music while driving by kept triggering them (motion detectors are notoriously difficult to use in homes with cats, because "pet-safe" detectors are really "dog-safe" (dogs don't climb and jump the way cats do). Ergo, I reworked a few things. The disabled sensors still don't trigger an alarm, but they DO turn on all the X10-controllable lights in the house and call me on the phone to alert me when they're set off. At that point, I can check the cameras, and manually trigger the alarm from my phone if I want to.

I also bought a few USP 60lb+ pressure mats to put on selected stair treads. I figure that one way or another, a burglar IS going to go upstairs... and to be honest, *I* barely know which steps have sensors, and which don't, so I doubt they'll be able to guess, either. Just to be extra clever, I bought a bunch of 99c floor mats from Ikea, cut them down to be the same size as the pressure mats, and put one or the other under EVERY step, and ran wire from all of them into a thick bundle to the alarm panel (I had plenty of wire), so even if the burglar spots a wire and looks, every step looks like its wired. The fake wires didn't go to waste, either... they're shorted out at the hidden end, and wired in series as a zone in their own right, so if a burglar tries to cut one, it'll set the alarm off, too.

My original intent WAS to use the stair camera to trigger the alarm, but as you noted, cameras are too prone to false-triggering to depend on for alarm purposes.

As far as the outside goes, there's not a whole lot I can do. I already have the whole front and rear yards lit up like stadiums with landscape lights. In fact, the guy broke in in the middle of the afternoon -- when the neighbors and I were all away at work. My long-term plan is to implement a door peephole camera on a digital recorder, because there's no way to approach the house without being in full view of the front door (well, without attracting a LOT more attention by trying to climb over the front fence for no apparent reason, and managing to not scream when he painfully discovers the thin finishing nails I hammered into the tops of the boards so ~1/2" sticks up, cut off the flattened heads, and painted black to camouflage. Officially, there for hanging Christmas lights. At least, that's the story I came up with for the HOA if anyone notices them and asks.

I also want to install a motion detector, and set it up with a circuit to play a faux-windchime rendition of "(I always feel like) Somebody's Watching Me" when triggered. The basic intent is to make it superficially pretty and pleasant... but give an aspiring burglar the creeps as he sees little hints being dropped and have some chills run down his spine when he realizes I'm teasing and taunting him every step of the way, playing with him the way a cat toys with a mouse. If I can find a cheap way to store a few minutes of digital video, turn on the TV, select that player, and start looping it (probably using X10 or Z-Wave), I think it would be hilariously funny to let the aspiring burglar outside see the TV turn on and start looping through a few seconds of 'COPS', proceeding to 'Oz', then the climax of the "Lorena Bobbitt" scene from "I Spit on your Grave". All while the fake windchimes play the themes to the relevant shows on the TV, quietly rising in volume as video progresses.

OK, what I'd really like to do is forget all of that, and just install a set of Secur security blinds from http://www.securityblinds.co.uk/ (they're interior steel bar

Re:Great question

[LinuxAndLube]

If you want an instant (not customized) solution, get a few guard dogs and a gun or two, and stay at home most of the time.

Are you sure two guns will be enough?

We've all been there...

[Anonymous Coward]

HQ, reasonably priced wireless webcams to be easily stashed wherever I please? I've had that dream as well......

Oh come on now.

[rachit]

Watching grass grow? Watching birds? Tell us *really* what you are going to use the webcam for...

Re:Oh come on now.

[JSBiff]

Hey, every growhouse needs a security/monitoring system. Gotta watch that grass grow and make sure no one steals it.

Re:Oh come on now.

[xmas2003]

Welllll ... the webcam is also used to broadcast Halloween Decorations and Christmas Lights.

trendnet IP-TV252W and IP-TV512P

[Anonymous Coward]

trendnet IP-TV252W and IP-TV512P are decent POE cameras at relatively cheap prices. one is a pan tilt dome the other is not. interfaces well with linux systems and work really well. not especially high rez but pic quality is decent for $250 or so..

Re:trendnet IP-TV252W and IP-TV512P

[Anonymous Coward]

trendnet also has a megapixel version :
http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=170_TV-IP522P&cat=147
and a night version :
http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=110_TV-IP301&cat=147
252 is only in non megapixel format but has low light capability with delayed shutter :
http://www.trendnet.com/products/proddetail.asp?prod=160_TV-IP252P&cat=148

Re:trendnet IP-TV252W and IP-TV512P

[Eggplant62]

Does it provide video of enough quality that it would stand up in court as reliable evidence of the creeps who might break into my house again this summer? I'm shopping for a reliable camera rig & recorder for just that reason and I can't believe how timely this article is to me.

Re:trendnet IP-TV252W and IP-TV512P

[LurkerXXX]

I've had an IP-TV100 for a few years now. I haven't rebooted it in about a year...

Re:trendnet IP-TV252W and IP-TV512P

[Miamicanes]

Make sure you disable the audio. In quite a few jurisdictions (including Florida, and I believe Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, and quite a few others), YOU can conceivably be arrested under old wiretapping laws.

Personally, I'd omit the signs. Why? Information leakage. The burglars will still break in, they'll just be sure they have ski masks or pantyhose over their heads before they're within sight of the cameras. Better to catch 'em off guard. ;-)

Of course, there's my deliciously evil (and unfortunately illegal) fantasy... multiple cameras aimed at the stairway, semi-concealed, with xenon flashes. The burglar steps on the pressure switch under the carpet of tread #5 or #6, sets off the xenon flashes, suddenly sees the cameras next to them, covers his face in panic, blindly runs (or backs) down the steps... and trips over the piano wire attached to two swing arms that normally lies flat against the far end of step #2 or #3, but just rotated 90 degrees up into position and locked when he set off the alarm...

WiFi router with USB + external webcam

[sznupi]

Some routers have external USB ports (typically meant for storage); some of them have the possibility of using quite "normal" Linux, and hence all the drivers it has. So just connect a good quality webcam (note: you might need powered USB hub)

Or even connect Canon digicam with modified firmware and/or use app or script (there are *nix CLI ones) which can control such cheap camera.

(cheap & energy efficient Atom nettop would be fine too, of course...but WiFi routers are somewhat closer to the "independent" webcams you mentioned)

Re:WiFi router with USB + external webcam

[dissy]

(cheap & energy efficient Atom nettop would be fine too, of course...but WiFi routers are somewhat closer to the "independent" webcams you mentioned)

Not for the mass market or 'end user' at all, but for those interested in the DIY approach:
http://www.plugcomputer.org/

These little things are awesome.
2.5" usb powered external HD + a sheevaplug = teeny fileserver that can tuck away almost anywhere.

This plus two usb cameras could make a great webserver stream of the video.
Just plug it in the wall, give it ethernet or a wifi usb stick, and hang a camera off it.

Protip: In debian (and I assume any debian-like distro) you are just an apt-get install webcam-server away

Slashdotting in 3... 2... 1

[Locke2005]

Since you've just posted a link to your site containing large jpegs, I must assume that either you're not paying for bandwidth, or that you're really, really new around here! Or, quite possibly, you are attempting to test the performance of your server under heavy loads.

I think I just found a time machine

[Mabbo]

I think I just found a time machine to 1997.

Re:I think I just found a time machine

[FatAlb3rt]

Nah, his scam was a little more recent than that. I knew I remembered that site from somewhere.

Simple. Don't use a webcam.

[jtownatpunk.net]

I have a 3CCD camcorder with a USB webcam mode. The image is stupid-high quality. Of course, it wasn't cheap and that's not why I bought it but it's a nice added feature. Just about any mini-DV type camcorder will produce a better quality picture than any webcam and many of them are in the $100-200 range. Find one with a webcam mode and you're set.

Your website is so awesome.....

[TheReverandND]

It has crashed my browser (Chrome) 3 times. Congrats.

Re:Your website is so awesome.....

[MarbleMunkey]

In soviet Russia website slashdots you!

Re:Wow, bad website design...

[dingen]

Your eyes? What about your ears! MIDI music on a website from 2005, imagine that.

I don't know

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Why "security" cameras(ie. webcam and some sort of TCP/IP speaking computer in the same box, often with goodies like 12/24 volt tolerant GPIO, POE, and weatherproof housings) have largely lagged; but the situation isn't nearly as dire if you are willing to do a touch of DIY.

Between the substantial increase in the number of ~$100 webcams that actually work with UVC drivers and have image quality that doesn't suck, and the availability of highly capable SBCs like the Shivaplug for not much more, you can get an ugly; but surprisingly functional, setup going for ~$300 and a little linux fiddling.

The other option with good price performance punch is taking advantage of all the DV video cameras that are being upgraded by their owners, or have shot tape-transport mechanisms. All but the ghastliest DV cams will outclass virtually all webcams in terms of optics and sensors, and they all connect via firewire in a standard way. A bit bulky; but if you go after stuff being dumped by "HD" enthusiasts, or hardware with broken tape parts, you can get fairly serious image quality for peanuts.

incorrect terminology

[CityZen]

A "webcam" is typically a USB camera you attach to your PC to do web (video) conferencing.

An "IP cam" is what you're thinking of, which attaches directly to the internet without a separate host.

Now, someone will probably follow up and tell me that "IP cam" is an overloaded term as well.

Roll your own

[rwa2]

I've had some of those expensive Axis/Canon PTZ webcams for work. Pretty sweet what you can zoom into.... we could read license plates off cars in the parking lot outside the office building windows.

I think your best bet would be to attach a $100 USB Logitech Orbit to a $200 nettop, perhaps running off an SD card. There are fairly good Linux drivers (including rudimentary PTZ) and fairly decent optical quality for the Logitech webcams (compared to those D-link webcam things, which I've also learned to loathe). So you could get 1280x960 stills at low frame rates (sounds good for what you're doing) and also 30fps 640x480 video, plus audio. If you stick it on a beefier machine, you could even do mpeg4 encoding and streaming using VLC or something.

USB + disposable laptop?

[cgenman]

Has anyone tried the linksys N?

Other than that, I've attached a QuickCam Pro to a dedicated $50 laptop, and left it running. The whole setup cost about 130, and provided decent low-light performance for the time.

Re:Microsoft LifeCam Cinema

[Anonymous Coward]

Personal experience : The equivalent Logitech camera is way way better than the Microsoft one.

MY EYES!!!!

[schon]

The goggles do nothing!

bad comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

your little page compares a web cam to a DSLR. In other news, a Corvette smoked a Ford Focus on I95N today, film at 11.

NOT: Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000

[Fuseboy]

I'd love to know also. I bought a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 for about $100 to test out for my White Dots (www.whitedots.org) project, but it had very disappointing performance in low light levels (the only ones that matter for me). Distant planes disappeared in a sea of multi-colored noise.

Re:Microsoft LifeCam Cinema

[Lester67]

I second this. The Cinema HD is head and shoulders above the old Lifecam's, and better than anything else I've seen on the market (to date). Catch it on sale you'll pay $50. (And it's easily disassembled for hacking/repurposing.)

and what do you do for pan-tilt?

[Chirs]

The original poster is looking for a replacement for a camera that has pan/tilt/zoom controls.

Re:and what do you do for pan-tilt?

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem: attach the 200$ camcorder to an alt-azimuth telescope mount. for $195, a serial to USB adapter for $10 and a Wireless router or storage box that runs linux for $50-$100, and you've just fulfilled all the wishes of the op with some room left in the budget. To control the Pan and Tilt, you can install INDI server on the linux box or write your own (web?) application that emulates the handbox and move it either interactively at different speeds or move it directly to any horizontal and vertical angle you enter.

Here you go

[Gudeldar]

I think I found what you need.

Ethics HERO three years later

[xmas2003]

Followup three years later from the Ethics Scoreboard

Alek O. Komarnitsky
(December 2007)

This is a first: an Ethics Hero who emerged from the shadow of an Unethical Website designation. Back in 2004, Alek O. Komarnitsky received national attention for a whimsical holiday website that allowed people all over the world to turn his Christmas lights on from their home computers. Everyone had fun, which was clearly Alek's design. Still, when it became known that his site was a hoax and that the lights going on were only an illusion, the Scoreboard weighed in with the opinion that perpetrating such a large-scale deception was wrong, no matter how well-intentioned. Alek objected, and has maintained a spirited defense of his stunt in e-mail exchanges with the Scoreboard. But you can't keep a Christmas spirit down. At a significant cost in time and money, Alek figured out a way to really let people all over the world turn on his lights, at http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam---the very same site that the Scoreboard previously deplored. He has done this for a couple of years now, but has added a new feature in 2007. To quote Jolly Old Alec himself "There are three live webcams and X10 powerline control technology system so web surfers can not only view the action, but also *control* the 17,000 lights. Heck, you can even inflate/deflate the giant Elmo, Frosty, Santa, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Homer SimpsonWhile people around the world (157 countries last year) enjoy seeing the lights ON, environmentalists will be happy to know that they can turn the lights OFF with a click of the mouse. Better yet, this is the 4th year I'm using 100% Wind Energy and even though that is "clean" energy, I even did a Carbon Offset contribution for the 0.61 Tons of CO2 for the ~MegaWatt-Hour of power consumed; that's about the same as one cross-country airline trip. Finally, by providing viewing via webcam, you don't need to burn fossil fuels by driving around to see Christmas lights - Al Gore would be proud! But HEY, the $3/day in electrical costs are well worth the joy it brings to people (especially the kids) when they see the display in person and/or on the web. And new this year is a Hi-Def option, so gather your family around the large screen" The website, Alek reminds us, is free, and also exists to raise awareness of Celiac Disease,which afflicts his two sons as well as many others. He says his lights have raised nearly $20,000 for the cause. I've visited Alek's site, and it is fun, and you can turn the lights on and off, as well as inflate and deflate Homer. You win, Alek! The Scoreboard hereby pardons www.komar.org, and declares you a true Ethics Hero, and a damn persistent one, I must say. Thanks from all us kids, and a very Merry Christmas to you! You've certainly earned it.

Get a generic UVC 2MP webcam and a long USB cord

[kriston]

Not completely appropo, but sometimes you can find what you're looking for by trying out the not-so-obvious solution.

First, go to your local computer store and get a few generic UVC webcams.

While you're there get a few long USB extension cords. You can get an active one that will let you put your camera a few hundred yards away if you like, or a passive one that will get you to thirty or forty feet.

Now go home and plug in all your cameras, one at a time. You can plug in as many as you have USB ports, and, don't worry, no drivers needed.

For Windows, visit this site to download the "MJPEG Surveillance" program: http://www.brooksyounce.com/. Install it and run "MJPEG Recorder," click the right mouse button, and choose "Add New DirectX Camera." This program will let you adjust most of your camera's parameters including frame rate, and even motion detection and how long to record after motion stops. Jack up the resolution to the highest your camera will support since you're not going to want to record full-motion video in a surveillance situation. Be sure to set the JPEG quality to an acceptable level and put a time stamp in the corner, too, that you can read and won't get smudged by the JPEG compression.

A couple of gigabytes of free space is more than enough to record days of 1280x800 at 85% JPEG quality and 1 FPS. Experiment. The motion detection is key.

For example, at my local Micro Center, you can get a typical, generic UVC 1280x800 webcam for $25 or less. Try the WinBook WB-7144 HD Webcam 2-Pack for $40 or $25 for just one camera. In any case you should not pay more than $25 for a UVC webcam. These cheap units do 1280x800 at 30 frames per second and have autofocus, too, which is unbelievable at this price point. For discretion you may wish to disable the LEDs by disassembling the camera (they pop apart after unscrewing the base) and with a needle-nose pliers remove the two LEDs.

The quality is good for daylight, and rather grainy at nighttime. At these prices, experiment and have fun!!

Re:Logitech...NEVER FORGET

[sznupi]

Sure, current Logitech webcams are rather decent (though at most quality levels you can get something cheaper usually (*)); but don't forget that Logitech, being the longtime "leader" of webcams, is almost single-handedly responsible for their stagnation which lasted almost a decade and was interrupted only recently. For almost 10 years they sold to people the same entry level (and most people will of course pick that one) basic design, price and poor quality. Leaving people disgusted with what can be "achieved" by their new webcam...

(*)unless of course you want to use Skype HQ; which is, with willing cooperation of Logitech, restricted to only few webcam of the latter; which only makes things worse in my eyes. Otherwise it's often a safe bet that, say, a Creative webcam will have better quality/price ratio (and understand fully what it means for me to recommend something from Creative - I will never forgive them for Aureal)

Try this company

[Neanderthal Ninny]

I have several infrared high resolution closed circuit security cameras at my home from this company which works well for me www.supercirucits.com. They have some high resolution webcameras that you can see if it works for you http://www.supercircuits.com/search?keywords=ip

Re:Try this company

[cayenne8]

"I have several infrared high resolution closed circuit security cameras at my home from this company which works well for me www.supercirucits.com. They have some high resolution webcameras that you can see if it works for you http://www.supercircuits.com/search?keywords=ip "

Do they work with Linux?

Just Ordered A LifeCam Cinema

[TheNinjaroach]

After scouring the web for reviews I ordered the Microsoft LifeCam Cinema this morning for $50 from Amazon. It shoots (widescreen) 720p high definition video, is manufactured with all-glass lenses and performs great in low light situations. I was wary of buying a Microsoft product, but the camera is UVC and works out-of-the-box with Linux. Can't wait to get it.

Use a Mini-DV camcorder

[Thurmont]

While using Skype one day I stumbled upon the fact that my nearly 6 year old Panasonic Mini-DV camcorder (PV-GS120) will function as a webcam when it's connected via Firewire. It provides picture quality at or better than an expensive USB webcam, functions well in low light, and has zoom and infrared auto-focus. Turning the built-in LCD around towards the front provides a "view my video" function freeing up my monitor to just display the other party. True, it's not "HD" quality but it serves a new purpose using an outdated camcorder I just had sitting around.

A SERIOUS SOLUTION

[way2trivial]

but it's 609

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BB-HCM371A-Outdoor-Wireless-Network/dp/B0009PD0ZI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273093932&sr=1-1

here is the wired PD device (poe 802.3 powered)
for 665
http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-BB-HCM735A-Network-splash-resistant-optical/dp/B002PILZV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273093861&sr=8-1

Re:A SERIOUS SOLUTION

[Nalarik]

The BB series are considered Commercial IP Network cameras, but are excellent, used them at a pervious employer.

Would recommend checking out the Residential IP Network Cameras from Panasonic, most of those run around 200$.

Stop being obsessed with pan tilt

[Anonymous Coward]

Professionals don't use it nearly as much as they used to these days. They use high resolution and wide angle lenses instead, and do PTZ in software. PTZ was important when your video frame was 480x320 or suchlike. Now you shoot 5 megapixels and pan and zoom digitally.

Watching the grass

[sinistre]

Depends what kind of grass we are talking about doesn't it? What is grass to some are weed to others ;)

640x480 should be good enough for anyone!

[Ransak]

... to paraphrase a certain someone in the IT industry.

In all seriousnessity, check out the Zonet ZVC7630W if 640x480 meets your needs. It runs an embedded Linux kernel with Busybox, supports LAN/WiFi/USB sticks for recording, MJPEG streaming, and has some nifty motion trigger features.

I use a few of these for security cameras and they're pretty easy to weather proof with some caulk and tupperware. My one big complaint however (which might be a showstopper for many on ./) is the built in web features such as 2-way talk require Internet Exploder. It utilizes an ActiveX applet that I haven't been able to get around.

Mobotix over Axis

[HycoWhit]

Been playing around with IP cameras for a few years. For the most part I set up camera systems for friends to monitor their vacation homes during the week. Have tried D-Link, Panasonic, Axis, and lately have been using nothing but Mobotix.

Mobotix is by far the most expensive, but Mobotix has been the most reliable for me. Axis was my 2nd favorite, but I have nothing but lockup problems with Axis cameras requiring the cameras be scripted to reboot every 24 hours.

Folks have touched on a few subjects--wireless is convenient, but such a bandwidth hog. Setup a small office with two wireless parking lot cams. The folks in the office used wireless laptops. None of the laptops could get better than 1.5mbps transfers when the wireless cameras were on. Wired the cameras and everyone was happy. The FPS on the cameras improved dramatically and the four or five folks in the office had speedy internet once again.

Another thing folks touched on--picture quality. Look for a camera with a changeable lens. If you want be able to read a license plate or recognize a face at 25' to 50'--you are going to need a nice lens. Even more so if you want to be able to read the license plate on a moving car at night.

What do they use for porn?

[AK Marc]

When looking for a nannycam, I wanted something that was wireless with a remote and/or computer controllable for pan and zoom. I was pointed to porn cams, because there are plenty that are used for that where they have remotes and things. I never did find anything, because searching for "cam" and "porn" wouldn't ever get me what I was looking for. Anyone know what a common one is used for that? They shouldn't be too much, and would have some nice features.

It seems the industry has been focused on the cheapest thing that looks good with Skype/MSN/Yahoo type stuff, and very little that's for higher quality or for aiming at anything other than a stationary talking head.

Re:Get a generic UVC 2MP webcam and a long USB cor

[kriston]

We have active USB repeaters. These cameras draw very little power. Some of the power is used to run the repeater.

Here's a list of some cheap ones you can use to 16 more feet: http://www.cyberguys.com/product-search/?keyword=usb+extender&gps=60

And here's your 1000-foot USB extender: http://www.networktechinc.com/extenders-usb.html

Again, my goal is thinking how cheap can we keep it so that if things go horribly wrong we just shrug and try again. I have conventional NTSC Lorex and Q-see systems plus some NTSC camera cards but they're a pain in the neck. If you already know computers the UVC USB webcams give so much more picture resolution for so much less money and annoying CMOS camera headaches.

Also, you can install an infrared spotlight. These cameras will pick that light up in the darkness, too (most any camera will).

Have fun!!

Re:Get a generic UVC 2MP webcam and a long USB cor

[BLKMGK]

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.22789

200ft $18 :-)

Resolution != Quality

[Guysmiley777]

The best sensor in the world won't do jack squat for you if you have crap-tastic optics. For pro-am digital photography the lenses are the limiting factor these days, the sensors are more than good enough. And it's not likely you're going to find a webcam with decent glass, sorry. For that form factor (teeny tiny camera) you're not going to get good quality or low light performance.

Fishcam

[montulli]

The original Netscape fishcam http://www.fishcam.com/ has gone through several iterations of cameras. It started on a SGI indy with a camera that came with the computer. It then moved to a portable video camera that was fairly old at the time, but had an analog RCA output and was encoded by the SGI. Now it runs on a Stardot NetCam SC5IR The Startdot camera is an embedded linux computer with a 5 MP video camera and high quality interchangeable lenses. The fact that it is a linux machine means you can do lots of creative things, like run a small web server, FTP, NFS, CIFS, scripts, etc. The most important aspect about a camera in my mind is its reliability. I don't want to reset the thing ever if possible. The Stardot has been running for more than a year uninterrupted. The big problem with Stardot cameras is the price. My SC5IR is over $1000 with all the accessories. A cheaper alternative is to set up a video server and use cheap security cameras with CGA resolution. You can get security cameras for $100 each and a cheap video card for ~$200.

Re:no market

[Miamicanes]

> So why hasn't someone taken a sensor with good image quality, downsized to around 1024x768, and put it in a PTZ webcam package with 802.11n wireless for around $500?

They have. Compro (http://www.comprousa.com/en/product/ip540/ip540.html) makes a few, though they don't appear to have reached the US yet. I saw them for around AU$340 at Directron's Australian site.

However, there's a reason why resolution for IP webcams has been relatively slow to increase: light sensitivity and cost. If you stick with CMOS for cost-savings, as a general rule a 1/4" sensor that does 640x480 will output better-quality video in low light than a 1/4" sensor that's 1280x720/960/1024. Also, as the sensor size shrinks, the impact of lens quality and mechanical build increases. That's why 99% of cheap webcams and ip cameras use 1/4" and 1/3" CMOS. It's a sweet spot that's small enough to keep the chip cost down, but large enough to let them get away with sloppy build quality and less than ideal lens designs.

I own one of Compro's cameras (the IP70). It's nice, and it was dirt cheap all things considered ($120 for 1280x1024 resolution), but its "room light" sensitivity is piss poor unless I fall back on its infrared capabilities (which do nasty things to the colors, but work miracles on its ability to effectively produce video under low-light conditions). There's a good reason why all the low-cost cameras have suddenly discovered nightvision-religion: CMOS sensors are actually better at sensing IR than they are at sensing visible light. In fact, until recently, the biggest problem faced by designers of CMOS cameras was how to effectively block infrared light and keep it away from the sensor. It wasn't until someone, somewhere, got the bright idea of letting some of that IR through, and interpreting it as a luminance channel, in a way that was relatively compatible with color video, that it suddenly became useful.

IMHO, an ideal enhancement to the next generation of CMOS cameras would be the ability to sense visible light and near-IR, but keep the IR channel's data separate in the output file. That way, you could rely on the visible light when possible, but enhance it with data from the infrared channel after the fact when necessary, instead of having to make that decision beforehand and live with its consequences forever.

Actually, that reminds me of something else I learned over the weekend: CMOS cameras *LOVE* halogen lights. I had my stairs lit up like a stadium with compact fluorescent lights, and it barely made a difference to the image quality I got from my camera. Then, I read a suggestion from someone online to try replacing one of the 23-watt CFL bulbs with a 40-watt halogen bulb. Good god, it was literally a night and day difference. Reds are badly desaturated (things that reflect red light also tend to reflect near IR, and halogen bulbs emit half their energy as IR), but the detail is razor-sharp. Basically, halogen bulbs give IR-loving CMOS sensors more of the light they crave. Energy-efficient CFL bulbs emit almost no IR, so they starve its sensors. Even though the 40-watt halogen bulb is only about half as (visibly) bright as the 23-watt CFL, it's pumping out more IR than dozens and dozens of discrete camera-mounted IR LEDs.

Re:Step 4 -- the software on the PC

[pcgc1xn]

gphoto2
Set it up as a cron job.
I have had an old 4Mp nikon taking a photo of our fish tank every 10 minutes for several years now.
Oh, you will need a power adapter for your camera, the batteries don't last that long. Ebay.
like so...
rm fish.jpg
gphoto2 --delete-all-files
gphoto2 --set-config flash=2 #No flash - pisses off the fish.
gphoto2 --capture-image
gphoto2 --get-all-files

mv *.JPG fish.jpg
mogrify -size 800x600 fish.jpg
upload to server.
Not live like a webcam, but depends on your needs.

Re:astro or machine vision?

[Miamicanes]

For low-end machine vision, there's one obvious product to suggest: CMUcam ( http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cmucam/ )

Another option that's not quite as widely known, but is slightly different (better in some ways, worse in others, depending on what you're looking for) is the AVRcam ( http://www.jrobot.net/Projects/AVRcam.html ).

Both are basically NTSC/PAL-type monochrome video cameras with a dedicated processor that does things like object-recognition for you and alerts you when it thinks you'll be interested. Neither is likely to be appropriate for astrophotography, but either one will probably do the job nicely if you want to let your robot find a ping pong ball or navigate a maze.