Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Multiple Webcams and FreeBSD
Swamp|Fox continues...
"The webcams will be located between 25' and 50' from the server, and should support capture sizes up to 640x480. Another item, which I'm not too hopeful can be filled, is that the still images can be taken every second, or even 3 seconds, so that the director of the daycare can view them in near-realtime, while a script runs in the background and grabs every 15th frame for display on the web. The best solution I've found so far is WinCam.Live from Stardot Technologies, and it seems to fit most of my specifications. The big problem was that its cameras can only capture a frame every 15 seconds, but in retrospect, that is probably a limitation of serial port based webcams (which are the only way i've found to get webcams that distance from the server). They even offer a UNIX capture host, currently tested on Linux, and Solaris (my local *BSD techhead is working on fixing the makefile to compile under FreeBSD).
I'm looking for feedback, either on this setup, other experiences UNIX sys admins have had (both with this system, and multiple webcams in general) as well as other alternatives I might want to investigate. As usual, Open Source Software was chosen to keep the costs down, and for the flexibility to perform multiple tasks on a single server."
I read something about people using security
camera with Firewire. Could this be a viable
option?
Loyola University Chicago was able to get a near real-time (3 or 4 seconds between update) view of the Chicago water tower (one of the few building to survive the famous Chicago fire) using an Axis Communications camera. Distance from the server (approx. 10 miles in this case) wasn't a problem because the camera plugs into the ethernet. Also, CPU horse power of the web server wasn't much of a issue because the Axis camera does the JPEG compression/creation (including time-stamp) in firmware so the web server only needs fetch the image and reserve it.
Why not use real video capture cards... or even just one... for the update rate you need you could easily build a small video witcher that could be computer controled and have jsut one capture card... simply buy some small ccd cameras and run coax to the video switch and then to the computer... seems easy and cheap to me...
In defense of wincam, the image quality is actually better than the axis since it's a true digital camera and not an off the shelf imaging component... see for yourself... http://www.wincam.com/live
Vance Kozik
AXIS are really cool actually, they use linux in their "gadgets". They ported linux to their own
RISC processor and that's what all of those print/scanner/webcam/isdn servers run. It's reason
enough for buying them.
If this is true, where's the source code? I really hope you're wrong, 'cause this looks to be a major violation of the GPL.
You shouldn't have to find motherboards that support 6+ pci slots(lots of money), an option is probably to get a pci bridge that'll give you more slots.. I remember reading up on this some time ago, but don't remember where exactly.. essentially, it connects to another case that is just a bunch of pci slots
axis doesn't have linux in any product yet. they are looking at it though. in any case, if its a standard kernel there'd be no modifications to give out anyway right, except asm code for the cpu port.. very interesting :)
that is secureeye not secureeeye
External USB splitters (I have a really cool one) can create a handful of new serial ports without having to do any cards in the machine. The problem is drivers. You can get them for Win98 and maybe the Mac, but good luck on Linux. You would have to roll your own.
Small problem: a PCI expansion box typically costs as much (or even quite a bit more) than an additional PC. Think $1200 - $2000, depending on how many slots you're adding. They're rather pointless for that reason in most situations.
You just can't buy any for years now, so this is not of much use.
Logitech has bought the quickcam and produces new versions but refuses to release informations, so there's no software for them for *BSD or Linux.
camera the size of a quarter. My digital camera runs out of batteries after 40 pics, and it doesn't have to transmit shit. On top of that - my camera probably has 20 times more battery than the watch battery in x-10's. Please somebody prove me wrong, because I have not researched this. I am speaking with a mere glance.
> If this is true, where's the source code? I really hope you're wrong, 'cause this looks to be a major violation of the GPL.
If they don't want to release the source code and some of them have a brain they would have used *BSD then.
Though GPL still is not tested in court, would be interesting...
aaaaahhhhhhhh - - - - ----
Get a few USB cards. They plug into PCI slots and offer two ports each I think. So the two onboard ports and two cards.
> Especially if you password protect it from the child molester and divorced fathers out there.
Don't group the child's father in with a child molester. Just because the kid's parents are divorced, doesn't mean one of the parents is a bad person. This type of tool is excellent for BOTH parents to check on their child. Don't be such a waste to society with such closed-minded and uneducated opinions.
Grass Valley Group switcher is what and can be found where?
Tell me more about this splitter! I've been experimenting myself with multiple USB webcams. Linux 2.3.10 kernel sees them but can't do anything with them...Does anyone have any code that communicates with a USB webcam for Linux? I mean the guy who wrote the Linux USB CPiA driver had to test it didn't he? USB development needs a kick in the ass! USB cams are becoming so cheap! I bought at BB today a Logitech QuickCam Express USB for $49. Its acceptable quality but not like the 3Com HomeConnect USB I have which goes retail for $159. They other USB cams there for $20 with rebates. I am using a Win98 box to dump images to my Linux webserver. Works okay, but I'd love to not use Win98.
I kinda like the idea of webcam but I dont care much for the venue you are describing. Altho Im sure many of you can relate to detached parents veiwing you from afar.....geezzzzz and ppl wonder why their kids are killing one another.
teknowil@up-link.net I'll probably get flamed let'er rip
po box 1114
grass valley CA 95945
916-478-3000
A tektronix company
you mean like the people who are at work watching
their children in MSIE rather than, say, taking
care of them?
> 1) you're a dork for trolling for more *BSD v. Leenucks flame war nonsense, and:
Who's the troll now...
> 2) the GPL has been tested in court, with Jobs / NeXT in the late eighties.
And Jobs has lost, right?
Troubles like those are *exactly* why companies should avoid linux for *if* they don't want to release their source code. (As the AC wrote before.)
> If you'd been part of the Unix world for longer than a month,
I am. (And who's the troll again?)
> you might know that.
Or might not know that.
The idea that an archive of photos will provide any protection from liability in the case of a child getting his teeth knocked out or a daycare worker molesting a child is ridiculous!
The opposite may be true. In other words, if a photo shows an improper act, then it might be used as evidence against the daycare.
The *lack* of a photo showing an improper act is useless!
In fact, the whole idea of parents using these systems to verify the safety and well-being of their child is seriously flawed. It is impossible to cover every inch of the daycare center for every time period.
I saw like 99 comments about cams while IMHO the software is also quite important. Check out the QuickTime streaming server which is open source and free, it will run fine I presume on BSD since Mac OS X is based on BSD.
I saw like 99 comments about cams while IMHO the software is also quite important. Check out the QuickTime streaming server which is open source and free, it will run fine I presume on BSD since Mac OS X is based on BSD.
No, I can just wait to be flamed...
Didn't think you had any answer.
Yeah, you're just trolling.
Intriguing texts from the Chou Dynasty for the year 2346 BC record the appearance of ten suns in the sky, which at once recall those extra suns over Ancient Rome chronicled by Julius Obsequens, the celestial prodigies mentioned in the Middle Ages by Matthew of Paris, and similar sightings reported by UFO students today. The ancient manuscripts, Chuangpuzu, Liu-Shi, Chunchiu, and Hua-non-tzu, probably written centuries later, vividly described how the Earth in the reign of Emperor Yao was afflicted by terrible calamities, intense heat parched the land, the crops died, fierce storms lashed towns and countryside, the seas quaked and boiled drowning the fields in floods, hug monsters roamed and ravaged, mankind dreaded Doomsday, the end of the world-age.
The outer casing was adorned with hieroglyphics until as late as the fourteenth century AD but no man alive could read them. It is likely that Herodotus was told an equally unreliable tale regarding the actual operation of building; the Arabs believed the Great Pyramid was built by ``Djinns'' or ``Spirits''; oddly enough they were probably right. The ``Spirits'' came from Outer Space!
Definately one of the best books I read in Jr High. (1984).. Recommended reading to all. :)
BSD has fallen on hard times. FreeBSD is in trouble; Walnut Creek is struggling to stay afloat. Rumor has it that it is up for sale. BSDI growth is flat. And then there are the "also-rans" NetBSD, OpenBSD etc--no comment needed. BSD never caught on with users, and odds are that it never will amount to more than the niche OS that it has always been. Unable to attract younger users, a BSD BOF is looking more and more like an AARP coffee klatch. The BOF chit chat is now just as likely to center around prostate problems and "regularity" than it is to BSD topics. The twilight years of BSD are now upon us. A "Kevorkian" may eventually be in order. Who will be the first to "pull the plug"?
http://www.axis.com makes the neteye, a real webcam (not some pc connected camera) which has an integrated webserver and uses normal ethernet. you can put a script on the main server that gets a pic every second from every camera over normal http.
:)
granted, its more expensive than el cheapo shit for quality pc "webcams"
You can definitely run the cameras 50-100' away if you use some good coaxial cable and not the crap they sell at radio shack. I usually use old 10Base2 network cable and put the ends on myself.
We did this a while ago with a FreeBSD box with
a fairly insane number of PCI slots (12 I think)
and used BT848 based cards from Hauppage.
89 Dollars ea if I remember.
Just build the right number of nodes, tweak the
kernel a tad, recompile, and use your favorite
grabber program and application.
Another option is to use serial cameras like
the quickcam and a cyclades type multiport
serial driver. That would probably work, although
I've never done it because the Bt848 route went so
well.
We even got it running using VIC to do FMV.
It was a fun project, if the president of the company hadn't been crazy.
The only problem with the X10 wireless units is that they don't deal with each other very well. If you have two transmitters in somewhat close proximity, each will cause a ghost image on the other. So much for separate channels.
You aren't likely to get a lot of hits on this site. You're going to MAYBE get twenty or thirty per day. Especially if you password protect it from the child molester and divorced fathers out there. I like the idea of having multiple junker boxes each running two cameras and passing the captured images to the main server via tcp/ip. Either tcl or python would provide this functionality quite readily. Also, for an extra bonus to the project, consider having an archival system so that you could have the stale pics moved off to a big hard drive every night. Then, if some kid knocks his teeth out or someone gets accused of fondling a kid, there would be evidence to protect the daycare center in the case of a lawsuit. dillrod seth|AT|sansa.net
FreeBSD.
$50 PCI capture card (BT484)
Grass Valley Group RS-232 controlled video switcher
And pin-hole cameras for $60 a pop.
It works. No 'special' 'web cam' software.
I've got a spare copy of that particular issue. I could mail the article (address?) or perhaps scan it or something, if it might be of any use.
The switcher is available from the author in both kit and pre-built forms from http://members.aol.com/ncdcat/. Select the "A/V Switching" link.
Hope that helps.
It takes about up to 1 fps at 320x240, 24-bit color or up to 4 fps 6-bit B&W of the same size, has parallel interface (I was able to use up to 3 per box with additional parallel interfaces on the card), and it works with Linux and FreeBSD. See http://www.fhttpd.org/pub/qcwebcam/R EADME.html, http://phobos.illtel.denv er.co.us/~abelits/apartment.php3 for an example and http://phobos.illtel.denver.co.us/qca m-config for controls page.
It's possible to modify the code to increase the resolution, however this kind of camera has twice higher resolution for green component than for red and blue ones, so even though picture will be 640x480 it won't be the same thing as real 640x480.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
..but do ensure that the pages are under password lock-and-key. Of course show sample images on the website, but the possibilities for the sickos out there are too numerous to have this sort of webpage 'open access'.
Where the heck did you find a mobo to do this?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Who is Number One?!
You are, Number Siz.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
But "the Internet" is the current big scare.
--
Ben Kosse
Remember Ed Curry!
PLEASE consider using some security system, and only allowing the parents to view thier kids (easily done with apache, you can give parents passwords, and the rest of the world can only see the general site for the daycare center).
io.admcs.wwu.edu has a nice live web cam that refreshes the images however fast your network conneciton is. It is only one cam, but if it is relevent, you might want to ask them what they are using. Also note the different viewing options, large, zoomed, last 24 hours, and gallery.
HTH,
Ron Farrer
ALPHA LINUX POWERED and loving it!
Why has this (and the exact repetition below) not been moderated down?
The parallel port method to contol cameras is a great way to switch cameras for one card. I wonder why there currently is not a commercially available solution.
I only had one problem with that link. It had a schematic showing how to hook relays to the parallel port to a buffer chip. It needs to show a diode in parallel with the relay coil. Without that diode, the relay would work exactly one on/off cycle and destroy the IC on the off cycle due to the relay coil's inductance. For those who do not understand why relays have a diode across the coil in electronic circuits, understand that the driving transistor switches off at high speed and the nature of a coil is to maintain current. When the transistor is suddenly turned off, high voltages will result and will most likely puncture the transistor's junction. Fun experiment.
Here is a page that shows how to hook up a parallel port to control various devices and has example programming in the C language, with examples for both DOS and Linux. It also shows why and how to hook the diode up to the relay coil (very important.) It has a few good illustrations where those wires go from the back of the computer
Another idea: digital cameras are getting VERY cheap. I've been seeing them for under $90 for no flash/low-mem versions. There's an Agfa model that sells for $120. Hook it up to a power supply and serial and use one of the camera control packages to run it. Excellent image quality, on-camera compression to save CPU, and when the workers get too creeped out, you can decomission 'em (the cameras) and let the kids play with digital photography.
We have a pair of these at our school. If you want to judge the quality, try the following URLs:
:)
l - A second axis cam, staring through a dirty old window at the Freshmen circle.
http://www.bnet.org/ruhs3/n/n-neteye/net.shtml - Our campus walkway. *Do* forgive the actual webpage; it sure as hell wasn't my doing
http://www.bnet.org/ruhs3/n/n-neteye2/net2.shtm
Check out the sidebar too, where you can pick a half-sized image or also some form of push. I think otherwise it refreshes every ten seconds.
If you want to test the refresh rate, just open up the picture itself in a new windows and do mass reloads. I think what other people said here was accurate, ~1 picture a second max. Try it, they're pretty cool.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
dunno if you've thought this far, but serial cameras would need the same number of serial ports as cameras. maybe you sould look into the multiport serial cards linux supports? in a linux kernel menuconfig is lists them though i'm not sure what they are. getting around the speed issues though, that's another story. are you sure webcams can only do one picture per 15 secs? what about quickcams?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
... assuming multiple USB cams can run off a single USB hub with cable runs of the correct length. And, of course, assuming you can use those cameras with Linux/*BSD USB support.. ;)
Then again, you know what they say about 'assume'..
1) you're a dork for trolling for more *BSD v. Leenucks flame war nonsense, and:
2) the GPL has been tested in court, with Jobs / NeXT in the late eighties. If you'd been part of the Unix world for longer than a month, you might know that.
We use Axis webcams at my old university for our computer labs. 10baseT directly to the camera's. Embedded web server. Pretty cool. This will help your cable distance problem. Just make a page with links to the urls of the cameras. Just be sure to change the default passwords of the cameras. Whoever installed our cameras didn't. ;)
"Dogs and cats, living together...it's mass hysteria!"
I setup a Wincam under FreeBSD using a WinCam.one about 3 years ago. Certainly the AXIS is superior, but (in addition to not being available then) I had very little money to work with, and I was unable to run ether to the camera position, thus I needed the modem capabilities of the wincam.one (yes, I know, some of the newer AXIS cameras can do that too). I had a good experience with the WinCam, it ran flawlessly for over a year, and has since been redeployed (Though it's down right now as the area it's in is rewired for comm and power). And they have some simply multiplexing capabilities, however the image snap times are slow at 640x480x24 because of the serial line speed (high-speed serial is supported I think, >200K). Axis units and a little software to front-end them would probably be easiest and provide a higher-quality output, but would probably set you back $6k...x10.com has/had some tiny cameras with 2.4Ghz transmitters, these combined with reasonable video capture cards would provide an interesting solution the required little wiring. Though I'm not sure how you could caputre 6 images, or easily rotate through 6 video inputs...
John Soward...University of Kentucky
i don't know if it was the same brand, but i saw a similar camera that was put up at the LBT so people could grab pseudo-realtime pix of the construction of the observatory while it happened. pretty slick thingie. just plug 10base-T into the back and you could browse it directly, though i think they just set up a cron job on the nearby sparc to grab pix every min or so. i also don't remember the cost, but it would save a _LOT_ of time and headaches spent playing with drivers and stuff.
tim
hiding in shadows / i hear you coming closer / you will explode soon -- a quake haiku
It allows hooking up 4 B&W or Color coax cameras and 1 SVideo camera, completely self contained.
We use it in conjunction with a linux based server that grabs the images off the camera server every few seconds.
Biggest problem I've had is that I would like to dynamically assemble the images (can be retrieved either as gif or jpg in many sizes) into a video stream (bandwidth is not generally an object, but gif anims are way too big).
I truely hope you didn't use your real social security number. If you did... maybe you should consider your own privacy... like the fact that your ss# can be used to change just about any account you hold, includeing bank, credit, phone, electric... and its easy to find someones real name if you have a social security number...M
Or perhaps you didn't think of that in your worry to remain anonymous
There is nothing wrong with parents watching thier kids at daycare... I would worry about my child being with strangers all day long. If you don't, you have problems of your own. Besides... theres nothing as satisifing as looking on the web during your lunch break and seeing your little boy or girl running around or playing... Reminds you of why your working 9 to 5 every day.
http://www.schizo.com/
The distance can be achieved by using an NTSC signal from the cameras.
BTW, this is all prefaced with the standard IANAL disclaimer... :)
Yeah, I'll admit.. it's the way to go for professional apps.. and probably the way to go for this particular app, but it *is* expensive...
9 3193.htm
http://www.onsale.com/category/inv/00031159/014
You may be able to use cheap video cameras and a video capture board. An example would be this or the camera offered by WalMart that was mentioned a couple days ago. I don't know what video capture capabilities BSD has and I don't know exactly how to switch from one camera to the next but I suspect that it's possible. If so then you could cycle through the cameras, saving a frame from each with each cycle.
Could you explain to me the difference in video input types? What is RCA in? How is that different from S-video, composite, etc and all the other types I hear listed.
:)
I'm looking around for the best video capture card and I want to make sure it has the right input type. (And it has got to be cheap
Also, you know where to find plans for building the parallel port controller box you mentioned? (I wouldn't need any more than 5 cams.)
This sig is false.
Who is Number One?!
:-P
ehintz
A few cameras out there plug directly into an ethernet device, and include a mini-webserver so that you can use HTTP to retrieve the image to your central server.
As soon as read this I said use a video capture card. Then you can use a video modulator which will put each camera on a differant channel. Plus, the video modulator would be way cheaper than the serial cards, and as the above said the video capture cards have really low overhead.
One day people will learn the folly of Winbloze, Linux Rules!
>In defense of wincam, the image quality is
>actually better than the axis since it's a
>true digital camera
The Axis camera is just as "true digital" as
the wincam, so that's rather pointless.
I confess that the last time that I compared these two products was more than a year ago. But back then, the Axis camera's quality was _far_ superior to the Wincam.
Images were blurry, colours were wrong and needed a lot of help by the camera's client software, light conditions were not working, the CCD's colour structure was clearly visible in the image. Just plain and simply bad.
Looking at the images on wincam.com now, those images are indeed far better. But some of the annoying artifacts that bothered me back then still seem to be there. The far-to-strong fisheye effect, the colour artifacts.
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
Hi,
:-)
y e.html). But since the parallel quickcam is hard to get these days, it is probably not an option for you. Also, the Microplex hub was nice and a good value for its price, but only if you already own a quickcam.
others already recommended the Axis camera - I agree.
I have been doing a lot with webcams for the company I worked for in the past, even made a review of different webcams for a German internet magazine. That hardware test was about a 1.5 years ago, so my experience is a bit dated.
To sum up: The Axis camera was the best of the crowd. It is basically a camera with an ethernet plug. _Great_ image quality, very easy to use in a network. A bit pricy, but definitely worth it. (http://www.axis.com/products/camera_servers/)
The Stardot camera has a few nice benefits, too. It uses a standard serial connector, you can use customized cables that are _very_ long, you can also use it with a modem. But the image quality of the camera that I tested 1.5 years ago was just _lousy_. It was even worse than the first version of the Connectix colour quickcam.
The old parallel Connectix camera has a lot of support by different Unix flavours, yet I only had running three of them simultaniously on one PC. Also, the quickcam really hogs any computer because it needs to be polled all the time - stupid protocol chosen by the developers.
Microplex offers a camera hub made for the parallel quickcam (http://www.microplex.com/microplex/info/networkE
There are a lot of USB cameras out there (the Philips product is _really_ good), but there still is no support that I know of for Linux. Don't know about BSD though.
So to sum up, the Axis camera was the way to go back then. From reading the description of your project, it sounds like it is exactly what you are looking for.
Mail me if you need to know more details.
------------------
You may like my a cappella music
If distance every becomes a problem Black Box (and probably other companies.. but i know they got a bunch) sells a variety local multiplexers. They will take multiple serial lines or ethernet or whatever else and multiplex it all into one signal over fiber or some other medium. It might be worth a look.
LinuxCAM software will be the better choice for all. This is a two years software developement and it is about to be released. ...September 1999.
Features:
- Unlimited camera input (Color/B&W)
- Robotics camera supported (all)
Point & click pictures
- IP protocol for all features
Full remote IP administration
- Streaming technology supported
RealVideo supported
http://www.linuxcam.com/
X10 is selling their remote cams for super cheap these days. You can get a whole kit for around $125 or so I believe.
This means that you could put the cams anywhere in the day care without worry. THen you just need RC in cards to capture the content. You can stream etc with these as well as write scripts to capture every nth frame.
Let me just reiterate what everyone is saying here -- Axis cams are the way to go. You can run UTP cable a LONG ways.
The only problem with the axis cams is restricting access to them.
The way I would do that is to have the cams on RFC1918 space, firewalled away from the world. Let a Linux/FreeBSD box sit as the 'public' box, doing authentication, etc. and allowing access to the snapshots to remote people.
Meanwhile, anyone local (adminstrators, etc.) can view the cameras as streaming video (jpeg push is how it works I believe, but its been a while since I dicked with one).
AXIS are really cool actually, they use linux in their "gadgets". They ported linux to their own RISC processor and that's what all of those print/scanner/webcam/isdn servers run. It's reason enough for buying them.
/emj
Use the bktr driver and 6 supported camera/cards
on a box with 6 pci slots and onboard ethernet/video/drive controllers.
Currently I have 2 cards in my box and streaming
using a hauppauge gard only uses like 200K for
system resources. You could probably find a cheaper bt848 card without the tvtuner.
you could use the 3com Big Picture camera kit
and the webcam streamer included with xawtv
I have a FreeBSD system here with multiple BrookTree cards in it, and it works pretty well. Amancio Hasty and Randall Hopper did a lot of good work on making the Bt848 and 878 boards work for nearly anything you want. (Nearly any Hauppauge board, or most mainstream PCI 'TV' boards)
.jpg every 30 seconds, and keep a history of the last 10 frames, and it works great for a webcam of this nature. There's really no reason you can't have as many of them as you have PCI slots.
There are a few applications out there in the FreeBSD Ports collection for taking the output of one of these cards and doing useful things with it. One in particular is fxtv.
I wrote a tiny little program based on how fxtv grabs the frames to just update a
Another option is to grab one of these from the Walmart Online site, that was mentioned in a story a few days ago on here. A sequencer like this will take 8 inputs, and cycle through all of them. Somehow time your webcam grabs to the cycle speed, and you could get by with only one digitizer card.
Here's what you do: define "camera clusters". These would be N cameras mounted very close together and connected to a junker PC running Linux (what else?). Have one script on each junker dedicated to these N cameras and cycling through them so that the cluster provides 1 picture every X seconds to the server via TCP/IP. Done this way you can probably do it fairly cheaply (although it may be bulky).
BUT FIRST, I'd ask the director why "real time" is so important. If the people being watched don't know which second is the one where the pic is being snapped, a granularity of 15 seconds should be plenty. What's the director going to do, sit there and do nothing but watch the screen?
If there is a reasonable answer to this, there may be another solution. There are digital cameras that will capture motion AND stills at the same time. Mount one in every room, feed the motion to the director and the stills to the web. I can't remember the name of the product, but there's a page out there about some guys getting in trouble in Walmart with it.
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
To: Number One
From: Advisor 482-46-9233
Subject: Project Overseer
Sir, I wish to suggest a new approach to our mission to eradicate the expectation and desire for "rights to privacy" in society. Our current approach has been to slowly introduce controls into the existing adult population. These projects - including key escrow, centralized databases, and expanding the use of "Social Security Numbers" as individual serial numbers - have been only moderately successful. Every time we try to introduce something new, there is a tremendous backlash from so-called "privacy rights" organizations such as the EFF, ACLU, and of course, the notorious "Slashdot" web site.
I propose that we introduce acceptance of - even dependance on - electronic monitoring and oversight into society by starting with young children. We will place monitoring cameras in day care centers, schools, youth centers - any place that children are present. We will even make hidden cameras available to parents (in the form of smoke detectors, for example). Parents will accept this with no hesitation - most of them are desperate to extend their "control" over their offspring as much as possible. Our program of seeding the media with scare stories about molestors, daycare abuse scandels, and sadistic babysitters will ensure that parents will universally accept having their offspring monitored at all times.
In a few years, the individuals that spend their childhood under the constant "protection" of our monitoring cameras will become adults - and that insideous concept of "privacy" will be completely foreign to them. They will have no problem accepting our other control programs, because they know of nothing else.
I have taken the liberty of "testing" this concept on one of strongholds of privacy on the Internet - the "Slashdot" web site. I requested information on using multiple cameras in a day care setting, and as of yet not a single respondant has suspected anything. They are even willingly providing excelent technical advice on how we might implement such a project.
If they only knew...
Yours Truly,
Citizen #482-46-9233.
P.S. I realize that we are already 15 years behind schedule, and that this will take even more time, but I firmly believe that this is our best hope at this time.
Set up a bunch of P60-P100's, one for each camera, put in a capture card and select a camera of your choice (parallel port cameras are decent if the lighting is ok, but get grainy otherwise). In either case tho, run an OS that can support the capture card you choose. These systems can then be networked to the primary server and the server can then handle the other issues.
OR... if you want the server to do ALL the work, you could get 6 capture cards (which can get difficult), or use 1 capture card and build a switch that will toggle between the inputs for the 6 cameras. As long as you have adaquate control over the software, and you should have, you can switch, capture, switch, capture, etc etc etc.
You said the camera didn't have to be absolutely realtime, and a custom relay based switch can easily toggle between 6 cameras in 3 seconds.
Building the switching unit takes a LITTLE electronics experience, along with some work hooking it up to the parallel port, but nothing too extravagant. In any event, its cheaper than multiple computers.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Here's the AXIS URL for their camera servers.
Would probably work very well for you - Ethernet eliminates your distance problem, and standard TCP/IP eliminates any compatibility issues...
This IS the way to go - no special cameras, high hackability (is that a word?) due to the building of the control, simple to set up - no special software, etc.
I was going to mention this kind of setup myself - but you beat me to it, eutychus! This is the way to do it. It would be different if he needed to do this a realtime streaming video - but at 1 FPS on the admin end, it isn't needed...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This is NOT the way to go. I had to look up stuff for webcams/daycare last summer as an intern and I'll tell you that you don't want a computer if you don't need it...
We needed one or 2 cameras. The best way i could find to do it was with an ISDN line to the daycare center and an ISP, using an ISDN router. There is a webcam made by AXIS technologies (don't know the http, look it up). It's a thinserver -- you can browse the camera directly and grab pics, using different urls/filenames for different sizes and qualities. I think it could do up to one pic/sec... Not sure. If the daycare had a PC in there, they'd get almost live feeds off the cams, and it'd all be ethernet and easy. AXIS provides cgi scripts to grab pics and post them on a "real" www server if you like, or you could just provide links to the pics directly (although in my case, that would've saturated the daycare's planned ISDN link..."
Look into it, and if you want more input, mail me - remove the "nospam".
"Half of everything you know is wrong." - My physics teacher.
From a motherboard manual, error beep codes: S-L-L-L-SS: Speaker Error
You could run just an average jo video camera with an video out RCA type plug then just use a amp to boost the signal 100+ feet.
Didn't Apple just make Quicktime 4.0 GPL and available on Linux? If so, couldn't you just set up a couple of Linux boxes each connected to a couple of cameras all running QT4. Then stream the video to the web server and out to the web.
Later...
Corrado
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
Go to Pawnshop buy 6 camcorders (sub 400$)
they do not have to be good but should have remote IR-ctlr with at least on/off
3 should have S-VIDEO out , and 3 with RCA out.
Amps actually may not needed for under 50'.
Also 50' is never just 50' once your in the walls.
Best bet is try it on the floor before cutting walls.
Now with the Remotes, cut them open & hard wire pads,
mount under camera with shiny L flange.
There you are 6 Remote control Cameras, Motor mounts and other things are easy add-ons.
You can also have the units keep on camera logs by reusing the Tape in the unit.
If you Wire in more controls(rw/ff etc) to the remote and track Time on server side accessing the log (past images) is easy.
Now on the Boxen Side
Get three Video capture cards with good PCI support. Each card should have RCA and SVideo inputs and Soft control of inputs. Miro, or ATI both have this several others too, you may have to get different cards as some drivers will not enumerate multicards correctly.
Now you have 6 Instanly available Video Streams and ability to log to file with hardware compression if available on your card to backups.
I know you can do this on Macs too as I have a 8500/G3 with 6 Video in/outs this way and a BWG3 with 4 video-io and FireWire.
Several Shareware apps for Macs already do some of this. Check out
http://members.xoom.com/hsoftware/inde x.html
Hope this helps
My concern would be more of one box doing too much work. Running a lot of web cams is pretty tough in itself, but this box is also being asked to be a firewall and such. I would recommend 2 boxs, but on the camera side I would go with the X10 style cameras that you can pick up at X10.com They are wireless, and you can put many of them into one source. They are designed for security and such.
www.linux-skunkworks.com
1. Find a good video capture card supported under Linux which also has an RCA IN. There are several cards that qualify.
2. Build a small parallel port controller box (an easy method would give you up to 8 cameras, but with a little more electronics, you could handle quite a few more). The box should switch the RCA inputs when a data line is toggled.
3. Get a few cheap B/W video or security cameras. You should be able to get these for $50 U.S.
4. Write a quick script or C program to snap a picture, toggle control line, etc in a simple loop... have it place the files in a directory on your web server. Create web pages with a refresh tag, and have them load the file which the script will refresh.
That's about it... hope this helps.
I work for Axis and would like to reply on the linux issue. We are working on porting linux into our thinservers (camera products being the first). Once this is completed we will of course set up a web site for posting our linux source where we will share our experiences with others. Currently all our products are based on our own stacks (which we call Axis thinserver technology). I think that once we add linux to our camera products we will see significant benefits from it, and I really belive that linux has a good place in the embedded applications as well. Already today we have it running in the lab - when we designed our latest chip (for 30 frames/second video over TCP/IP), getting it to work fist time under linux was a no-brainer compared to getting it to run under our older thinserver stack. If you have questions/comments - feel free to email me at martin.gren_nospam@axis.com (without _nospam)
Business URL: cctv.axis.com Private: www.askero.se
A simple observation, as I am already doing this in a daycare center.
Why is a 640 x 480 resolution so important, especially at higher color depths of 16 or 24 bit color. Are the parents connecting with a T1??? Because they sure as hell won't get an image very often with a 28.8 modem, or a 56K modem. Not every one uses a fast computer.
I am already doing this with a 4 camera system and 2 computers using win98, not linux, and our daycare has recently been featured on C|net's TV.com and The Web shows.
Each computer has 2 cameras, one of them acts as the server/firewall. Using a Java Applet to refresh images in 320 x 240 16bit color I can refresh every 4 seconds via an ISDN line. We will be getting a 768K SDSL line and will then be able to refresh the images at a frequency of every 1 or 2 seconds.
GOOD LUCK!!!!