Ask Slashdot: Multiple Webcams and FreeBSD

Swamp|Fox asks: "I've been tasked with finding a way to have multiple web cameras (at least 6) capturing simultaneously for a soon-to-be-opened daycare. This is not exactly a new idea, and there are many daycares out there utilizing it. The idea is that parents can check in on their kid(s) from their office. There are many commercial packages out there, but none that quite fit perfectly. The problem(s) lie in the fact that there will be a singleserver, most likely a PentiumII 300, with 256 megs of RAM, and U2W SCSI, acting as both the web server, a NAT'd internet gateway/firewall, and the capture host for the webcams." There's a bit more to this, but the gist of it is that this fellow is looking for options. Click below for more.

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."