Morning, gang.
Some of you may be aware of this, others may not. Greengeek and I, independently - and to a certain extent, in collaboration - have both been figuring out ways to make use of old webcams to enable a "poor man's security system".
Ian's currently working on, and steadily improving, usbcamrecord; this is ffmpeg-based, and uses V4L2.
I built MultiCam a while back; this one is built around mPlayer and also makes use of V4L2. I'm also working on an ffmpeg-based one myself, which I'm calling CamRecord; this IS fully-functional ATM, but I'm still working out a few quirks, and adding the odd extra feature......I'll release this one in good time, and y'all can have a play with it, and see what ya think.
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So; AFAIK, Ian's already got his in use. My software is all functional, and works fine with the 'local' Logitech c920 on the desktop rig. Once I get the car's MOT, insurance, tax, etc, out of the way by the end of this month, I'll have a bit more spare cash to play with. I'll explain where I'm going with this.....
The desktop is basically at the back of the house, right? I want to rig up a webcam in the corner of the front kitchen window, to be able to monitor the front gate/driveway, etc. Now; the desired location for the cam is around 30ft away from the 'puter, so I need to find a method of connecting the cam to the 'puter, without incurring signal loss.
There's limits to how far you can extend USB cables, and the newer standard the cable is, the shorter that permitted maximum can be, due to maintaining data transfer rates. The c920 - in fact, all my cams - are USB 2.0, for which the maximum is around 16 ft. So, that idea's out the window, TBH.
I'm probably going to use the Microsoft LifeCam 3000 I've got; after my c920 cams, this has the best range of controls and picture quality, so should be fine for the job.
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Does anybody have any other ideas for how to do this? More importantly, has anybody got any experience of extending USB over long distances?
I'm toying with the idea of one of these 'USB over Ethernet' extenders, since Ethernet can run over hundreds of feet without significant data loss.....an important consideration with any kind of video signal. I've got a spare 10m Cat 6 Ethernet cable I bought a couple of years ago; still sealed in the packet.....never been used. I can run the cable itself up into the roof space through the same hole where the cable for my FreeSat box comes through into the bedroom. It should be a simple enough matter to drill a hole just big enough for an Ethernet cable into the corner of the kitchen, then run the cable along the top of the cupboards & curtain rail to get it where I want it.
It's then just a case of plugging both of the adapter units into the mains, and hooking the appropriate cables up.
Comments? Ideas? Alternative suggestions?
Any & all suggestions, etc, will be considered. I'm not so set on any particular method ATM. I would like to end up with the most efficient, and cost-effective method that will achieve what I want.
Over to you lot. TIA...
Mike.