VideoHelp Forum
+ Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 2
1 2 LastLast
Results 1 to 30 of 31
Thread
  1. Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Hey guys and gals,

    Does anybody know if there's an open-source program for Windows that will record video (not images) from a webcam? I'm looking for open-source, not just free.

    Thanks!
    Quote Quote  
  2. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Miskatonic U
    Search Comp PM
    The first place I would look is SourceForge.net. Just searching for webcam brings up 167 possibilities

    http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_search=soft&type_of_search=soft&words=webcam
    Read my blog here.
    Quote Quote  
  3. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    Which is not what he asked, not what he wanted. I followed your link and downloaded two of the 300 hits I got - and neither of them was free... And even free is not the same as 'open source'

    and they didn't work well
    Quote Quote  
  4. Member hech54's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Yank in Europe
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by abrogard View Post
    Which is not what he asked, not what he wanted. I followed your link and downloaded two of the 300 hits I got - and neither of them was free... And even free is not the same as 'open source'
    That's what happens when you dig up 3 year old posts.
    Quote Quote  
  5. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    Like what you're saying is we shouldn't? Then we might as well erase everything three years old.

    The point is: where's the open source software?
    Quote Quote  
  6. Member 16mmJunkie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Reel World
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by abrogard View Post
    Like what you're saying is we shouldn't? Then we might as well erase everything three years old.

    The point is: where's the open source software?

    More than likely in a 3 year period the link to programs has changed.......I believe that would be the point. Older posts have a value but are not up to date. Open source software can be found by googling "Open Source Software" it's that easy...just takes time on the behalf of the searcher..I've taken 20 seconds to do it here: http://www.opensourcewindows.org/
    Quote Quote  
  7. Member hech54's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Yank in Europe
    Search PM
    Originally Posted by abrogard View Post
    Like what you're saying is we shouldn't? Then we might as well erase everything three years old.

    The point is: where's the open source software?
    On New Years I captured from my webcam with VirtualDub. VDub has quite a few variants like VirtualdubMod, VirtualDub-MPEG2, VirtualDubOGM, VirtualDubAVS....etc etc etc.....however I don't recall a VirtualDubArrogantPrick.

    http://www.virtualdub.org/download.html
    Quote Quote  
  8. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    Virtual Dub is a good clue.

    I've found Debut and WebCamMax in the interim and I'd recommend them to anyone pursuing this line.

    Took me 5 secs to provide that answer.

    Quote Quote  
  9. Member 16mmJunkie's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Reel World
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by abrogard View Post
    Virtual Dub is a good clue.

    I've found Debut and WebCamMax in the interim and I'd recommend them to anyone pursuing this line.

    Took me 5 secs to provide that answer.

    It's easy if one takes the initiative on there own first. That why reading prior posts is important.
    Quote Quote  
  10. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Miskatonic U
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by abrogard View Post
    Virtual Dub is a good clue.

    I've found Debut and WebCamMax in the interim and I'd recommend them to anyone pursuing this line.

    Took me 5 secs to provide that answer.

    Neither of which are open-source. The original poster wanted open-source, and didn't care if it was free or not. They were also so vague that it was not possible to narrow the list down much further. Source Forge is an open source repository. I answered the question as it was asked, at the time it was asked. You came along three years later, didn't answer the question, and acted like a complete arse-hat.

    Well done sir.
    Read my blog here.
    Quote Quote  
  11. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    Yeah, you're right.
    Quote Quote  
  12. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA, USA
    Search Comp PM
    Man, in case you didn't know, people Google "opensource webcam" and get THIS POST (like I did) as the number one result.

    So they click videohelp.com thinking they're on to something, and all they get is one guy calling another guy an arse-hat for being over zealous.

    I thought this was a forum on video HELP, not video usuxorz.

    I did some research myself since there is not much actually on the Goog... Here goes for all the other Googlers...

    BigBlueButton
    Possibly the best colab software will soon be BigBlueButton, and it's Open-Source! Spread the word. This lets you colaborate with students/work mates/fellow evil scientists with integrated webcam support, a whiteboard, and VoIP right out of the box. All free, and all open-source.
    http://www.bigbluebutton.org/

    iSPYConnect
    Control your webcam from anywhere in the world via web and even from your iOS device (no android yet It's open-source so someone get to work!). Do things you think you can't like listen to live microphone feeds, adjust PTZ, setup motion detection zones, even auto-record from a laptop webcam and upload the thief's face to your web-server if your laptop is ever stolen and more. All Free and open-source.
    http://www.ispyconnect.com

    CentreCam
    This is software for CNC milling/plasma cutters. This is what I was looking for. It doesn't record, but it does let you overlay crosshairs of various sizes to align your cutter and works with "out-there" cheep Chinese microscope cams for PCB and micro work too. This guy does not release his source but it's free to use/demo and he is a DIY guy and will explain things to you. I Included this only because it's what I was looking for and it was hard to locate, maybe this will help spread the word a little.
    http://www.miketreth.mistral.co.uk/centrecam.htm

    OpenGazer
    In sort of a development stage in that you can't link it to log you in to your PC or anything, but very promising and you can work a mouse driver with it; OpenGazer lets you track eyes with your webcam, so you can use your eyeballs as a mouse and do other cool things with it. This is open-source and primarily for Linux but the algorithms are in there to port to anything. Also on this page is a gesture detection program. This is simply incredible and I can't believe it's free and open. This code is on par with NASA. Started by funding from Samsung.
    http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/opengazer/

    Fwink
    Fwink is an opensource program that lets you save input from your webcam and even an ATI TV Wonder card at predetermined intervals, you can overlay images or text, and you can copy them to an FTP server for upload to the Interwebs for weather, security and more.
    http://www.lundie.ca/fwink/

    eViaCam
    Enable Via Camera is an open-source program that lets you fully emulate your mouse with your big fat head. Setup is a breeze. You literally can be controlling your mouse with your skull in 60 seconds from download. And it's fully open-source. No appendages? No problem! You click by not moving your head at all for a user-defined time. I thought this would cause a lot of unwanted clicks but surprisingly we move our head a little bit a lot of the time. Awesome for disabled or as a starter project for those that want to make something more of it.
    http://eviacam.sourceforge.net/eviacam.php

    Red-5 Recorder
    This is an Open-source embedded Flash video recorder. It's for dating sites, job sites, any time you would ever want to record webcam footage using Flash for upload in real-time to your website from an interface. It's completely open-source.
    http://www.red5-recorder.com/

    KeyLemon
    Not open-source but free. Allows you to login to your PC with your face instead of a password or fingerprint, and also as a by-product; will optionally generate one of those spiffy time-laps "pic a day for the last billion years of my face" videos you see on youtube, except you'll be so cool because you were only logging into your PC.
    http://www.keylemon.com

    uCanVCam
    Creates a virtual camera that you can do almost anything with. Pre-process your webcam to spice up that boring Skype chat with your mom or video roulette. Completely open-source.
    http://classic.makesweet.com/webcam/ucanvcam/

    That's a start! Let's have some more people post help not hurt and make this planet more open-source friendly.
    Last edited by onexdata; 26th Feb 2012 at 04:09.
    Quote Quote  
  13. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    Well spoken. And thanks.

    Quote Quote  
  14. well said onexdata. This was one of the top searches when I searched for this subject. You have been a great help.

    Matt
    Quote Quote  
  15. Member olyteddy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by guns1inger View Post
    Originally Posted by abrogard View Post
    Virtual Dub is a good clue.

    I've found Debut and WebCamMax in the interim and I'd recommend them to anyone pursuing this line.

    Took me 5 secs to provide that answer.

    Neither of which are open-source. The original poster wanted open-source, and didn't care if it was free or not. [COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]They were also so vague that it was not possible to narrow the list down much further. [/COLOR]Source Forge is an open source repository. I answered the question as it was asked, at the time it was asked. You came along three years later, didn't answer the question, and acted like a complete arse-hat.

    Well done sir.
    Not to mention the OP probably never even came back for an answer, and that you provided said answer in about half an hour...
    Click image for larger version

Name:	1post.jpg
Views:	18632
Size:	23.9 KB
ID:	11504
    Quote Quote  
  16. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA, USA
    Search Comp PM
    I actually spent like 5 hours, created an account here just to post that and missed class I am that much of a dweeb. I knew nothing about webcams I had just bought a cheap ebay usb 400x microscope cam for a CNC machine; I wanted to have it align cuts to symbols on the material for orientation. Up till I made that list I never even used a webcam in my life.

    I researched software and installed, messed with and uninstalled some in order to make a sort of "neatest free/opensource webcam stuff I could find" type lists because people are starting to webcam like mad and video chat even in the middle of nowhere is completely viable now and any $200 tablet or $50 phone comes with an HD cam now, and HD cams are literally $6 on Amazon, a good open-source listing should exist or at least should be on the first Google page. Also programming wise, open-source 3D game engine's are all over Google and that has been a boon to free droid games, open-source PC games, etc.

    It just seemed like "wha?? nothing?? I am going to have to click result page TWO? you are sh*tting me. Doesn't everyone use them?"

    Anything open-source I will drop everything and try and help out with. It is the future! It is here now and we are building the foundation that future generations will thrive on! Such an exciting time!! )) You know I haven't had a "real" job in 2 years; people donate to projects you give for free, imagine that? People can support themselves happily by just giving away their hard work and saying "hey, help me a little if it helped you, otherwise, glad you showed interest!".

    Who the [bleep] ever thought something like that was possible? That entire corporations and communities would form and thrive on just "giving stuff away" with no catch, no "gotcha", no gimmicks, just because they feel it would be awesome if everyone did it.

    Any economist in the 80's head would explode if they saw 2012 today; "You mean... Phones are powered by a free OS? And... the source code is free too? And so are these office apps? These photo editors? This sound editor? What? Their SOURCE too?!? HOW?!? And these PC OSes? Wiki-WHAT? Free information? Khan Acadamy? Yale Open courses?!? Yale? No. You are sh*tting me, how YALE?! People spend all day updating and maintaining it?!? Free?!? HOW? WHY? WHAT?!? How the? what the? *KABOOM*. That is why time travel is not possible.

    ...and it's growing exponentially every day; humans actually care about each other, who knew? right? ) Maybe we will see the day where money becomes as barbaric as dragging your new wife into your cave by her hair with a club and some grunts. But we aren't going to get there by shrugging and saying "oh well" when open-source isn't plastered all over what we're looking for!

    I spent that 5 hours for you, because I love you.
    Quote Quote  
  17. I just hope you make enough money to invest for your retirement so that I (the taxpayer) won't have to support your lazy a**.
    Quote Quote  
  18. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA, USA
    Search Comp PM
    Hmm that was incredibly harsh. You don't know anything about me except that I spent 5 hours on a post and work on open-source projects, why would that little information inspire you to call my a** "lazy" with a mad emoticon in a public forum?

    In order to alleviate your worries... Not charging does not = not getting compensated. I own a nice home in a nice neighborhood. It's paid off. My cars are paid off and they are nice, my wife is a nurse, my children all get As and go to karate. Their college funds are already paid for. I have no debt and don't use any government assistance. We volunteer in the community and clean up the parks that you use, for free. We're a productive American family; we are the salt of the Earth, you will never have to give us a penny. It will much more likely be the other way around. If it is that way around, you also wont hear me complain about it.

    I develop software and objects, give it away, and give away the knowledge of how I did it, and people pay what they feel they should. It is volunteer capitalism; it is open-source. I still get paid. If someone uses a utility I already wrote, that usually means about $0 to $5 (only about 1 in 10 downloads will equal a donation, but then again, most people probably try it and remove it, or only needed it for a minute), if I write something custom for someone, that usually means $500 to $5,000 (like some management program for a pizza shop or a medical clinic). People still vote with their wallets, and I still compete in the capital market. The only unconventional thing I do is say "this stuff is free, if you really like it, consider giving me something". This allows people starting out or that are less fortunate to use my stuff they would otherwise not have access to or need to pirate in order to have access to it, and everyone else gives what they think it's worth. This is a good business model considering I work about 20-30 hours a week and made about 200k last year from home, and every penny I got was given voluntarily. I have no piracy issues and all my customers are always happy, because they only paid if they wanted to, and they paid exactly what they thought I deserved.

    Open-source is not some hippie free-love pot smoking drain on society; it is a new and proven market, it's a good way to do business if you are good at what you do, and if you look at the facts it generates a lot of GDP, more per capita than most industries, has no negative affects on society, and has a zero percent chance of shipping jobs over-seas.

    I hope this helps shed some light on the subject for you or at least helps alleviate today's self-inflicted misguided anger rampage.
    Quote Quote  
  19. Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Australia
    Search Comp PM
    onexdata: Thanks for your posts, they are great. You are right on with what you say. You are to be commended. Please ignore insulting, contentious, impertinent posts.

    You'd know, I guess, about 'Trolls' ? Just in case you don't they are internet forum/blog/social media posters who deliberately try to provoke (preferably) angry reactions. Obviously they are to be ignored, totally, even my mention of them here is too much attention.

    Apart from them there's a whole range of posters who quite obviously have nothing else to do and are merely filling up time..

    And there's a category of posters who simply want to increase the number of posts they've made.....

    Point is there's all kinds of posts and they're not all worthy of attention, not by a long chalk, not at all.

    Whereas you are quite different. A serious, sensible, valuable, clear sighted and helpful person.

    Thanks again, keep up the good work.

    Quote Quote  
  20. Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Ashland
    Search PM
    I came for the recorder software, which I still didn't find. (I wish audacity or avidemux would record video from attached devices.) But I stayed for the open source ownage.

    I love it when the most under reported fact about open source stomps the crap out of some delusional keynesian mythology.

    Like the only possible motive one can have is fiscal, and like every human on the planet is kept from emptying the cookie jar only by locks and punishment.

    200k a year writing donate ware. You sir are a damn hero.

    I'd donate if I had a dime to my name and I don't even use your ware to my knowledge lol
    Quote Quote  
  21. Thank you also to onexdata for his great contributions all along this forum. Not only his first contribution was exactly what I was looking for in the first place about webcam recording, but the further comments about open source, business, opened up somehow possibilities for this old programmer. Many thanks, best regards.
    Quote Quote  
  22. Member andWeRock's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Location
    Somewhere on The Border, US
    Search Comp PM
    Much obliged for the on point response, onexdata
    Quote Quote  
  23. Thanks indeed onexdata for your extremely useful posts!

    By any chance did you look at which of these has the best compression for a given quality? On my HP Windows netbook with HP TrueVision in-built camera, "YouCam" software is generating a minimum of about 3 MB per minute of webcam capture, Windows Live MovieMaker is much more. I am hoping there is something out there that can do better than 200 MB/hour of webcam video..
    Quote Quote  
  24. Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA, USA
    Search Comp PM
    Compression is based on the codec used, not the software application that's handling it. Most opensource applications use mjpg, or "motion jpg", which are just jpeg files that save the _difference_ between two frames. This is very inefficient because any reusable compression data that happens outside of 2 adjacent frames cannot be used.

    If you want better compression, you will want to use a H.264/MPG4 codec, or Theora which is opensource, or the Google-backed WebM, which is also open-source. If you have Chrome you've already installed the Theora and WebM codecs.



    Choosing a codec in your application is as simple as going to the settings dialog and choosing a different codec. Some simple programs only use a default codec, and many unfortunately chose mjpg because it's so simple, but a good program will let you choose anything you have installed.


    ANYHOO... ispyconnect can use any codec you'd like, it's free, and it's opensource, check it out... http://www.ispyconnect.com


    WebM's codec project page is here: http://www.webmproject.org/ You can get example code for your project and write something that uses it within a day or so. WebM can get top-of-the-line compression ratios, better than H.264.


    The need for opensource webcam software, or _any_ webcam software is coming to a close with the near completion of HTML5 and it's ability to capture webcam data. These are very exciting times!


    Currently, with just a little code, you can capture photos, video, or stream data to any server connected to the internet, and all you need to have is a web browser. This is great if you want to set something up with little overhead on a client (all they need is a frickin browser or a phone (yes HTML5 works on iOS and Android), and you can setup server-side anything to direct the video stream.


    So because you can use phones, and they all have built in batteries and universally work on 5v/2a chargers; the days of 8 megapixel $50 phone WiFi cams are almost here...


    HTML5 camera functions are still in development, but they work right now, and the latest browsers support them. Check out this page http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro/ to see just how easy it is to get your webcam data!


    Happy webcaming/coding/spying on your neighbors!
    Quote Quote  
  25. Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    alabama
    Search PM
    The sad thing is we don't need someone to research and give a list, we just need one piece of open-source software that someone can say "this does the job well for me, and I recommend it" so that we don't have to keep looking.
    Quote Quote  
  26. Originally Posted by onexdata View Post
    Man, in case you didn't know, people Google "opensource webcam" and get THIS POST (like I did) as the number one result.
    Yep, I was one of those, even now, years later...

    I had a couple of old VCR tapes from our daughters childhood that I wanted to capture to disk while they are still readable and a VCR player still can be found, so I bought a "Easycap USB 2.0 Video TV DVD VHS Capture Adapter" gadget on Ebay.

    It works fine; I mean, obviously it can't do anything to the awful video quality of VCR but it works. It comes with a mini-cd labelled "EasyCap", and it seems to install two pieces of software - drivers and some proprietary Chinese software called "honestech TVR". It kinda works. I start it and the VCR and I see video. I can click a "record" button and then it records the video, in a choice of formats, including mp4, so far so good.

    The problem is the tapes I want to capture are up to 4 hours long and consist of many individual clips, so I was wondering if there isn't some software available that will automatically create a new capture file after a break in the video? I recall seeing this for DV capture software, though I'm not a regular user and can't for the life of me remember what it was called.

    So, any hints to some software that can do this?
    Quote Quote  
  27. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by rcd View Post
    Originally Posted by onexdata View Post
    Man, in case you didn't know, people Google "opensource webcam" and get THIS POST (like I did) as the number one result.
    Yep, I was one of those, even now, years later...

    I had a couple of old VCR tapes from our daughters childhood that I wanted to capture to disk while they are still readable and a VCR player still can be found, so I bought a "Easycap USB 2.0 Video TV DVD VHS Capture Adapter" gadget on Ebay.

    It works fine; I mean, obviously it can't do anything to the awful video quality of VCR but it works. It comes with a mini-cd labelled "EasyCap", and it seems to install two pieces of software - drivers and some proprietary Chinese software called "honestech TVR". It kinda works. I start it and the VCR and I see video. I can click a "record" button and then it records the video, in a choice of formats, including mp4, so far so good.

    The problem is the tapes I want to capture are up to 4 hours long and consist of many individual clips, so I was wondering if there isn't some software available that will automatically create a new capture file after a break in the video? I recall seeing this for DV capture software, though I'm not a regular user and can't for the life of me remember what it was called.

    So, any hints to some software that can do this?
    Make a new thread in the capturing section, https://forum.videohelp.com/forums/10-Capturing and you might get more help.
    Quote Quote  
  28. I kept running into this useless thread while searching for a webcam crosshair app to help aim a webcam for a mixed reality HTC Vive setup in OBS. AMCap does the trick. Hope this helps future googlers. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Video-Recording/AMCap.shtml
    Quote Quote  
  29. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2000
    Location
    Sweden
    Search Comp PM
    I don't think AMcap is open source...
    Quote Quote  



Similar Threads

Visit our sponsor! Try DVDFab and backup Blu-rays!