possibly unique request for capture software.

[logic7]

K... I have an old mini webcam/camera that I want to set up on my PC in my home office to figure out who's sneaking in and grabbing stuff (i.e. money) from my desk while I'm at work. I've found the hiding spot for it and have had it sitting in place for the last few days while I've been trying to record.

I've tried using Microsoft's Movie Maker that was bundled with XP, but I found that it stops recording as soon as I lock my PC. Tossing that out, I tried Virtual Dub with wildly inconsistent results. One day I got it to record at the camera's very limited 320x240 resolution, but about 2hrs into it, video just stopped and went black. Another day I got the same result except that video stopped about 30 minutes into the recording and it went to black, only to sporadically reappear during the 10hr capture. This has repeated ad nauseum. I've also noticed that recording with certain codecs completely crush my CPU (P4-3GHz HT, Northwood core).

What I'm looking for is a simple piece of capture software that will capture from a webcam and will continue to run even after I lock the screen. Virtual Dub was a step in the right direction, but I can't get it to capture reliably for the length of time I need it to.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Get a seperate recording device, this one is pretty cool and records for 3hrs:
http://www.skymall.com/shopping/detail.htm?pid=102688027&pnr=M53&cm_mmc=Shopping-_-Goo...53-_-102688027

Or you could not leave valuables around for people to steal.

[logic7]

well, I already have the camera hooked up to my PC, and I'm capturing roughly 10hrs of video per day. All I'm looking for is the capture software... unless I can just configure Virtual Dub to do it reliably.

[jagabo]

Get some software with motion detection. It will only record when something in the camera's field of view is moving.

[dphirschler]

Have you tried VirtualVCR?


Darryl

[p_l]

Get some software with motion detection. It will only record when something in the camera's field of view is moving.

One of my webcams came with this, an old Creative webcam IIRC, and it does work - recording only when it detects motion and even sending what it captures by email automatically - but I think it's proprietary software that only works with the webcam it came with.

Is there any "standalone," independent motion detection webcam recording freeware?

[jman98]

It's been about 4 years since this happened, but at my previous job one of my co-workers used to bitch all the time about someone messing with his desk after hours. We thought he was complaining about nothing, but he hid a webcam in a kleenex box (it was really an excellent hiding spot) and set up some kind of motion capture software for the webcam. It turned out he was absolutely right. It turns out that a man and a woman on the night cleaning crew were using his desk to, ahem, "rendezvous". I didn't personally watch enough of the video to know if there was actual sex going on, but what little I did see could be described as "inappropriate" for sure. He took the video to the building management and they were shocked, but they got rid of the couple from the cleaning crew.

Sorry but I don't remember what software he used and I wasn't particularly close to this guy. I don't even remember his last name any more. However, Google is your friend, just as they say. See here:
http://www.simplehelp.net/2006/09/27/how-to-use-your-pc-and-webcam-as-a-motion-detecti...curity-camera/
This software can still be downloaded even though it is not actively maintained any more.

[jagabo]

Is there any "standalone," independent motion detection webcam recording freeware?

I haven't done it for along time (and when I did I used the software that came with the webcam) but I'm sure there is. A Google search should turn something up.