Active WebCam question

[Thickman]

I have a question about how to setup Active Webcam for motion detection. See the attached picture it's only showing 6% motion when walking right in front of the camera. Active Webcam is set to 99% on the sensitivity. If someone is walking in the street it will not capture them but if a car drives by in either direction it will but at only 2% sensitivity. I had an X10 camera before this one and it would pick up the neighbors across the street in the driveway set at 99%. This is the camera but with a sony CCD.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/direct/g4sh18dn420.html

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Terry

 

[independentpete]

Terry: Not sure what the question here is. Basically, the image you show indicates that the person walking past the camera has modified 6% of the pixels during the sample taken. If you say a car in the steet shows 2%, that means the car has modified 2% of the pixels during the sample taken. Setting the motion sensitivity to 99% in AWC means that it will pretty much be recording (or do whatever you have setup when motion is triggered) all the time because you're telling it that if 1% of the pixels are modified, then record. So, in both your cases (6% and 2%), it should be trigering.

 

[Thickman]

I thought that a person walking in the street would cause a trigger but it's not. The old X10 camera would but the new camera doesn't both using Active webcam. Active webcam doesn't pick up a person walking until they're half way up the driveway. The interface to the computer is a X10 USB adapter would a capture card work better?

Thanks,
Terry

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Does Active WebCam have an option to detect both "positive" and "negative" captures? Maybe that would help (I am really not an expert on this one! ).

 

[independentpete]

Good point BSR. Yes, AWC does have positive and negative motion detection. It's possible that Terry has it the wrong way.

Terry: Check your settings under 'Define Motion Area' > 'Exclude selected cell (cells) from the motion detection' / 'Detect motion in the selected cell (cells)'. Make sure you have the right one selected. Or try 'All cells on'.

 

[Thickman]

I checked and its set with all cells on to detect motion. I guess the camera just isn't sensitivity enough to pickup a person walking in the street. Is this only a camera function or could it be the X10 USB dongle. Would a camera card work better? I'm only getting 9 frames per second in 320x240.

Thanks,
Terry

 

[independentpete]

Doesn't sound like it's a camera issue. If you can see the person walking, then the camera is picking it up. If you're only getting a few frames per second from your capture device, that's likely to be the problem. 9 frames per second might not be enough to trigger. In AWC, try different values for the 'Check motion every' setting. I think the default is 0.5 seconds. Try a few other settings and see what happens. If that gets you nowhere, you might try a true capture card.

I'll be nonest with you... Even if you get the detection working, you may not be happy with the results. I used to use AWC's motion detection to record video, but it had so many false triggers (caused by shadows, etc.) that I ended up installing a motion sensor near the camera and let that start/stop recording through HS events.