WebCamXP, 30% off coupon

[electron]

On my P3 700 Mhz, Active Webcam uses up to 30% of my resources, so that isn't bad at all. Try disabling the Preview windows (View menu), and adjust some of the other settings, I bet you can get it much lower. I just checked the Pysoft site again for the pricing, it looks like Pro/Deluxe does still exist:

http://www.pysoft.com/ActiveWebCamOrderForm.html

In my case, I need Active Webcam, so I can automatically adjust the motion detection sensitivity based on the time of the day (I need this because when it snows, it would trigger the camera at night continiously, and this is my only work around without losing daytime sensitivity).

Great writeup tho, thanks for posting!

 

[WayneW]

I think ActiveWebCam is the perfect solution for a home-grown dedicated DVR, especially since it can make optimal use out of the lower-priced, multi-port, single-chip capture cards. I figure if you buy one of those inexpensie Dells for $300, add a $500 8-port capture card, and $30 software, you have an 8-channel DVR for $850, not too bad - heck you can add some 300GB HDDs to the mix for $99 on sale.

The jury has not reached a 100% conclusion, but the results on these ~$140 8 input 8 chip cards from eBay look promising.

Link to CT thread

 

[lintball]

I think ActiveWebCam is the perfect solution for a home-grown dedicated DVR, especially since it can make optimal use out of the lower-priced, multi-port, single-chip capture cards. I figure if you buy one of those inexpensie Dells for $300, add a $500 8-port capture card, and $30 software, you have an 8-channel DVR for $850, not too bad - heck you can add some 300GB HDDs to the mix for $99 on sale.

The jury has not reached a 100% conclusion, but the results on these ~$140 8 input 8 chip cards from eBay look promising.

Link to CT thread

I have a no-name BT848 4 port card from ebay that I paid about $30 delivered for. It appears to be 30fps / 4, so not full 30fps....but it works great! Uses the sourceforge BT wdm drivers.