Webcam Help - Should Motion be Blurry

I bought my first webcam. I didn't go with the cheapest, it's a Quickcam 9000. I want to use it for a security camera. The still image is nice and clear but anything that moves is a useless blur. Are USB webcams supposed to be like that?

Background.. I have several NTSC security cameras, but all of them produce low resolution images where you can't even read a licence plate. I want something that will record a nice clear/large image. What frustrates me is that the cheapest 1.3MP snap camera will produce the results I want, but I just run into roadblocks when trying to achieve those results in a security system. I thought I had the solution with this Quickcam, but it is useless. I tried recording video on my linux machine (using motion software) and on a windows machine using movie maker and the result were crap. The only other solution of which I can think is to use Gphoto and a Canon camera, but should it be that complicated? Is there not a hundred buck webcam solution that can record clear moving pictures?

If you have any other ideas, I'd appreciate it.

Reply to
wdoe999
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Recording license plates from moving vehicles isn't the easiest task for even a high quality CCTV camera -- let alone an inexpensive webcam. We sell license plate capture camera systems to government agencies and a few major corporate users. They're used for traffic enforcement and vehicular access control. Some can record a plate from a car moving at over 100 mph. These cameras cost several thousand dollars apiece -- not your typical home use gadgets, unfortunately. Though it's probably nothing you'd want to buy for this project, here's a link to get some information on the type of hardware involved:

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The above model sells for about $5K retail. It has twin cameras to capture the plate number and the whole vehicle simultaneously. There are models with only a single camera which run about $3500 apiece.

Reply to
Robert L Bass
[ snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com writes]

I'm afraid not, currently your idea using Gphoto seems to be the best one if it's fast enough for your use. It has amazed me for years that noone yet has combined today's cheap digital cameras with software enabling it to become a high resolution security camera.

Six years ago I set up my website

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which uses a Nikon Coolpix 995 digital camera. It's a 3.3 Mpix camera released in

2000, I think. I thought that in a couple of years there would be webcams giving the same quality making my messy and slow setup with the Nikon camera obsolete. Even though modern webcams now have reached 3 Mpix, the dynamic range, sensitivity and overall quality stink. So I'm still stuck with the Coolpix and that high quality webcam still seems a couple of years away. I'm still looking, but nothing yet is close to the quality of that old (nine years!) Coolpix camera which has been selling for less than $100 on eBay for years.
Reply to
Steinar Midtskogen

I'd go with something better than a USB webcam for clear shots.

I have not tried this one, but I betcha it's better than a USB ($109):

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Reply to
G. Morgan

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