Video Surveillance Software?

I'm a software developer and have something that I use to guard the alley behind my apartment. I'm willing to let others try it if I can get some minimal feedback on how it works and what capture device was verified with it. It's not fancy but it records into .AVI files and has a motion detector, and alarm.

If you want to try it you must have...

• a very fast CPU (at least 1 GHZ...I think. I'm using dual

• Direct draw capable display adapter

• a capture device that works with my SW (but who knows which ones unless someone helps me test it)

• 32 bit Windows (NT, W2K, Xp), not 98, M/E nor 95.

I've already confronted possible car burglars and it's prevented crime just by alerting me when someone comes into the alley at night. No one comes into the alley without my knowledge. I'm also using a very sensitive night camera (DX-8263SL) with it.

How does one know if their display adapter has this feature? If you have an expensive PC would this then be a common feature?

Are you shooting through a window? Or do you have this in some large weatherproof housing?

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Thanks. I'm also considering a way to store the images from that movement history and the auto-mask (which shows a trail left by movement) so that they can be accessed after some events were recorded. Maybe, eventually from the internet.

Right now I can glance at the little displays and they tell me whether someone walked in or out of the protected area, in case I get to the screen after the person has walked away.

If you have MS's direct-x installed (and if you use local video capture you most likely do) you can load DXDIAG.EXE and run a test on the display adapter. It should show that the test has passed. I attached a small gif image to show what it should look like.

I think the video display adapters that support video gaming should already support direct draw. I have NVIDIA adapters on both my computers and they both support dd. My laptop doesn't have that type of display and the sw doesn't work on it. I'm eventually going to remove that DD requirement but it's not finished yet. Early on, I chose to use MS's VMR9 renderer (part of direct-x) in order to display the video screens...which (to my surprise) became a requirement for using DD, unfortunately.

Yes, it's inside looking out my kitchen window. (Nice view of the dusty alley?) I would like to put it outside and improve the quality and sensitivity of the video but it's not made for outdoor use, AFAIK. Maybe eventually I'll build or buy a housing for the camera.

begin 644 dxdiag.gif M1TE&.#EAW`(5`K,``/___P``,YF9FI/I5ZB:F!'S*)*9L M2OJ3J4*@6E"/`9N=M)=00.IZZV0":%4#MHKG:US7K>*TUY M9I?WDN57Y[BURSZ3L:N;ZR,G^7,R.Z"H"GPG`:?WI"`%33?AC#_\\0?C&&;HN MF/P]`*@2-],'DS&ZUO?@&$BT">%

I think the gif image I attached got pulled out by the server. Ok I learned my lesson...

The dxdiag screenshot is at this url now.

Nice. I like the "Movement History" indicator. I've not seen that before. It's a good idea.

Great. If you want to use the sw, let me know. I'll check back later today or tomorrow.

Dave

P.S. I feel like I'm pushing my software on people sometimes. I won't ask anymore .

It did. Worked fine. Thanks.

But my ISP, like many, removed binary attachments from text only newsgroups.

My problem is I want to monitor what's going on in front of my row house. So a large casing would be way too noticeable. I could only get away with a weatherproof bullet camera. I do keep a light on over my stoop and one inside under the stoop. So I may be able to get away with a less sensitive camera.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Okay. So I now tried again and pressed the button. Before I was satisfied just seeing the "Enabled." It ran fine, except when in full screen the image on the second of my dual monitors shifted over to the right a half screen.

My display adapter is a Radeon VE from ATI.

The DXDIAG program is also useful to see if I have the latest drivers. When using Google Earth I blue screened. So I need to check the Dell site and update them.

What software do you use to paste the image in the clipboard to a gif file?

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Photoshop. The "Save for Web" command.

Dave, can your software handle multiple camera's?

No.