MossRoad
Super Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 58,375
- Location
- South Bend, Indiana (near)
- Tractor
- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Find yourself a used video switcher. Something on this page at e-bay. It will switch between cameras in a cycle and you only need to record one channel on a PC or time lapse VCR. You can find switcher units that have inputs for triggers like motion sensors or physical switches. These automatically switch to different cameras as the triggers go. On one installation I have an older switch unit that will sit on camera A forever, until a motion sensor triggers it to flip to camera B. It will stay on camera B as long as the trigger is active. When the trigger stops activating, it will go back to camera A. If A and B are triggered at the same time, it will toggle back and forth between A and B until one of the triggers stops. There are 8 inputs on this unit, so I could have up to 8 cameras and 8 triggers, if needed.
I have the output of that switch plugged into a PC with a single channel video input card. It captures pictures anytime the picture to the channel input changes.
I had very little money into this equipment, so that is why I used it. I would like to have a multi channel capture card, but do not yet. I do have a few USB cameras as well, that work well with the software that I mentioned above, but they are hard wired to the computer.
I have the output of that switch plugged into a PC with a single channel video input card. It captures pictures anytime the picture to the channel input changes.
I had very little money into this equipment, so that is why I used it. I would like to have a multi channel capture card, but do not yet. I do have a few USB cameras as well, that work well with the software that I mentioned above, but they are hard wired to the computer.