Yawcam

I'm using YAWCAM to monitor my office when i'm not in. I'd LOVE to be able to use it for security. What would help would be to have it start recording a video based on motion. the image capture is -ok-, but capturing video then uploading it would be great.

I'd like to be able to record a video, but also have a feature such as web remote management, where you can stream the webcam and press record when you want and stop from the web interface.

also what about streaming sound with video

Yes I use yawcam to monitor people entering and exiting a University computer lab. I'd use video capture absolutely.

By the way be sure to always check out advertisements unless you can donate to help out the authors/project.

Nice ideas. I agree, these features would be great to have in Yawcam. But as always, there are a lot of things to do, and time is short...

/malun

Hey everybody,
I use Yawcam to monitor what is going on at my house when I'm at work which generally means seeing my cats chasing each other around.
I leave it running all the time and consider it a bit of a security tool. I agree that motion detection would be great, but since that's probably a lot of work, and not a current feature of the software, I have come up with a (sort of) solution. Let's see if other thinks of it:
What I have done is set Yawcam to grab images every 5 seconds and store them on a server. I have a scheduled task (Windows) that runs a batch file daily to delete my grabbed images so that I don't get too many cluttering up the server. The theory behind my process is that I would know within 24 hours if there is anything I need to review in terms of a security breach.

I find that the 5 second delay seems to work pretty well in my case.
Just thought I would throw that idea out there.
Gene

There is motion detection in Yawcam. Try to click "Window -> Motion detection".

More info in the help:
http://www.yawcam.com/help/help_motion.php

/malun

Motion detection, yes, but not to record on motion right?

and not to record a capture on motion either right? There are a lot of buttons that seem to suggest that Yawcam can be set to take snapshot images and when motion is detected and send it to you. 1a) For instance, FIRST, note in the main Yawcam window (Control Panel/Console tabs), under Settings/Device/Format Control, there is a Stream Format/Color Space/Compression setting as if to imply that you can adjust the compression of a saved file. 1b) NEXT, go back to that main Yawcam window (Control Panel/Console tabs), under Windows, check Motion Detection. 1c) In the Motion Detection Window, under the Action tab, you have the ability under the first option, Save File/Settings, to have Yawcam snap pictures when Motion is detected. You can adjust the interval rate for Yawcam to take pictures, image quality and *Browse where you want Yawcam to save those images. * The only problem with the Browse that I have found is that when you set a location (I made a subfolder in a My Documents Folder), the main Yawcam window (Control Panel/Console tabs), under the Console tab, Yawcam returns an that it cannot access that folder: "Error: C:\Users\MY-NAME\Documents\My-SubFile-Name (Access is denied)". 1d) On the same Motion Detection issue, in the same Motion Detection Window mentioned at beginning of point 1c, Actions tab, you can input into the fields what e-mail Yawcam sends the Motion-Detected pictures to. I haven't figured out what address goes in the To or From field. I haven't figured out what goes in the SMTP Server field or Port field or how to find out this info, but clearly, Yawcam already has the potential to do all of the things that are being discussed in this Thread.
1e) On the same Motion Detection issue, in the same Motion Detection Window mentioned at beginning of point 1c, but this time under the Settings tab, there is a Detection Level adjustment. It would be nice to know how this works as well. For instance, by increasing the Sensitivity Slider to a higher/larger Percent, does that decrease or increase the actions that activate the Motion Detection features, such as taking pictures? The same question on the Tolerance Slider. And in that same Window, on the bottom, how does one read or understand, under the Variations/Interval, what the 500 ms means or what happens if I increase or decrease that number?

CONCLUSION: So it seems the feature for taking pics upon detecting motion AND sending it to you via E-Mail is already part of Yawcam. What we need are clear, step-by-step instructions on how to use it. And Yawcam Help talks only about Router settings and how to adjust, but many people don't use routers. We cable in directly to our cable modems without an intermediary Router.

For Capturing Motion Detection video, see the Yawcam web Help pages: http://www.yawcam.com/help/help_set_cam.php See bottom "Tip"

you could use a program like Webcam Video Capture and launch it with a batch file that is activated on motion detection.

Since this old thread was bumped, I might as well add the following:
In Yawcam 0.5.0 there is an option to record a video file on motion detection.

/malun