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At the heart of a webcam surveillance
system is a special software that
uses webcam as its eyes. It's the brain of the webcam security
system much like the control panel to conventional security
system. These softwares can record the video from the webcams
into the computer disk for later viewing by the user. One of the
system's main advantage is that user can connect to the webcam
at home from a remote location through the internet or a local
area network (LAN). Parents can check on their kids from the
office to see whether the nanny is treating the kids nicely.
More advanced software has a built in
motion detector. The images from
the webcam are analyzed using special algorithm that is able to
tell from the image whether there's any movement within the
field of view of the webcam. Softwares with motion detection
capability offer the feature to only record the video when
motion is detected. This can significantly reduce the amount of
disk space used and also enable the user to view the video of
the event directly rather than browsing through the hours of
video to see if anything happened when the user is not around.
What is important is the video recording of events and not when
there's nothing happening.
Depending on the software's capability,
some can even give you a call to inform you that motion is
detected or send an email to you with the image attached.
The quality of webcams used plays an
important role with softwares that has motion detection
capability. A below average webcam will produce poor quality
images and will significantly affect the capability of the
software. Even so, false alarms are not as critical as false
alarms caused by conventional security system. The worst that
can happen is you getting a lot of phone calls from home but
with conventional system, you can get fined by the authority for
being a nuisance to your neighbors. Bare in mind constant phone
calls from home can be very irritating when it's caused by false
alarms. So, it's advisable to get a good webcam.
A very important factor you should take
into consideration before buying one is the sensor type of the
webcam. There are 2 types of sensor,
charged coupled device (CCD) and
complementary metal oxide semiconductor
(CMOS). If you intent to use
the webcam in poorly illuminated room, go for CCD sensors.
CCD vs CMOS
To help you choose a good surveillance
software, check out the review of the softwares by following the
link below or download the free webcam surveillance software
from the download section.
Review of web
surveillance softwares.
Webcams
resources:
Jr.com
Bizrate.com
walmart.com
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