[NTLUG:Discuss] Linux as a video surveillance system...

[Pat Regan]

Richard Geoffrion wrote:
> What am I looking for that I'm missing? On which terms do I need to search?
> 

I set up a machine doing motion capture using some X10 cameras some odd
number of years ago using a program called 'motion'.  Seems to be
available at:

http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome

I still have a test video from a web cam pointed out my old office window:

http://www.patshead.com/movies/tram-and-stuff.mpg

It seems that it can natively build mpeg files now, at the time I had to
 write a script to stitch jpegs together every so often (I think I
collected the jpegs into an mpeg once an hour).

Motion can capture from any v4l device, I don't know if it supports any
other kind of inputs or not though.  Capturing only when motion is
detected is a huge savings in disk space :).  You'll probably notice
that my test video is fairly jumpy.  I believe it was set to record 1
jpeg per second, which was perfect for our purposes.

Pat