Tip #3101 - Webcam Surveillance
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Webcam
Surveillance
Do you know what goes
on with your computer while you’re away from it? Do you have any
idea who comes into your room or office, doing who knows what?
Wouldn’t it
be useful to have some sort of surveillance by your computer that would
enable you to record what is going on around your home when you're gone?
Did you know that
if you have a simple Webcam, plus some free software, you have all you
need to set up this surveillance in less than five minutes flat? Well,
believe it!
Now, WorldStart had
a tip in awhile back about CatSpy
and while that is a good program, it is somewhat complicated for a beginning
user. On the other hand, Windows has a free tool called Timershot, which
is much easier to use, but unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of problems
with getting this to work with home Webcams.
So, instead, head
on over to the Web site of a Swedish guy named Daniel Backstrom here.
The screenshot below is from that site.
Once there, click
on the program I have circled. It's called Surveillance Scan II.
This is what you will
see (I'm guessing that’s Daniel in the picture!). Click on the “Download
Here” link to get started.
Keep in mind that
this will be in a zip file, so I will assume you have a copy of WinZip
on your computer. If not, you can download it here.
Extract the files
from the zipped file to a folder of your choice (see below):
Go to that folder
and click on the Surveillance Scan II.exe file. It will
load almost immediately and you will see this in front of you:
You set up your camera
by clicking on the drop down box circled in this picture (select driver)
where you should see, usually, a Windows WDM Image Capture driver. Accept
it by clicking on it.
You should then see
in the window what your Webcam sees, like this:
Note the two sliders
at the top. These adjust the Scan period (how often the
camera scans the scene) and Sensitivity (how sensitive
it should be to movement). Frankly, the default settings are good enough
for most situations, but experiment and see what suits your situation
best.
What happens is that
the camera scans what it sees every so often (the scan period) and if
it detects any movement, it will photograph it and will continue to do
so at regular intervals until the movement stops. So, focus the camera
on either the door, your computer or whatever you want to monitor. Then,
see if it performs as you want. If it doesn’t, just adjust the sensitivity
until you are satisfied with the results.
Basically, that’s
it. You are ready to go!
So, you may be wondering
how you can see the photographs you’ve taken, so you can successfully
identify the intruder or the person messing with your computer.
Well, you can do that
with one of two ways:
On the Surveillance
Scan screen, you will see this little box to the right (circled here):
All of the shots
you've taken are listed. Highlight what you want to see and click to view,
like this:
Clicking on them,
in turn, will show them in the preview window at the left.
Alternatively, if
you go to the folder where you installed the program, you will see them
listed and you can then look at them in a graphics program or the Windows
Picture and Fax Viewer.
That’s all there
is to it!
It's very simple and
very quick, but gives out excellent results.
Now, feel free to
leave your home with the confidence that your Webcam will “see all!”
~ David Woodford
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