Were I in your shoes I would look for two programs (hopefully with
source code):
First, a simple video processing program which detects changes from
frame to fram in video.  When it detects significant changes (say, a
certian percentage of the picture changes color or brightness between 5
frames, etc)
That program starts the second program which does video compression.  I
might recommend divx (they are coming out with an mpeg4 version as well,
but I don't remember the name...) at http://www.projectmayo.com/
The video compression is so good you may not even need the first program
(since divx compares the frames first and only stores the changes)

You would still need a method to capture video.  USB cams can only be a
few meters from the PC, so I would suggest you go ahead and use regular
video cameras (color pinholes can be had for under $50[US]), and send
the composite to a video capture card on your PC (cheap video capture is
also less than $50[US]).  Use one PC, and either have several cards, one
card that has several channels, or one card and an external video switch
if you want multiple cameras.

-Adam

John Pearson wrote:
>
> I want to install a video surveillance system. My first thought was a VCR
> and a small BW camera, but I was wondering if a PC would make a better
> system.
>
> If so, is there any software/hardware packages out there to put together a
> small and simple video surveillance system based on a PC?
>
> All and any info about video surveillance systems are welcome.
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
> (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
(like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics