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anchoret

Help, Stuck in Video Capture Nightmare!

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OK, so I'm trying to fit up a laptop-based surveillance system before leaving for vacation. The commercial packages didn't seem to have the features I wanted and various computer-based software promised the sun and moon in terms of hardware compatibility and features, so I decided to go that route -- using some outside cams plus the laptop's native webcam (do you see where this is headed?).

 

I bought four Q-See indoor/outdoor cams and a EasyCap-type USB 4-channel capture device because that's essentially all that will work with a laptop, USB. This device uses the SOMagic 2021 chip.

 

Incredibly, the cameras and the device worked fine with the hokey little bundleware program and there were no apparent problems with Win7/64. What could possibly go wrong?

 

The problem is that apparently none of these hotshot, ultra-compatible, work-with-anything surveillance programs will recognize and configure the cameras. They just see the capture device essentially as a dead camera, rather than a capture device with four working cameras.

 

Is there a solution to this, or am I the victim of a very bad joke?

 

Thanks for any help!

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Hi sorry but bit comfused on your post

 

is it remote viewing your having problems with ?? and which smartphone are you using if this is your problem

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This is a problem with these no-name capture systems.

 

Blue Iris works with a variety of analog capture boards, but you won't know about this one until you try it on the demo version. If it doesn't the developer is very responsive to requests, and could tell you if there's any hope. I don't know what your budget is, but the software costs $50 if it works for you.

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I have the single camera version (better known as the VCR to Digital version) of the Easycap and I can verify it works fine with Blue Iris. I am currently using it now.

 

The problem with the 4 channel device is that you can only use one channel at a time. So I honestly don't know why they even make it or it is marketed as a 4 channel device. Basically the bottom line is you can only run 1 camera off the usb device at one time due to the way the modulation method works.

 

Hopefully that makes sense.

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