Advice on my scenario...

[Jason]

Trying to determine the best approach to a project, and if SightHound is the way to go. We have a distribution center with 40 individual workstations, each with their own pc and webcam. I need software that runs in the background without the user being able to manipulate it. So something that runs as a Service, or has some sort of stealth mode would be ideal. Also needs to run on a schedule, Mon - Fri, automatically starting motion detection recording between a set time period. As far a licensing goes, I'm guessing it's the $60 Basic version for each of the 40 stations.

I'm currently testing the paid version of WebcamXP at one station. I've got it doing everything I need it to do, but I'm not 100% sold on it.

Anyway, I appreciate any insight anyone has. Thanks!

[ryan]

Hi Jason,

Sighthound Video isn't quite set up for the scenario you've proposed, running in stealth mode on each workstation. It would be better suited if, for example, you used VLC or some other application on each workstation to stream the webcams (essential turning them into IP cameras) and monitored them all from one or two computers running the Sighthound Video Pro version.

Alternatively without knowing exactly what you're trying to do, if these computers are grouped nearby each other in one room or several, you could put a few IP cameras in those rooms and monitor them from a single point rather than installing a webcam and software on each machine.

It would be perhaps possible to run on each machine as an administrative user that is always logged on to prevent tampering from the primary user account. If you'd like to explore such a scenario I'd encourage you to download and try the free version of the software which would allow you to see if it suits your needs. Running without a license limits you to a single configured camera at 320x240 resolution.

Hope that helps,
- ryan

[cc_rider]

I would propose that you purchase IP based cameras, as Ryan suggests, and configure each one to 'broadcast' to a central administrative computer in the manager's office(wirelessly, of course). You could use Sighthound Pro with an 'unlimited' licence to gather and store the videos. The only drawback I can see is that these IP cameras, when streaming, will max out the data(WIFI) connection(by default - I have 2 of them) unless you turn back the frame rate to something below 10/sec. This would be fine if you don't want smooth video.. Sure beats buying a single licence for each workstation.