Author Topic: Working with analog cams?  (Read 3008 times)

discult

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Working with analog cams?
« on: May 20, 2009, 03:04:00 PM »
Hello,

First off, great product, works wonderfully. 

Secondly, I am interested in using analog cams in my set up (I currently own two).  I am wondering if anyone is currently using analog cams and what method you are using to get the signal to digital for use with Icam?  I am considering setting up a separate windows machine to run icamsource (currently running on my iMac).  I'd really like to run a combination of 2 USB connected webcams and the 2 analog cams (has anyone got four instances of icamsource to run successfully on a windows machine?  I'd be willing to split this across two separate machines if necessary).

In regards to the analog cams, could I use a standard analog to USB type dongle such as these?
http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=CTX-002&cats=125&catid=614%2C125
http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=USBG-VX6&cats=125&catid=614%2C125
http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_details.cfm?sku=STK1160&cats=125&catid=614%2C125%2C182%2C175

Or better yet can I use one of these 4 source PCI cards?
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2512308

At the end of the day I'm looking for 4 sources two analog, two USB webcam, possibly across two machines.

Thanks again for the wonderful product!  ;D

Jay

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Re: Working with analog cams?
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2009, 09:54:11 PM »
I haven't heard from any users about using analog cameras with iCam, so I'm not sure if it will work or not.  I'm also interested to hear if anybody has had any success with the devices  you mentioned.  If I had to guess,  I'd think the USB dongle is more likely to work with iCam than the PCI card because it would probably show up as a standard USB camera.

geomc

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Re: Working with analog cams?
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2009, 05:45:12 PM »
I'm new to this group but my setup and experiences may apply here.  I have 4 home security cameras with composite video outputs feeding a dedicated computer with a PCI card that multiplexes 4 inputs into one output for presentation on a monitor.  These 4 cameras are from different manufacturers but they all present similar composite video output signals.  The security computer is on a home network and connected to the internet.

What is happening regarding this setup and iCam is that I can run two instances of iCam on the security computer and two of the cameras will show video nicely to my iphone.  When I try to run a third instance of iCam, I get the 'error 14 render stream failed' message.  When I swap video inputs (ch. 1 and ch. 2 reversed, for example), only the same cameras that worked before continue to work, but on different channels.  I think the setup should not care which camera is being used, but it seems to.  I am at a loss to figure out how to get all 4 cameras to show up on iCam.  Perhaps I should be happy that two of them work! 

Any ideas?  Thanks,

Geo

Stefan

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Re: Working with analog cams?
« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2009, 07:30:21 PM »
We don't really have any experience with PCI capture cards, so if anyone else has gotten 2-4 cameras to work with iCam we would also be interested in hearing about it.