No, the shutter speed is how long the sensor is exposed to the light. The longer it's open, the more detailed a picture will be (good for low light), but any motion of a subject or of the camera will blur the image. Honestly, you're probably better off just trying to aim the cameras at strategic locations. I don't know enough about higher-level IP cameras to even say for sure that they offer faster shutter speed...although it seems common sense that they would. But to go from an entry-level camera to a professional-level camera is going to multiply your cost by 10. So go with strategic locations and make sure you have good lighting (not too much, not too little). For outdoors, I'd do motion lighting with incandescent or halogen flood lights (placed behind the camera, perhaps....and aimed in the same direction as the camera). Just do lots of experimentation until you're happy with the results. Inside, they also make those smart light switches that detect when someone is in the room...so that might be good for a hallway or entryway if you have a camera there. Night vision is mediocre on these cameras...no color...not great image detail....so I prefer visible lighting over infrared lighting used for night vision. Plus, the infrared lights glow red when they're on...which can make it obvious where the camera is at night. With that being said, it's not bad to have night vision as a backup plan in case the motion lights don't turn on. I use a LOFTEK CSX-2200, and love it. It's cheap ($65), it has night vision (decent image up to 5-10ft indoors at night), audio (very low quality), and pan/tilt...all of those options work in iCam. It's an IP camera though...not a USB webcam. And it is a real pain in the butt to set up for the 1st time because some of the default network settings. Eventually I'm going to get a 2nd one to mount under the eve of my house. It's not an outdoor camera, but if it dies...it was only $65 and I learned my lesson. haha Oh yeah, one last thing....the frame rate is how many pictures the camera takes in a second. If you were viewing your cameras on the computers that they are attached to, you'd want high frame rates, which would provide very fluid/smooth motion. However, high frame rate means lots of data. So that means a couple of things in relation to iCam. It means:
1) icamsource.exe, which monitors changes in the pixels on a frame by frame basis, will have to work considerably harder if you have the frame rate set high. On USB webcams, it might not be possible to lower the frame rates (depending on the model), which is why USB cameras require more processing power in icamsource.
2) it might require more data usage on your phone when you view iCam
The nice thing about IP cameras is that you can adjust the frame rate. I have mine set to 5 frames per second (which is still more frames than icamsource will even capture/save during a motion event). With 4 IP cameras added as video feeds in one icamsource (on a 4 or 5 year old computer), I'm using around 20% of my processor...that's for motion detection and motion recording on all 4 cameras. I bet 2 USB cameras on one computer would use 20-40% on a newer computer. IP cameras have drawbacks though...gotta hook them up to the router (or use wifi, which is hit-or-miss on most cameras), gotta plug them in to an outlet, gotta mount them to the ceiling or wall. Anyway, I'm gonna stop now...I think I answered your questions and then some. haha Definitely experiment with your setup though...given as many senarios as you can think of.
