iCam versus Dropcam - and a request

[Zarkov]

Dropcam has been doing great business lately. In part it's because they have nice software and hardware, but partly because they use a camera capable of 720P. They're coming out with a new camera, the Dropbox Pro, which after a software upgrade, will be able to do 1080P!

Now, I like iCam and its software, but limiting us to VGA resolution is problematic. I don't mind a lower frame rate, but I want to use a better camera!

So this is a sincere request from a dedicated user who wants iCam to support better cameras!

[Stefan]

First of all, thanks for the feedback! 

Dropcam's cameras have hardware dedicated to encoding h.264 video, which is something that we would love to have in every computer running the iCamSource, but unfortunately we would have to make do with doing the conversion in software, which is nowhere near as efficient.

Some users already have issues with the iCamSource taking too much of their available CPU usage ... Adding real-time h.264 video encoding would likely be a non-starter for those systems.

That said, we are definitely looking into bringing higher quality video to iCam, but it will depend on how well existing video encoding / decoding technologies perform on the average computer.

[geezfools]

 Limiting certain users because there are some people out there using computers made in the 90's seems backwards. Could there be an option for ticking a little box that enables this feature? I don't mind VGA on two of my cameras, but it would be nice to use 720p on my front porch camera to help identify individuals knocking on my door. I've gone back and forth on other options/competitors, because I feel limited by the current choices with iCam. It's 2013 and I'm limited to 640x480, come on... I would gladly pay an extra $5 to have a version that can pump out better video at the expense of my CPU's...
 Not trying to sound harsh, just curious why it doesn't seem to be an issue for other options (even though they don't have the features you do, which is why I stay )

[Stefan]

Limiting certain users because there are some people out there using computers made in the 90's seems backwards. Could there be an option for ticking a little box that enables this feature? I don't mind VGA on two of my cameras, but it would be nice to use 720p on my front porch camera to help identify individuals knocking on my door. I've gone back and forth on other options/competitors, because I feel limited by the current choices with iCam. It's 2013 and I'm limited to 640x480, come on... I would gladly pay an extra $5 to have a version that can pump out better video at the expense of my CPU's...
 Not trying to sound harsh, just curious why it doesn't seem to be an issue for other options (even though they don't have the features you do, which is why I stay )

Some of the features that we do have, I believe, are due to the fact that we use what is essentially MJPEG (a series of JPEG images) instead of a more advanced video codec. More advanced codecs do require more processing power to implement, and depending on how it's implemented, decoding a more advanced video stream to a series of individual images to compare when performing motion detection (which in and of itself is CPU intensive) may be too much.

We are currently looking towards the "next generation" of iCam, which will feature higher-quality video while maintaining the features that we have already implemented.

[dmu]

I agree with the need for higher stream resolution, but I am also concerned with the CPU usage.

Could it be an option to add the possibillity to switch between hires/lowres on the iOS device? That way we can have 24/7 surveillance in lowres with motion detection and manualle switch to hires when an alert is recieved?

Alternatively the possibillity to snap a still picture at full camera resolution at the press of a button (the still being saved on the computer and transmitted to the iOS device for fullscreen display)?

Regards, dmu