Four USB web cameras one computer prob

[brute4x4]

Ok I have 4 hootoo cheap USB web cameras hooked up to a powered USB 2.0 hub 480mbs which is connected to a 49' active USB extension cable. Running windows 7, it installs all the drivers and sees the four cameras, my problem is that I can only view 2 cameras at once. In any combination. I'm stumped. Please help

[brute4x4]

Update, disconnected one of the three cameras on the hub and connected it to another 49' active cable. Now I have two working on the hub one on the spare 49' USB and one dirctly connected to computer all working no problem.

So what's up with my hub? It's got a 3amp 5v power supply. I'm only pulling .52amps, so can't be a power issue.

[SKJM Support]

Either the hub isn't providing enough power for all of the cameras or there's signal degradation.  iCamSource uses Microsoft Directshow to capture the video from the webcams, so there isn't anything we can change in the code that would effect these hardware issues.

[brute4x4]

Thanks for the reply, guess I'll either have to bypass the hub with dedicated lines or just replace this hub. Bummer cus the cameras are so far away from the computer.

can anyone recommend a good powered hub that can run 4 usb web cameras?

[SeanJ]

don't know if it helps but I also run x4 webcams over some distance from my comp as well. I ditched my hub (though it was in combination with a cat5/usb adapter to get the distance). I soon realised that investing in some active USB extender cables was a much better combo. I run  30 metre, 20 metre and 15 metre active extenders (with the 4th cam going straight into the comp) and it's maintenance free really. Before i was getting grey screens and drop outs with my hub/cat5 extender combo. My feeling is I could probably run all 4 cams on the maximum usb extender cables (30/35 metre ones?) if I wanted to, i can't confirm it would work, many variables with the biggest being your CPU useage etc.

hope that helps a bit.


Sean

[MoraHemma]

I have given up having several USB cameras on one computer, iCam, or the OSX, mixes them up so it won't work stable. I've tried four different MacMini and iMac's. Even bought USB'cams from different wendors to get different names on them on the USB bus. Works perfect with network cameras, but not more than one USB-cam. Can have one USB cam on each computer though, no problems getting several computers to use the same iCam-account.

By the way, an interesting feature would be noise-detection, as well as movement. I want to hear my dog barking...