Two webcams, one PC

Silenced · 3 Dec 2010 at 16:17

Hi all,

I have Windows XP on a PC I wish to have two Trust Spotlight Pro webcams on (They use no drivers), but when I try and load two it just tells me that I couldn't load driver.

Anyway I can get both to load, or do I need to upgrade to another OS?

asim18 · 3 Dec 2010 at 16:32

What do you mean by "load" what are you trying to load them with?

A lot of applications don't have support for more than one webcam, they wont even know what to do and will just spazz out.

d_brennen · 3 Dec 2010 at 16:38

I know those trust ones, they're ok but I doubt you'll get 2 working on 1 pc as they use a very basic USB video device driver. May I ask what you want to achieve? I know a little about IP cams - you'll easily get 2 of these working on 1 machine

Silenced · 3 Dec 2010 at 16:39

Well, basically I'm trying to use them to upload via FTP every like 7 seconds, I have the program to do this although I can't view more than one at a time.

d_brennen · 3 Dec 2010 at 16:49

What program? Does it see the second webcam at all?

Silenced · 3 Dec 2010 at 16:57

TinCam. It knows the webcam is there, just when I try and show up both, one says it 'Could not load Webcam Driver'

d_brennen · 3 Dec 2010 at 20:20

Probably an issue due to the webcams using the exact same driver and hardware ids. One way to get around that (though long winded) might be to set up a VM with another instance of the capture program running... May be more hassle than it is worth

Can you borrow a different make/model cam from someone to test?

Silenced · 3 Dec 2010 at 20:27

Hm, I have a super old PS2 Eyetoy I could test it with to see if both work.

Also, I could try a VM, but I don't think it'd be the best idea as the PC only has 1GB of RAM and I believe is single core...

Any idea if I install W7 or something else onto it I can view both?

d_brennen · 3 Dec 2010 at 20:33

Silenced said:
Any idea if I install W7 or something else onto it I can view both?

Probably not. I actually have two of those spotlight webcams at work - If i'm not too busy on Monday I'll have a play

I'd try a different webcam though, one with a separate driver, just to see. IP cams are really what you need tbh

Silenced · 3 Dec 2010 at 20:46

d_brennen said:
Probably not. I actually have two of those spotlight webcams at work - If i'm not too busy on Monday I'll have a play

I'd try a different webcam though, one with a separate driver, just to see. IP cams are really what you need tbh

Thanks.

And yeah I'll have a go. And I didn't get an IP cam purely because of the high costs

Silenced · 7 Dec 2010 at 15:21

It seems I can't find a way to do this. So, I will ask another question, does anyone know of a program that will cycle through the different cameras to take pictures from them and upload?

Like, Cam1, snap, upload, wait 7 seconds, Cam2, snap, upload and so on?

Phoenix26 · 7 Dec 2010 at 17:26

I'd give yawcam a shot -> http://www.yawcam.com/

Should be able to run two instances and upload to ftp automatically.

Silenced · 7 Dec 2010 at 18:39

Phoenix26 said:
I'd give yawcam a shot -> http://www.yawcam.com/

Should be able to run two instances and upload to ftp automatically.

If you mean open it twice, I don't think it'll work. For some reason it says Could not load Driver or just gives black screen. Well, this is for other programs, I'l give this a shot though

d_brennen · 8 Dec 2010 at 10:30

Had a go with the two Spotlight webcams (we use EyeCatcher for IP securty cam recording) and it didn't want to know.

FWIW the cams we use use for indoor monitoring are Foscam FI8908W IP cams at about £80 a pop. They're wifi and ethernet ready by the way

Silenced · 8 Dec 2010 at 15:25

Yeah, thats the exact issue, £80 per one is expensive, and I need 3 all together :/ Although the fact their wi-fi ready is somewhat interesting. How is their picture? I'm using these to show birds online.

d_brennen · 9 Dec 2010 at 21:25

Not bad, I use 640x420 or something similar. Can't remember if they go higher but storage space is an issue so I have them record only motion, still shot every 7 seconds. They pan, tilt zoom to follow motion too. Quite creepy at night when all the computers are off!