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Hi all, I write custom audio/visual interactive software connecting multiple cameras to a PC and programming in C++ to analyze the camera feeds and output audio and visuals. Up to now I have been using upto 6 firewire cameras daisy chained together, but would like to switch to using standard CCTV cameras. I don't know much about surveillance systems but it seems I have two routes, but would like some advice: - IP Cameras: Are these an option? Could I setup a router, connect 10 cameras, and then access all video feeds from a PC? - PCI DVR Cards: I see a number of PCI DVR cards around which allow connecting of upto 16 BNC cameras. These look great, but I don't need their recording / monitoring software. Do the drivers for these cards allow me to access the raw feeds from my own code? Essentially I would need to be able to access the raw data of the feed (RGB data for all pixels) in realtime - so no recording necessary. In my own code I will do motion analysis (frame differencing, optical flow etc.) to produce bespoke visuals and audio.. Any advice on the matter appreciated, Cheers,

Looking around I came across these that seem to directly support windows directX API which is great. But was wondering if anyone has heard of these and/or recommend them... webcamsoft vc400 viewcast osprey 440 winnov videum 4400 Thanks again for the help...

Thanks for the replies. The jpg route unfortunately is not an option as I need to analyse the feeds in realtime, so the software is very responsive and reacts immediately to the motion, the lag needs to be as mimimum as possible. I really need to analyse the cameras feeds in realtime at minimum 15fps - and saving / loading jpgs wouldn't work for me I don't think. The Geo SDK sounds quite promising, not sure what "the drawback is that the Geo server software must be running already" means though? Obviously the cheaper the better! The firewire cameras I'm using at the moment are about £120 each, so anything less than that is a bonus. I"ll look into the IP cameras as well thanks....

Thanks for the links, thats alotta stuff! first quick peruse looks promising... will delve deeper, cheers!

Thanks for the reply, so I guess that rules out the GeoVision, Avermedia etc. What bout with the IP Cameras, I've not used them at all, but if I have say 10 cameras on my network, do they all appear as normal cameras on my system which I can capture the feed of? Or again is it only proprietary software. I know this isn't a entirely cctv/security query, but when I ask anyone else they say i should ask on cctv/security forums as its related to that hardware...