Sure, we all use our webcams for chatting to friends and family, but have you ever considered that it could be used for other, more serious pursuits? Well, there are various alternatives for your webcam, and surveillance is one. Want to make sure no one's in your room when you are not there? Want to check up on things when you're not at home? Well, Video Surveillance Monitor could be the tool for you.
Video Surveillance Monitor is a simple program that detects motion captured on your webcam. There are 3 different modes - local camera (probably the most common option), a client (using your computer to monitor a camera somewhere else) and as a server (monitoring on your computer and sending the information somewhere else). The idea is simple - you set up the webcam, press "Detect" and go about your business. Video Surveillance Monitor will record activity and detect any movement in front of the camera, logging each instance in a snapshot that you can examine later. The interface is very simple, but the translation is not great and, at times, it's a little difficult to follow.
There are various configuration options, both for the local webcam and remote monitoring options. You can save the surveillance snapshots to whatever folder you want, make the movement detection more or less sensitive, and add an alarm to sound when movement is detected. Video Surveillance Monitor allows you to activate both snapshot recording and alarm, or just one.
Video Surveillance Monitor is very simple, which will appeal to many. There is an online help file, which you'll probably need to consult if you are doing anything other than local monitoring. That said, instructions for remote monitoring are not very clear and there is a limited number of configuration options, so if you are new to the method, you might be better off starting with a more comprehensive program.
Video Surveillance Monitor is perfectly adequate, but not exactly impressive.
