Visser Labs

Eyeline

Ever since cash mysteriously started disappearing from my room I’ve been researching how to best keep an eye on my belongings when I’m not there, a home video security system is definitely the best and easiest solution which provides reliable evidence identifying who’s to blame and who you’ll see in court.

Equipment

• Download Combined Community Codec Pack or your preferred video recording codec pack
• Download Eyeline for Windows from NCH, a free video surveillance software package supporting USB video sources
• An analog video security camera and USB-to-Analog connector (e.g. Hi-Speed USB 2.0 DVD Creator), or
• A Windows-supported webcam*1
• A free partition or external hard drive with +10GB of free space
• A network share for remote storage of video footage with +10GB of free space

*1 - If you can use your webcam with MSN Messenger and it appears within Control Panel > Scanners and Cameras then you should be fine.

Procedure

1. If you’ve chosen to use an analog video security camera then ensure you have connected your USB-to-Analog adapter to an available USB port on your computer and it is available as a camera within Control Panel > Scanners and Cameras
2. Install Combined Community Codec Pack, this is my favourite codec pack and the only one I install on Windows machines
3. Install Eyeline and run it for the first time
4. Press Add Camera from the toolbar
5. From the Select a capture source drop-down list choose your connected video camera
6. Press OK to add the video camera with default settings
7. Press Options from the toolbar
8. Ensure Run Eyeline automatically on Startup is checked and Select the run mode is set to Start before logon. Show all users’ tray.
9. Change Recordings Folder to a free partition or external hard drive, I recommend this in case your video footage swallows up all your space and causes your Windows machine to become unstable
10. Switch to the Cameras tab
11. I set Compression Codec for Cameras to XviD MPEG-4 Codec but you can go with your own flavour
12. Ensure your active video camera is selected and press Properties
13. Change the name of your security camera to the location it is in (e.g. Bedroom, Garage, Office, etc.)
14. Tick Record video and Use motion detection/li liPress OK to confirm changes and return to the Cameras tab
15. Switch to the Transmit tab
16. Tick Backup recordings to network drive and specify the network recording directory, as a note Eyeline saves all motion-triggered image footage (e.g. JPG) to your network directory immediately on capture but waits until the motion-timeout has reached (default is set to 60 seconds, update this in Options > Motion > Wait time between logging motion (seconds)) to save the video footage (e.g. AVI) so if your machine running Eyeline is destroyed before the video footer is saved you still have image evidence on your networked share
17. Press OK to confirm changes and return to the Eyeline main window
18. Select Start All Cameras Recording from the Cameras main-menu dropdown
19. Select Exit (Close to Tray) from the Eyeline main-menu dropdown

That’s it! Your security camera will now record any motion-triggered image and video footage to your computer and then to a networked share. Enjoy!