Setting up a video (web cam) monitoring system

For monitoring elderly mother

[Noisehag]

Okay, my brother and I are interested in setting up a system with a web cam (or two) that would allow us to monitor my elderly mother's actions at any time of the day or night. I've played around with various services online in the past but no longer have links to these services. It would be nice if the feed was as smooth as possible. We are on 768/128 DSL. Free would be nice, but not required. We already have the web cams and one spare computer.

Just hoping for some proper direction.

[edit] We basically would like to have internet access (via a webpage maybe) to view what is going on as she is unable to walk. She has already agreed to let us set something like this up. We would like to use a service that already exists as opposed to a server-side solution.

Mods, please move this thread if you feel it's better suited in another area.

Thanks

-Hag

[Teshka]

PC Nanny Cam might do what you want. If you're looking for something that watches multiple rooms, you might want a more sophisticated video surveillance system. Although your purpose is not home security, you might have the best luck searching along those lines. Not sure if you can find anything decent for free, though. Good luck.

[bill]

I've used webcam32 for something similar. You can have a stream fed to a web page where a Java applet can show you the different cams.

There are also various security programs out there that turn your cam into a motion sensor. They will then only record when something is moving in its field of vision.

[Noisehag]

Thanks for the tips folks. The solution I found was in a little freebie prog called SimpleCam. That's exactly what it is, simple. It will also allow the use of multiple cameras, so we can have two set up and display them on the same webpage. Very cool.