Multiple cameras

[ianboag]

Been banging my head against the wall trying to get multiple cameras working on a Windows PC. Preferably all connected to the same hub. I didn't want streaming video, just snapshots every 30 minutes or so. Tried lots of things that were supposed to work, but all gave up on cameras after #1 ...... There was stuff about USB controllers and suggestions about bandwidth problems ...

I want to run the whole thing on a (old) dedicated laptop so if horsepower matters I would have a problem. The device manager "imaging devices" knows about all the cameras I have connected ...... they are on the same hub.

Then I found CommandCam - a command line program that takes a snap using the current default camera and saves it in the same folder as image.bmp. Works just like it says it should. Next I went to to Git repository and had a look at the source. It takes command-line parameters .... !

any all or none of .......

// /delay DELAY_IN_MILLISECONDS
// /filename OUTPUT_FILENAME
// /devnum DEVICE_NUMBER
// /devname DEVICE_NAME
// /preview
// /devlist

so ..... commandcam /devno 2 /filename fred

takes a snap from camera 2 and saves it as fred.bmp. Then one just needs a command-line bmp->jpg converter and the job of polling the cameras is all done.