Home Hacking Projects for Geeks

257

Chapter 12, Watch Your House Across the Network

and on top of furniture. Hiding the cameras will also decrease the

chance of a thief stealing them, too.

• Though the cameras include screws to be permanently mounted, first

attach them with sticky stuff, such as poster adhesive, until you deter-

mine the optimal location.

• Point the antennae toward the computer where the wireless video

receiver will be.

For information on how to configure the X10 wireless cameras can be found

in Chapter 3, Remotely Monitor a Pet.

Video Capture

The video capture component receives input from the playback control

mechanism, controls the cameras, and sends the output to the video trans-

fer mechanism. The method of video capture you choose will be entirely

dependent on the type of video cameras you use and your choice of video

transfer mechanisms. I’m using X10 cameras and I plan to transfer the video

across the Internet, so my video capture mechanism needs to accept the

composite video feed from the wireless video receiver and connect to my

computer. The answer was obvious: a video capture card.

If you chose a camera with a built-in server that connects to the network,

then this project is very easy—your capture and transport mechanisms are

already built into the camera! All you need to do is configure your router to

forward traffic to your camera and connect ...