CamUniversal Manual
Part 1: General Remarks

CamUniversal works with Netcams (IP-Cams), Webcams and additional video devices which are using a driver for Windows.

Webcams
Webcams and similar video devices like TV Tuner cards, capture cards, graphic cards with a capture input etc. are working with CamUniversal if there is an up to date driver for Windows available. CamUniversal uses the DirectShow component of DirectX for the work with these devices. So all functions and settings which are coming with the video device drivers are usable. An advantage against other WebCam products is the possibility to work with all connected and installed video devices simultaneously.

Netcams
CamUniversal needs for the working with Netcams their IP addresses, resp. the URLs pointing to the video datas. From these URLs the program receives the current camera picture (still picture) or the motion-JPEG (MJPEG) or MPEG-4 video stream.
If you want to receive more still pictures as your camera is able to generate (the receiving interval is set to every 0.5 sec, but your camera captures pictures only every 1.0 sec), you receive often the same picture twice. So it makes no sense to receive more pictures as there are new ones available. Look at the network camera manual for possible capture intervals!

The resolution of the received picture is not limited. But if the program receives a picture which has a resolution of 640x480 pixels, it must transfer much more pixels as if the picture would have 320x240 pixels and the program has to test 4 times the amount of pixels within the intern motion detector difference test.

DirectShow
CamUniversal allows the using of all installed video devices, video codecs, audio devices and audio codecs.
But not all devices and codecs are working together! Furthermore some codecs changes the selected frames per second for the video recording by themselves and other codecs don't allow to record a video and watch a preview parallel.

Introduction to DirectShow
Microsoft® DirectShow® is an architecture for streaming media on the Microsoft Windows® platform. DirectShow provides for high-quality capture and playback of multimedia streams. It supports a wide variety of formats, including Advanced Systems Format (ASF), Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), Audio-Video Interleaved (AVI), MPEG Audio Layer-3 (MP3), and WAV sound files. It supports capture from digital and analog devices based on the Windows Driver Model (WDM) or Video for Windows. DirectShow is integrated with other DirectX technologies. It automatically detects and uses video and audio acceleration hardware when available, but also supports systems without acceleration hardware.

In General
All digital cameras generates different pictures from the same situation also if there are no changes. If you algin your camera to view on a wall where nothing is moving and let the motion detection run, you get little picture differences, because the generated pictures are different. This happens on the way from the analog world into the digital picture from your camera. To see these differences (not only these, but all differences) you can select in the program to show you the difference window. This is a good way to see how good or bad your camera works. To reduce this differences which are in reality not existing, you have to adjust the pixel difference value.

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