The full list of supported network cameras and video servers is here.

We have some specific cameras recommendations here.

Solution 1
One or more LFG4 video input cards from Active Silicon. This is a PCI card with 4 analog inputs that can be expanded to up to 16 analog inputs per card with add-on adapters. This is a very high quality solution, although quite expensive, and if using more than 4 inputs per card, the frame rate per input drops significantly.

Solution 2
One or more network video servers such as the Axis 240Q. For a complete list of supported devices click here. Video servers provide high quality video and can be connected to the computer via an ethernet network over long distances if required.

Solution 3
Multiple DV video input devices. You can use up to 8 Canopus ADVC-55 video devices connected to a single FireWire port using a FireWire hub. This is a high quality solution that has the added advantage of providing one audio input per device.

Initially, SecuritySpy will use all available video input devices, including the computer's internal iSight camera. If you don't want SecuritySpy to use a particular camera, you need to disable it by unchecking the Camera enabled option in the Camera Setup window:

Yes, provided your DV devices are compatible with other devices on the same bus (most are - we have done extensive testing and haven't yet come across any that are not compatible). The number of DV devices that you can use simultaneously on one FireWire bus depends on the speed of the devices in question, as well as the speed of your FireWire bus. Speeds of DV devices are typically 100, 200, 400, or 800 Mbit/s while bus speeds are either 400 or 800 Mbit/s. Please refer to the table below which will tell you how many devices can be used simultaneously on a single FireWire bus:

A 100-speed device uses twice the bandwidth on the bus as a 200-speed device and so on. Therefore you could use for example two 200-speed devices and one 100-speed device together. To add more devices, you can add more FireWire buses to your computer using PCI cards. SecuritySpy's Video Device Setup window shows if your DV devices are compatible with other devices on the same bus, and the speed at which they operate. In the below example screenshot, a Canopus ADVC-55 device is connected - it is compatible with other devices on the same bus and operates at a speed of 400. Therefore, eight of these devices can be used simultaneously on a single FireWire bus. Most modern DV converter devices operate at 400 or 800 speed while DV camcorders generally operate at 100 or 200 speed.

MPEG-4 is a good choice for a video surveillance because of its high quality at low data rates and use of temporal compression. SecuritySpy also supports capturing in JPEG and H.264 format. H.264 is approximately 2 times more efficient than MPEG-4 (ie files are half the size at the same quality) however it requires a very large amount of memory and processing power. Therefore MPEG-4 is usually the best choice.

Some FireWire webcams such as the Unibrain Fire-i have two ports, so you can daisy-chain multiple cameras together. The cameras would then be in a long line all attached to one FireWire port. With cameras that have only one FireWire connector, you can use a FireWire hub (or several FireWire hubs). A FireWire hub is a device with one input and several outputs, allowing you to connect several devices to one port.

There is a limit to the number of cameras that can be connected due to bandwidth limitations. Macintosh computers typically have two FireWire ports sharing one controller (bus), so the bandwidth is shared between the ports. To increase the amount of FireWire bandwidth available you can add FireWire buses to your computer using PCI cards (or Cardbus Cards on a laptop). PCI FireWire cards are available with up to 6 ports per card (although typically multiple ports will share the same bus).

• Create a new user in the Accounts system preference with limited permissions just for running SecuritySpy

• Enable Fast User Switching in the Accounts system preference (under Login Options)

• Set the computer to log in automatically to the SecuritySpy account (also under Login Options)

• Set SecuritySpy to open automatically on that account (right-click or control-click on the SecuritySpy icon in the Dock and select "Open at Login")

• To make the computer go back to the login screen automatically, download this script application and also set it to open automatically at login

With this setup, the computer logs in automatically to the special account upon startup, opens SecuritySpy, and then returns to the login screen. SecuritySpy continues to run in the special account, which is now running in the background.

Note however that this method only works when using network devices or FireWire DV devices. Access from background accounts to certain other devices (FireWire and USB webcams, and the internal iSight camera), is unfortunately blocked by the OS.

If the camera isn't fully weatherproof it must be in a weatherproof housing.

Each license of SecuritySpy is for a single computer only, so for each computer from which you are streaming, and for each comptuer on which you are receiving and recording video, you will need a license of SecuritySpy.

For example, in a situation where you have four iMac computers with built-in cameras, sending video back to a central computer that is recording the video, you will need four single-camera licenses of SecuritySpy for the iMacs and one four-camera license of SecuritySpy for the central computer.

The first is that you are viewing footage that was captured before you registered SecuritySpy. The demo message is permanently written onto this footage and can't be removed.

The second reason is that if you are using more cameras than your license allows. For example, if you have a single-camera license of SecuritySpy, only the first camera will record without the demo message; all subsequent cameras will have the demo message on captured footage. The solution to this is to reorder the cameras by dragging them up and down in the Camera Status window, or to disable the cameras that you are not using (you can do this in the Camera Setup window).

Note also that each SecuritySpy license is for one computer only. You cannot for example combine two 1-camera licenses in order to use two cameras on a single computer. For this you will need a 4-camera license.

This is unfortunately a hard-coded limitation in recent versions of Safari, where it has a limit to the number of simultaneous connections to any server (4 or 6 depending on the precise version of Safari). To view more cameras simultaneously, you can do one of the following:

• Use the Java Applet viewing method (you choose this from the popup menu in the main web interface page)
• Use FireFox, which has an adjustable limit
• Use another copy of SecuritySpy, which is free for the purposes of remote viewing

In FireFox, the limit is set to 6 simultaneous connections by default, but can be adjusted in the following way:

Type "about:config" in the address bar in FireFox and press return.
Find the entry for network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server.
Double-click this and increase the setting to the number of camera feeds you want to display simultaneously.

The easiest method of setting the IP address of any network device is to log onto the device using Safari - from this web interface you will be able to adjust the device's settings, including its IP address. Most network devices by default use DHCP to get an IP address automatically - in this case you can use our Network Device Finder application to locate the device on your network and connect to it using Safari to adjust its settings. If your network device supports Bonjour, Safari will be able to find these devices automatically (select Show All Bookmarks from the Bookmarks menu in Safari and click on the Bonjour section).

Please see this page of our the SecuritySpy Installation Manual for further details on how to do this and to set up network devices with SecuritySpy.

These cameras have two or more streams that can be set with different parameters such as compression and video size.

Firstly, connect to the camera using Safari or some other web browser (type the camera's IP address into the browser's address bar and press return). Locate the Video Settings page in the camera: there you will see configuration options for the streams. Make sure to set one of these to JPEG (you will also most likely want to set the highest available resolution for the stream to get the best quality images). Then, in SecuritySpy, open the Video Device Setup window, add a new network camera, select the Vivotek Multi-Stream option (either the fixed or PTZ option depending on the capabilities of your camera), enter the camera's IP address, and select the input number corresponding to the video stream number you set up in the camera.

This FAQ applies to the following models: IK-WB16A, IK-WB16A-W, IK-WB30A, IK-WR12A.

These cameras have four streams that can be set with different parameters such as compression and video size.

Basically, the procedure is the same as for a Vivotek multi-stream camera as detailed in the preceeding FAQ. The section in the camera's setup pages to configure the video streams is called Audio and video, and you must also click the Advanced mode link on the bottom left to enter advanced configuration mode. The different streams have different capabilties in terms of video size: stream 1 is recommended as it allows the full resolution.

The appripriate device type setting that specifies the camera must also be set in the Video Device Setup window in SecuritySpy.

Note that SecuritySpy 2.0.10 or later is required to use these cameras to their full potential.

All settings are stored in the SecuritySpy Preferences file, which is located in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder (within your user folder). The file will also have an appended version number (for example "v59"). Simply copy the file with the latest version number to the same location on the new computer.

Then, either copy the SecuritySpy application to the new computer (it is in your Applications folder), or download and install it from our web site here (for SecuritySpy 2.x owners) or here (for SecuritySpy 1.x owners).

This is the password you set in the Preferences window for limiting access to settings and camera activation. The only way to reset this password is to erase SecuritySpy's preferences - unfortunately this will erase all settings and SecuritySpy will have to be set up again.

Firstly, if SecuritySpy is currently running, press cmd-alt-esc, choose SecuritySpy from the list in the window that pops up, and click the "Force Quit" button. This will force SecuritySpy to quit (it won't quit normally without the password). If you have enabled the option in the Preferences window to automatically restart SecuritySpy after a crash, it will open itself automatically again - hold down the cmd and alt keys before it loads. Otherwise, open SecuritySpy yourself while holding the cmd and alt keys. SecuritySpy will ask you if want to erase the preferences - click Yes.