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Linksys WVC54CGA & Vitamin D Video: The Perfect Mac Surveillance Video

I just stumbled upon a new piece of software that instantly made my Linksys WVC54CGA camera a ton more useful, and the software works beautifully on the Mac.

Called "Vitamin D Video" it's a really nice little app that makes using your cam as a surveillance tool very easy. The interface is easy to use, elegant, and works with no fuss at all.

When you first start it up, a simple wizard walks you through finding your network IP camera, and it really couldn't be easier. Within a minute I had my Linksys all ready to go. After that, it's a matter of setting up a few basic "rules" which let the app know what you are looking for, how much to record, and when.

Main video window

Above is the main video window, where you can monitor what your camera is seeing and set up it's rules. If you had multiple cameras, you can switch between them here. Below the video you see the controls. There is a big green button to turn on monitoring, and the rules which are currently active. You can see that I have a rule to look for anything inside a region, to run all day long, and to save the video and play a sound if it finds something.

Rule wizard

When setting up a rule, you use this super simple control panel. You choose the camera, what kind of object to look for (anything, "people" or unknowns), where in the video to look (you can specify the whole frame, a region, a door, or a boundary), set the minimum size, and tell it what to do if it finds something (including emailing you). Very slick and easy.

Once you have it set, it continuously watches the frame and will record a clip if it finds something. Here you can see that on a wintery day (which it smartly ignores the blowing snow) it caught my wife pulling into the driveway in our truck.

Caught in action

Overall this is a great app. They have a free version, which handles just one camera, or a paid version which can do multiples. I'm very impressed and it's a far better solution for a mac user than the built in stuff from Linksys. Highly recommended!

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