Motion is a V4L capture program supporting motion detection. Set it up to monitor security cameras, watch birds, check in on your pet, create time-lapse videos and more.
In other words, this software monitors the video signal from one or more cameras and is able to detect if a significant part of the picture has changed.
Motion is a command line based tool. It has no graphical user interface. Everything is setup either via the command line or via configuration files.
Key Features
- Use with the following devices:
- V4l2 Webcams;
- Video capture cards;
- Network cameras via HTTP, RTSP and RTMP;
- Static files via a v4l2 loopback device;
- PI cameras.
- Output from motion:
- JPEG files;
- PPM format files;
- MPEG video sequences.
- Access the webcam output from motion via a browser.
- Taking snapshots of movement.
- Watch multiple video devices at the same time.
- Watch multiple inputs on one capture card at the same time.
- Live streaming webcam (using multipart/x-mixed-replace).
- Real time creation of mpeg movies using libraries from ffmpeg.
- Take automated snapshots on regular intervals.
- Take automated snapshots at irregular intervals using cron.
- Executing external program when detecting movement.
- Execute external program at the beginning of an event of several motion detections.
- Execute external program at the end of an event of several motion detections.
- Execute external program when a picture is saved.
- Execute external program when a movie mpeg is created (opened).
- Execute external program when a movie mpeg ends (closed).
- Motion tracking.
- Feed events to an MySQL or PostgreSQL database.
- Feed video back to a video4linux loopback for real time viewing.
- Web interface using Motion Related Projects such as motion.cgi, Kenneths Webcam Package, Kevins Webpage, X-Motion, and many more.
- Has its own minimalistic web server.
- User configurable and user defined on screen display.
- Control via simple web interface.
- Automatic noise and threshold control.
- Ability to control the pan/tilt of a Logitech Sphere (or Orbit) camera.
- Highly configurable display of text on images.
- High configurable definition of path and file names of the stored images and films.
Website: motion-project.github.io
Support: Documentation, Mailing List, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Mr-Dave (previously Kenneth Lavrsen) and many contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Motion is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Webcam Tools | |
|---|---|
| Webcamoid | Full featured and multi-platform webcam suite with a simple interface |
| ZoneMinder | All-in-one security camera solution |
| Motion | V4L capture program supporting motion detection |
| DroidCam | Turn a mobile device into a network-attached IP camera |
| Kerberos.io | Video surveillance solution |
| Clight | Webcam becomes light sensor |
| webcamize | Use your camera as a webcam |
| Guvcview | Full-featured video grabber |
| Cheese | Take pictures and videos from your webcam |
| Kamoso | Qt-based webcam utility |
| Ekiga | VoIP and video conferencing application |
| camera-streamer | Low-latency camera streaming project for Raspberry Pi systems |
| WebCamControl | GUI app for controlling properties of a webcam |
| Photobooth | Photobooth software for the Raspberry Pi and PC |
| HasciiCam | Live ascii video on the web for the masses |
| camorama | View, alter and save images from a webcam |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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