I’m posting this week’s blog a little early, to provide some color commentary for a new release of Vitamin D Video.

Version 1.3 is another free upgrade, with some significant improvements.

• Performance enhancements.  Processing video is now up to 2x faster!  Since we process video in real time, this really means you can run more cameras at once on your PC, or free up more processing power for other applications.  The biggest areas of improvement are at QVGA (320 x 240) resolution, and in scenes where there is very little activity (since we’d previously put effort into optimizing busy scenes). Your mileage will vary to a large degree, depending on factors described here.  A fast quad-core PC should now run up to 16 cameras at QVGA.
• Multi-camera arming (with delay). (Basic and Pro Editions).  If you have multiple cameras, you can configure a set to turn on with one click from a toolbar icon (in case you’ve been wondering why we have a toolbar for just two icons!).  There is an option to set a delay so you can leave the premises before notifications or alarms start. You can turn off all cameras with one click as well.
• Remote storage of clips to an FTP site. (Basic and Pro Editions). You can set up a rule to upload clips to a secure remote server.  There are websites that make it easy to set up an account to do this, many offering 1GB of storage free.
• Custom responses to rules. (Basic and Pro Editions). This was actually in v 1.2, but in case you missed it, you can set up a rule to trigger a custom program or script.  For example, you can configure a home automation system to turn on a light when an event is seen.

And my favorite interface enhancement is that if you have multiple cameras, you can stretch the monitor view to arrange the video panes in multiple columns.

For a video overview of these and other features, click here.

Happy monitoring!

You can change from one column of video panes to multiple columns by widening the window.