Reporting back as promised...

I went ahead and bought one of these cams at my local MicroCenter this evening. Hey, for $30 bucks how can you go wrong - heh. I was right in my earlier guess: this cam is the same thing as [Typhoon | Insight Motion | USB 2.0 Motor Tracking Camera]. Even the driver and VID/PID are the same.

So... I installed the driver, plugged in the cam, and it worked with AbelCam at once. Both video capture and motorized PTZ work as expected without any messing around required.

Beware: the motorized PTZ will NOT operate until the camera is capturing video (blue LED on). This is a "feature" of the camera harware.

-----

Other thoughts about this cam...

As far as what the computer sees, this cam is the same as a Typhoon as stated above. However, I think the actual hardware has been revised a bit since the Typhoon.

While I have not done major testing, my quick test shows better quality video than I ever got from my Typhoon. "Crisper" video I guess you'd say - less CCD noise. Also, Typhoon required a LOT of light to get a decent picture - it needed sunlight or an extremely bright lamp. This GearHead cam is producing a decent picture with what I'd call normal nighttime indoor lighting.

I'm guessing that they've either changed the imaging chipset since the Typhoon or done some serious optimization of the firmware.

"What's a krodent?" (answer at end of this message)

I, too, went out and bought this camera and got it up and running with AbelCam no problems. I'm running AbelCam on a Pentium 3 box with WinXP Pro (a $150 refurb that was new in 2003). I also thought I couldn't go wrong for thirty bucks and am probably going to go back and buy another one. Never can have too many cheap PTZ cams around, I always say! Damn. Now I'm going to have to spring for more camera licenses.

A "krodent" is my family's made up name for obscure foreign currencies (pre-Euro days). We coined it a couple of decades ago when we traveled in Italy and got turned on to this Italian comedy duo, I Gemelli Ruggeri (The Ruggeri Twins). Their schtick was that they were from a fictitious and poor Eastern European country called "Kroda." We were going through Hungary and could never remember what the currency was called (Forints) and we were constantly getting our currencies mixed up anyway. So we just started calling all currencies "krodents" in honor of Kroda. After a while we even forgot we were using the term and kept citing all prices in krodents, e.g., How many krodents for a kilo of prosciutto?

I recommend watching the following Youtube vid for at least 90 seconds (I don't think you need to understand Italian to see why we liked these guys). "Qui ... sotto il cielo do Kroda!" ("Here ... beneath the sky of Kroda!").

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Message has been edited, click here to see original content

I'm now running the Gear Head and Orbit AF on my box (WINXP Pentium 4) and it "generally" works. However, I see intermittent flakiness when booting the entire system up. The Orbit always starts up nicely, while the Gear Head sometimes doesn't start up (sometimes does), sometimes ends up with PTZ disabled (even though it is saved in the configuration), sometimes PTZ works fine. Once both are up and running all is well, but these intermittent issues don't bode well for a system that should boot up cleanly after a power failure (I'm not going to invest in a UPS).

I think your low opinion of USB devices is deserved.

Anyway, overall stability on startup got better when I ensured that the Gear Head was the first camera to be activated by AbelCam. The intermittent nature of the flakiness leads me to suspect this could be one of those USB power issues, and that sometimes the motherboard is supplying enough juice to the Gear Head, and sometimes not. I think when I had the Orbit start first, it's motor might have still been cycling and drawing power at the same time the Gear Head was starting up. Giving the Gear Head priority seems to work better.

Another workaround would be to use the scheduling feature of AbelCam to start each camera up with a few minutes delay between them so my refurbed box (originally circa 2003) can handle this new fangled technology

Overall, I'd recommend the Gear Head camera primarily to those people who want a dirt cheap PTZ solution and would be running just th single camera. On the two machines I installed it by itself with AbelCam, it did work just out of the box.

Cheap single camera solution for the amateur, not something I'd recommend for professional surveillance needs.

Just adding to the ongoing documentation for this camera (and maybe all Typhoon aka Insight cams). Sometimes when starting it up it does not come on line (it can appear to come on line, but an old image is served up and/or it does not activate PTZ. Heck, on start up the motor turns all the way to the right and just stops.

However, I've found that by stopping and restarting it several times it wakes up and all is well. The stop and restart sequence might take 4 or 5 cycles. I think if you're patient and wait a minute between each stop / restart you'll have better success. Also, this appears to work both with the GUI and via the web administrator interface which is very cool and kudos to SSE for presciently providing that.

So, I have a power outage (and I don't have a UPS, I'm cheap, heck I bought this camera didn't I?). The power comes back on, my system boots up, AbelCam is automatically activated. Bam. Poor old Gear Head cheapie is FUBAR. I'm sitting in Phoenix, Arizona worrying about my cats, so I log on to the web administrator interface and turn the camera off. Wait a minute. Turn the camera on (checking it after a minute). Turn the camera off again. Turn it on again (wait a minute). After 3 or 4 tries it usually wakes up and works like a champ. Sure it's a kludge and a work around, but once again I'll be able to see which cat is scratching the bejesus out of my couch.

Carry on!

St. Louis, Missouri, USA