You can't use multiple cameras on a hub because you're trying to squeeze a lot of data to one USB cable and port, and this simply isn't fast enough for capturing four video streams at an acceptable frame rate. You need to plug each camera into its own USB port on the computer, and depending on your configuration, you may even need multiple USB cards. You can check Device Manager to see how many actual USB ports you have on your system.

For example, my laptop has six USB ports: two on the side and four in the back. If I plug all four cameras in the rear ports, I cannot capture without dropping some frames. However, if I connect two in the side and two in the back, I can capture from four cameras just fine.

Hope this helps.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

According to my experience, at least with some hubs you can connect up to 2 Sony PS Eye cameras via a hub. Since there are so many different hub models on the market, it is hard to predict if particular model will work or not.

Most active USB extension cables are known to work well.



You have 2 indicators in iPi Recorder - for compression cache and for I/O cache. Which one of them runs out faster? If your compression cache runs out first, then your CPU is too slow to be able to compress video in real time for selected resolution and frame rate. If your I/O cache runs out first, then your HDD is not fast enough.

Please keep in mind that using system disk (the "C:" disk) for video recording is much slower then using a dedicated disk. Operating system performs lots of unpredictable disk operations on your system disk (like access to swap file) and this slows down video recording. Keep in mind that HDDs are mechanical devices.

If you have a desktop PC, consider installing second, dedicated hard drive for video recording. Most modern desktop HDDs are pretty fast and should be able to record video from 4 cameras at 640x480 at 60 frames per second without any problems.

If you use a notebook PC for recording, it may not be possible installing second hard drive. In that case, consider using SSD (solid state drive), like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-3-0Gb-Per ... 35&sr=1-10

A new version of iPi Recording will be published soon, with support for uncompressed video recording. This should allow recording hi-resolution video on PCs with slow CPUs.

If drive speed is the problem, another alternative you might consider is an external eSATA RAID, which is what I use. I have an external eSATA laptop card to which I connect a RAID I put together using this enclosure made by Addonics:

http://www.addonics.com/products/enclos ... 5rdesu.asp

Inside are two 7200 rpm Seagate notebook drives striped for RAID 0. What I like about this set up is that it's fairly inexpensive for what you get, it's large, fast and very portable. As with any RAID striped for maximum performance, you need to be careful with the drive and make sure you back up the data immediately. (With RAID 0, losing one drive generally means you've lost all your video data.)

Another important advantage is that, to move the data from my laptop to my workstation (where I run the DMC software,) there's no need to transfer it over a network; I just plug the drive into the workstation.

The new solid state drives referenced by Michael are pretty awesome (i.e., much faster) though, if a little pricey. In this market, prices for storage devices always come down sooner or later, and since this one especially appeals to gamers, expect it to come down sooner. :)

Greenlaw

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Good post! Will certainly consider this mod.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Or an easier option might be to just drill the hole (i presume it needs widening) and use an appropriate nut :-)

Maybe. It would certainly be easier to do, but the plastic base is pretty thick and a nut on top may limit rotation of the camera. (I still haven't made time to actually use them yet. Sigh!)

What I used with the Logitech cameras was gaffers tape to 'lock' them down, but the Logitech cameras were more stable than the PSP cameras anyway and mostly stayed in place by themselves. The PSP camera has a small round base which makes it harder to tape down.

I'm thinking earthquake wax might work pretty well if the PSP camera is sitting on a flat surface like a shelf or a table.

Just a few thoughts, for whatever they're worth. :)

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

BTW this is the cheapest I could find them.
£20
http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Sony-PS3-Acce ... ony-PS3%29

Hi everyone

Bought 4 ps3 eye cams today , will test them tomorrow and will write here results

Hi everyone
Bought 4 ps3 eye cams today, will test all tomorrow then wll write here results

Just tried to 1 cam..i am noob : ) don't know where i doing wrong but started record avi with ipi recorder..then tried open it with ipi studio..but writing that ' this avi already using with diffirent ( ipi recorder) software and cant open '

where i do wrong?