OT - USB cam Cable Length? Need 50 ft or more

will-3 wrote on 8/2/2006, 8:50 AM

We need to set up 7 inexpensive cam's in 7 office cubicals.

(No computer in the cubical, only a small table & 2 chairs. Like a sales booth.)

We hope to be able to use inexpensive off the shelf usb web cam's.

Cams will point down to the table to record what is written on a pad of paper... and we also need to record the conversation in the booth.

1 - Can anyone suggest the best budget web cams to consider?

2 - The booths are 5 ft wide and all in a row. We hope to plug all cams into one PC so the cable runs will be long.

- How long can a USB cable be?
- Can you get USB repeaters to extend the cable length?
- What other solutions are there that we should take a look at?

thanks for any help.

Comments

JJKizak wrote on 8/2/2006, 9:19 AM

As far as I know USB won't work over 15 ft unless you have some kind of specialy stuff.
JJK

winrockpost wrote on 8/2/2006, 9:57 AM

http://www.usbgear.com/USB_Repeater_Cable/

dibbkd wrote on 8/2/2006, 10:38 AM

I get all my cables, USB, CAT5, etc. from:

CablesToGo.com

They have all kinds of great stuff and I've never had a problem with them.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/2/2006, 11:30 AM

i once had a usb cam hooked up to a 25ft usb cable just fine.

John_Cline wrote on 8/2/2006, 1:47 PM

Unless these people are writing on the pad of paper using a thick, black "Magic Marker" and large handwriting, I don't think the web cams with their typical 352x240 or 640x480 video resolution are going to be able to resolve normal handwritten text. There are some higher-end web cams that can have a 1.3 megapixel chip and those might work, although these still seem to be limited to a video resolution of 640x480.

There are also network-enabled webcams which would let you use CAT5 cabling for much greater distance than USB.

John