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Is there a way to use a webcam to record video to a some buffer on a computer.

For example, the buffer could store only the last three hours of video. I could then hit stop and that buffer is saved to another file that I can then play back.

This would be for Windows. I don't care about buffer size, hard drive space is cheap :P

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Any specific operating system requirements? Also, that would be a hell of a huge buffer. – Shinrai Dec 3 '10 at 20:42
I've edited the question to reflect the operating system. It would be fine for any flavor of Windows XP or higher. – Jared Dec 3 '10 at 20:50
This sounds like something that would come up in the security field. I've never seen it for general use, but I could imagine that something similar (though with longer times) would be perfect for store security cameras, for instance. – Michael Kohne Dec 3 '10 at 21:25
For us humans who don't want to come up with a solution, uStream is on our side. – digitxp Dec 3 '10 at 23:54
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I put together a Python script that can do this. By default it will record the previous 24 hours of video. Feel free to make any modifications you want to it:

I did a blog post describing it, and made the source code available online.

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