Heh. I just built a system to do exactly that. I'm running 3 inexpensive cameras (the x10.com type of camera) routed into a debian box via 3 PCI composite capture cards. The application 'motion' runs as a daemon and streams (to a netscape / mozilla browser, NOT IE) the three video feeds simultaneously with very little proc / io overhead (CPU is approx 4-10% while normal streaming). 'Motion' is primarily, however, an application that uses the video feed like a motion sensor, and grabs snapshots if motion is detected (basically detects changes in light balance in the CCD) for later viewing. It also supports on-the-fly MPEG encoding of the snapshots, although I haven't used it much (too intensive on a 400mHz system). I started looking into building a PHP interface for the snapshot viewing (in fact, posted on here about it) but haven't finished it.
Streaming is accomplished by a combination of 3 local ports of your choosing and Apache. The webpage that streams the video feeds (or just one feed, however you want to do it) connects to the local port and then just outputs the image in realtime. Bandwidth isn't too big of a problem, it all seems to get across the pipe pretty easily.
I'm using the generic AverMedia DVD capture PCI composite card I got through newegg.com for around $40 ea. It's pretty well supported by the BTTV linux driver, and may work under BSD. If I had it to do over again, I might consider the Hauppage WinTV card, though, probably easier to setup because it's been around for so long and alot of linux users use them. There are also multiple composite capture cards (4-6-8, IIRC) but you have to share the bandwidth of each stream on the same chipset, so slower and smaller images.
The cameras are just inexpensive B&W wired security cameras I picked up, plus one wired color camera from x10.com, the 'Anaconda'. The color camera is by far the most clear image and also doesn't distort in different light situations like the B&W, although I thought it might be the other way around. I have another x10 camera I plan to swap out for one of the B&W cameras. One is in the front monitoring the front door, mailbox, windows and the other two monitor the back of the place in a diagonal so they cover alot of area.
Wiring is not too bad, it's basically either 4 or 6 conductor CAT3 telephone cabling that runs video / audio and power signal all at once. I'm not using any audio, so just the video and power was wired up. I ran the cabling around the eaves of the place, and went in through a small hole with a cable feedthrough, used some silicon to seal everything up. Then wired into a RJ-11 wallplate and one seperate modular connector. I also have a cool modular wallplate that accepts three connections on the face, but it's still out in the garage. =)
Let me know if you need some help with the project, I probably should outline it all on a webpage anyway...I've got wiring diagrams and stuff for the cabling.
<Motion homepage>
<Snapshot of the streaming video in mozilla>
Linear Mode
