Motion, a software motion detector, is a free

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

, open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 CCTV

Closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....

 software application developed for Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

.

It can monitor video signal from one or more cameras and is able to detect if a significant part of the picture has changed saving away video when it detects that motion is occurring (it can also do time lapse videos, et al).

The program is written in C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

 and is made for the Linux operating system (exploiting video4linux

Video4Linux

Video4Linux or V4L is a video capture application programming interface for Linux. Many USB webcams, TV tuners, and other devices are supported. Video4Linux is closely integrated with the Linux kernel. Video4Linux was named after Video for Windows , but is not technically related to it.- V4L2 :V4L2...

 interface). Motion is a command line based tool whose output can be either jpeg

JPEG

In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....

, netpbm files or mpeg video sequences. It is strictly command line driven and can run as a daemon

Daemon (computer software)

In Unix and other multitasking computer operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user...

 with a rather small footprint and low CPU usage.

It is operated mainly via config files, though the end video streams can be viewed from a web browser.
It can also call to user configurable "triggers" when certain events occur.

See also

• ZoneMinder
  ZoneMinder
  ZoneMinder is a free, open source CCTV software application developed for Linux.It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License .-Feature List:*Runs on any Linux distribution supporting Video4Linux....
  
  
• Surveillance
  Surveillance
  Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...
  
  
• Closed-circuit television
  Closed-circuit television
  Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
  
   (CCTV)
• Closed-circuit television camera
  Closed-circuit television camera
  Closed-circuit television cameras can produce images or recordings for surveillance purposes, and can be either video cameras, or digital stills cameras...
  
  

External links

• Official website
• An Introduction to Video Surveillance with 'Motion': small tutorial for Debian
  Debian
  Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
  
  users