SharpCap Forums

I would like to use multiple cameras to capture the US total solar eclipse this year but don't have multiple laptops.
Should I use multiple SharpCaps to control multiple cameras simultaneously?
Thank you!

Hi,

yes, there is no problem with running more than one copy of SharpCap at the same time.

If you want to use two high speed cameras then you will need a fast, multi core CPU. If you want to use two high resolution cameras then you will need plenty of memory.

cheers,

Robin

I have tested it.
I connected 2 cameras, one is ASI174MC, another one is QHY5-II.
I run the same scripts to let both cameras capturing some videos intervally.
At the beginning, they both look good.
But when they started to capture a long video, one of them stopped working.
I guess that it was because both sharpcap were trying to save the videos to the same path and same file name.
How can I make sure they won't use the same default file name while capturing videos at the same time?
Thank you!

They shouldn't use the same name unless you start capturing on both at exactly the same second. Even then it's easy to change the name by putting some value in the 'Target Name' box in the toolbar as this gets put into the filename.

I suspect the likely problem is USB bandwidth issues - were you running both off of the same USB port with a hub?

cheers,

Robin

Yes, they both start capturing at the same time because the script is related to the solar eclipse at the 2nd contact.
I seldom select my target name during capturing, maybe I should try this next time.
Thanks!

I have changed my script using the camera name as targetname. I think they will never save to the same folder again!

How can I use the multiple SharpCap?

Just run it more than once from the desktop shortcut or whatever other way you use to start it. Don't try to connect two or more to the same camera though - that doesn't end well!

cheers,

Robin