USB vs IP Camera

[IndySam]

We used last years IP camera for driver help on our dashboard. While it functions well the size of the camera has become a problem.

We have a USB camera that we purchased for early vision processing testing that is much smaller and could be fitted into a more advantageous place.

Our programmers are reluctant to switch cameras because the say if something goes wrong with the camera it will crash the code and put us out of a match. Is this assumption accurate, can it be avoided.

We would be using the camera strictly for driver aid.

We are programming in Java

Thanks