surveillance software
 

i have a USB webcam...is there any software (hopefully free), that I could say run for 8 hours to continuously record what the cam is capturing? prefeably with some options to adjust resolution, color depth, etc?

You're going to need a lot of disk space to record for 8 hours straight. I'm not sure about free software, but I know some webcam progs can do motion detection.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Motion detection would be your best bet.

http://www.coffeecup.com/webcam/

This software has motion detection capabilities (version 3.0 or later) and it's only 30 bucks...

most webcam manufacturers include softwarewith their cams that include motion detection software.