Webcam streaming to the internet.

I have been asked by a friend of mine if it is possible to stream several webcams that have been installed in various locations within the same building back to one computer then out to a website. I know it can be done but as I have never done anything like this before I was wondering if anyone had any pointers?

SimpleSI will be able to help, he has done this recently showing some eggs hatching into chicks.

This page may also help - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardwa...m-webpage.html

Voila-c'est moi :)
Apololgies if teaching granny here ;)

Basically webcam pictures are just a series of images that are FTP'd up to a website.

Then your website page either uses an Iframe to point to a simple page that contains your image and that page is set to refresh every n seconds (very very simple to get going) or alternatively uses a bit of javascript to refresh an image directly (bit trickier to get going but looks/is more professional)

Your requirement to have multiple camera/images just makes things a bit more interesting :)

You could have each webcam connected to a computer and get each computer to run the webcam FTP process upload.

Or webcam to a computer and save the image back on a server and get the server to do the FTPing of all the images.

Or you could run video lead from each camera back to a central machine with a multiple video input card and amalagamate the videos into one composite image (never done this but probable that the video card would come with some software to do this :) ) and then just upload the composite image.

If your server is your webserver as well then you don't even need to do the FTP bit :)

regards

Simon

Ive used VLC for streaming a webcam across the internet before.

Jack

It really depends what camera/solution you go for - you can use FTP if you dont mind the delay or if you have a limited number of external IP addresses to assign to a camera (or you could just use NAT). Here we have a few Axis network cameras which stream live to the receiving browser.

I have in the past used WheresJames Webcam Publisher - Publish images to your web site using FTP or use the built in server. webcam software to allow this to happen if you upload the streams as different names then set a refresh on the page. The software also has a page builder that dose this for you.

Just to clarify one point they want to stream live footage and not pictures.

Yawcam will stream live footage as well. :)

I used it to stream live (3fps) video to 7 classes - its acts as its own web server.

Streaming multiple feeds to x users is going to put a lot of strain on a server/bandwidth but if you've got the oomph (and not blocked by a firewall/proxy server as we are in my schools) then its trivial to do it :)

regards

Simon

PS Why does your friend want to do this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SimpleSi

PS Why does your friend want to do this?

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I haven't asked them as it is nothing to do with me.

Just some info that might help (from the Axis website):

Why network cameras are better for ftp uploads than webcams

Configuring an Axis network camera to feed website video for low-medium hit rates (users access the camera - only recommended for up to about 20 connections)

For high hit rate sites (video routed via http upload to a web server)

Lots of other useful links and info around those pages.