UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat How to make a webcam?

One of my graduation presents was a little USB webcam thingy. It works, takes pictures and videos and stuff like it's supposed to. But how would I go about connecting that to an actual website? I know Mark has that big page with all the mod cams on it... is there some special software I need to do this?

Thanks in advance!

---Skorpion

For PC's, Webcam32 is one of the better ones, though there are some free ones available too (check www.download.com).

Basically it runs on your computer, takes pictures at your specified interval (every 30 seconds or whatever) and uploads them to your server via ftp.

So, on the web page you want the picture on, just add a meta refresh tag, and have the url for the image point to the location on your server where the camera is uploading to.

--mark

Okay.. sorry to go a little ot.. but is there a program that'll automatially put the images into a movie.. to take time-lapse?

Thanks Mark! It works

---Skorpion

I've seen some personal web cams where it was streaming video. It seemed like the window used java to connect you directly to their computer's IP# (not their web server.) Anyone know what program they use for that?

So come on then Skorp, let us see

Steven, yes I've used that on the moderator page (though its not there now cuz SOMEONE's Mac couldn't display java... ;))

You have to enable the streaming in webcam, then include the appropriate applet tag in the web cam page. It will point to the url of your pc (if you have a static) and the port you defined for the camera to stream on.

--mark

Mark, what was the name of the program you used for that?

Steven: It's part of the Webcam32 package.

Just a thought

Thanks Cal

My boss wants me to set up webcams at his office and his house, just so he can see his children, given that he works literally 20hours a day.

I don't recall saying anything...but I might have; if it wasn't me, who else has a mac? cal perhaps?

I think the last mac I saw cal with had a rubbish bin on top of it

i use a mac at work, but i don't remember saying anything about this...

I would imagine he's talking about florence.

Sally, you mean this mac?



Just a thought

Yeah, he means me. Upgrading to 9.1 did not do me a world of good.

But hey Mark, don't let that stop you from live streaming to all your adoring fans.

Here we go...

http://www.se7enet.com/lavacam.html

Unfortunately, the quality is a little bad - kinda grainy and there's a bunch of lines running up and down the picture . If anyone knows how to fix this, please lemme know. ("EZCam USB II" is the camera.)

---Skorpion