Webcam setup...

[zxk105]

I am trying to get a webcam working online (preferably streaming) and after doing some research online I'm confused and lost. I installed the camera (HNC300 Series by Hawking Tech.) and it seems to be working. So now how do I get the video up and running on my website. I'm pretty sure I need some sort of software. "IPView SE" came with the camera. Any advice will help....

[ogletree]

To stream video you need to have a camera that can be viewed from the net. This means that you need software that streams the video to a port on your PC. You would need to have a static public IP on your machine. You could also have a router that gets a static ip from your isp. This costs more than a normal home connection. Set the router so that it ports all traffic to the webcam port to your pc's static internal ip. If you want to stream live good video you will need a T1 or fractional T1 to have enough bandwidth. A good cable modem might work as well. I used a program that sent 1 frame a second and that was over a frac t1. It was jerky but did what I wanted.

[zxk105]

Ok, some questions for you. We do use a router and cable modem here. So in order to get a static IP I need to contact my ISP, correct? Now did you say that this will cost us extra money? I don't think my boss wants to spend any extra money if we don't have to. Is there any other way to do this?

[ogletree]

Just keep up with what your ip is. A cable ip should not change that much. Just check it a few times a day and update it on your website. You could set up something that would check your ip and have it set dynamicly on the webserver. Static IP costs extra. Check and see if you have one already with your isp.

[zxk105]

This is the message I received today:

> Our network is a dynamic network, wherein our DHCP server assigns ip
> addresses. We therefore do not provide static IP addresses to our
> customers. We apologize if this is inconvenient.

We got the camera set up and it we can view it on our local network. But when viewed from outside, no video is seen. Is there a way to bypass the static IP?