Publish a live / streaming webcam
A customer wrote to ask me how to set up a streaming webcam to watch over their puppy whilst at work. I didn’t know how to do it, so I did a bit of research and the result is this little article.
I also thought “awwww, puppies!”
Kinobo was also thinking about broadcasting a live feed of the view from the Kinobo HQ boardroom. We are overlooked by Edinburgh castle, which often looks pretty darn lovely at certain times of the year. At the moment though, it’s grey and miserable.
For this project, I chose our favourite webcam “Edna”.
I often look at Edna and wonder who’s genius idea she was – she was sent as a free sample from China. Who ever thought to put rhinestones on a webcam? The mind boggles…
For this you’ll need
1 X Webcam 1 X Computer connected to the internet via Broaband 1 X Copy of W Capture (it’s free)
NOTE: This method does not currently appear to work if you’re using a router. If you’re connected via your modem though, this software works pretty well.
Step 1.
Connect your webcam
Edna doesn’t need drivers, so you just plug her in and she’s ready to rock and roll. Check out all our webcams here.
Step 2.
It doesn’t need to be installed, you just need to download the file and then run it.
Step 3.
W Capture should automatically launch your webcam to give you a preview of how it’s going to look. If you’re connected to the internet, it’ll also find the IP address of your computer.
It’s got a built-in HTTP server. This essentially means that it will enable you to run your computer as a host that you can access on any other computer. Instead of a URL such as ‘www.kinobo.co.uk’ you just need to type in the IP address into your URL bar, but WCapture gives you all this information.
Select ‘Enable HTTP Server’
Step 4.
Click ‘Copy URL to Clipboard’ and then paste the address (which will be your URL) into your browser URL bar.
Step 5.
The page will come up and when you select ‘Enable webcam’
To save bandwith, uncheck the box when you’ve finished watching it.
You can also set up the software to capture a picture periodically, and automatically save it, using the FTP option.
If you have a website, just fill in the FTP details with the correct information, and WCapture will upload a still of your webcam periodically.
