Webcam Info, anyone?

[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy]

A m8 of mine is making a site and wanted help with making a viewable web cam video in people's profiles. This isn't a recorded video, but live. My first thought was the accessibility issues involved, then the fact that you are in essence turning a client into a server. Because of security these days, I don't see a way you can automate a set up to serve a media encoded stream on their computer unless there are built in capabilities in the web browser already... The only way I can think of is to get each user to set up a feed themselves and supply the site with a port number to get their video broadcasting at the website.


I don't know, maybe this has been solved already, anyone?

[octopi]

Not entirely sure what your asking, but there is webcam software available that will let you upload a picture to a ftp server at fixed intervals (say every 10 seconds, maybe tighten it up to 1second or less), you could use this software and give it to your people with profiles, allow them to upload to a ftp (you'd want to setup a different ftp account for each person) then you would just make the profile webcam/picture or w/e point to the file they upload on the ftp server.

[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy]

I see, well you touched on the issue I was getting at. This in essence requires the client to actually download software and set it up on their computer in order to interface with the website.

That seems like a viable solution (a better one would be a built-in software in firefox that interfaces a webcam feed).

A question though, if you were to upload the picture every second, or half second, wouldn't this have serious performance issues? Like eat up bandwidth, or something. Or would it actually display like a real webcam stream with no terrible consequences...?

[rdrake]

Well, few things you should tell your letter m number eight.

1. No web browser has proper permissions to access the webcam (though I wouldn't be surprised if IE did). S/he will need to write a program that transmits the video to the server.
   
2. Most webcams update every 30 seconds to 5 minutes. This is due to the fact that streaming video just kills servers.
   
3. I would imagine one would need a dedicated server to do this. I don't see a number of people all sending video the server on port 80.
   

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy @ Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:35 am wrote:

Because of security these days, I don't see a way you can automate a set up to serve a media encoded stream on their computer unless there are built in capabilities in the web browser already...

To be fair to the other operating systems out there, many have been secure for years. You're just used to the old Windows ways of things.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy @ Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:45 am wrote:

That seems like a viable solution (a better one would be a built-in software in firefox that interfaces a webcam feed).

Google up some webcam applets.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy @ Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:45 am wrote:

A question though, if you were to upload the picture every second, or half second, wouldn't this have serious performance issues? Like eat up bandwidth, or something. Or would it actually display like a real webcam stream with no terrible consequences...?

Yes, it'd hit the server hard.

[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy]

Quote:

To be fair to the other operating systems out there, many have been secure for years. You're just used to the old Windows ways of things.

I'm really not a fan of windows, and no system has been secure for years lol. I just mean that when computers were first invented security wasn't an issue, but as time went on, and losers abused technology, security became better implemented (or more annoying to people that want to make cool applications) whichever way you want to look at it.

I don't mean to start an argument, that's just my opinion.

[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy]

Thanks for the replies, was just making sure that it wasn't easily done. Now that is confirmed I can let my m8 know, lol. Thanks again.

[Skynet]

You're looking at this being universal, right? Any webcam can use the same applet to do what you need? That seems to me like you want something like a universal device driver...which tend not to exist due to differences in hardware. If you want to do this, most half-decent webcams should have software included that does what octopi talks about - automatic upload to email/FTP. On the other hand, if you can dictate the webcams used, there are "network webcams" out there that can serve video directly at variable resolutions and bitrates.

[PaulButler]

I believe Flash can access webcams. Of course, the user has to tell Flash this is ok for security reasons. Then you have the issues of Flash being proprietary and costly, and although Flash is cross-browser I don't think all platforms support the webcam.

[abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxy]

Yes PaulButler, I just got a webcam thing working in flash. Flash rox!