How to set up a WEBCAM at home

How to set up a WEBCAM at home

1) First you need a camera

I selected the Logitech QuickCam® Fusion™

It uses a “USB” connection and was easy to install

2) Next, you will need WEBCAM software

I selected “VisionGS”. It had all the features I wanted

and it was inexpensive. I purchased and downloaded it from

the internet and installed it on my home computer.

It supports many cameras including USB, network (TCP/IP) cameras

and video capture cards. http://www.visiongs.de/

The “VisionGS” setup is covered below and should give you enough

“how to” incite even if you use another program. I did find free

webcam software but liked the “VisionGS” better.

The images below will cover the setup process:

After you have installed VisionGS, start the program,

Select “File”, “Devices”, “New Device”

Select local or network camera based on the camera

you have

Select the camera, use directX (fast)

Enter a name for the device and finish.

Note: You can also change the window size if desired.

I used the 320X240 to keep the image size small,

(faster internet downloads).

Next go to the device menu and open the device settings

Select the general tab and check the box for “capture/upload…”

Next select the capture/upload tab and set the time interval

between image captures.

Select the location tab and:

1) make sure local is selected

2) Give the image you will capture a file name and

3) Click on the folder and browse to the

“C:\Program Files\VisionGS BE\html” directory as shown below.

This is assuming you installed VisionGS on the C: drive and in the

Program Files directory (default install).

The reason you are saving the captured images to this location

is because this is where the http (web) server will look to send it’s

“html” files to the internet. (VisionGS is also an http web server)

Click on the “image Banner” tab and select any of the items

you want. I selected the date/timestamp and set the properties I wanted.

Select “OK” to save everything and close the window.

Next, click on the enable capture/upload tab above the live

image, to start the image capture. Your images will now be captured

and saved in the html directory with the name you gave the file earlier.

You should now see a capture progress bar below the live image and the

frequency between captures should be the number of seconds you set

in capture/upload above.

Next, click on the program settings tab and select http server

Here we need to change the port setting to something other than port 80.

Most internet service providers (ISP’s) block port 80 which is the default port

used to request web pages from a web server. That means a request to your

web server (VisionGS) on port 80 is being blocked by your ISP. I guess they

don’t want you to run a web server at home which is what you are just about to do.

I changed the port from 80 to 8765. Ports 8080 and 8081 are used for this purpose.

Click OK and you are finished with the setup of your webcam software.

The next time you start the software everything should be running as you left it.

What we have done so far is capture an image and place it in a folder where a web server is running and serving web pages to the internet. The problem now is the server has no pages to serve.

Our next step is to create a web page that will show the image you are capturing.

This page must be placed in the html directory and linl to your image file. Below is the html code needed for a simple web page. Highlight everything between the lines, then copy and paste it into notepad.

Edit the items in red to the image file name you selected earlier and the time between browser image reloads.

Save the notepad file as “index.html”, not index.txt.

Save the file to the same html directory you selected above for the captured image.

I used the “C:\Program Files\VisionGS BE\html” directory.

Note1: notice that I set the image capture above at 4 seconds and the browser refresh below at 5 seconds. I found that having them set at the same interval would result in partial or no image being displayed if the browser was requesting the image from the server at the same time the image was being written to file.

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<DIV ID="idElement5" style="position:absolute; top:130px; left:350px; width:315px; height:68px;"><TABLE BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 WIDTH=315><TR VALIGN=top><TD><DIV align=left><FONT CLASS=Arial-48px000080b>My WEBCAM</FONT></DIV></TD></TR></TABLE></DIV>

</HEAD>

<STYLE TYPE="text/css">BODY {margin-left:230; margin-right:0; margin-top:170;}</STYLE>

<!--

var t = 5 // interval in seconds

imgsrc = "";

function ErrorImg() {

setTimeout("LoadImg()", t*1000);

}

function LoadImg() {

if (imgsrc == "") imgsrc = document.images.visiongs.src;

document.images.visiongs.onload = "";

tmp = new Date();

tmp = "?"+tmp.getTime();

document.images.visiongs.src = imgsrc+tmp;

setTimeout("LoadImg()", t*1000);

}

// -->

</SCRIPT>

</BODY>

</HTML>

We are now serving index.html from your computer to the internet on the port you selected above. The file is named index.html because that is the default name a server will send when it gets an http (webpage) request at your IP address.

Here is the next problem, no one knows your IP address and no one knows you are using a port other than port 80.

There is an easy way to find your IP address.

Click on the VisionGS “Tools” menu and select ”Rrequest WAN IP”.

You should get a result something like this:

Write down the IP address: “#.#.#.#”

You will need it later.

OK, if your computer is directly connected to the internet, and that means you have a modem (dial up, DSL, Cable) directly connected to your computer, you are done, at least with this part. Go to “For those who didn’t have a router…”

If you are using a router, there is more to do.

Guess what, a router by default, blocks all port requests from the internet. So a request on port 8765 will not get to your computer and the WAN IP address above belongs to the router, not your computer. Most routers by default assign the computers connected to them an internal IP address which can not be seen by the internet. What we need to do is have the router redirect the request on port 8765 to your computer and your computer only. I use a LINKSYS WRT54G router and will cover the procedure to set it up below. The procedure for your router should be similar.

Start your web browser. In the address block type in the routers internal IP address or internal IP address the router uses for admin. You should get a log in page which requires a name and password. If you don’t know it check your documentation.

My router login looks like this.

After login I get this.

Next we need to set “port forwarding” so port 8765 (or port you chose) is pointing at your computer. I found it under the Applications & Gaming tab.

Some routers offer a port range (see below). I set the port range for 8765 start and end and I set the last digits of the internal IP address to 168. Most routers assign internal IP addresses to the computers connected to them. This process is called DHCP. By default my router will assign up to 50 internal IP addresses to computers connecting to it. My router starts the DHCP at 192.168.1.100 and ends at 192.168.1.150. These IP addresses are dynamic which means every time you turn on your computer the router may assign it a different IP address. So I need my computer to have a static IP address which (doesn’t change) and I want it to be outside of the DHCP range because I want DHCP for the other computers. This way, the port forward will always point at my computer. We will cover how to set “my computer” to a static IP later. The result of this is when the router receives an http request from the internet on port 8765 it will forward the request to internal IP address 192.168.1.168.

Make sure you save the changes!

Before you exit your browser, find where your router displays the WAN information.

You will need the IP addresses for the DNS (domain name servers) provided by your ISP. LINKSYS looks like this.

Write down the two DNS IP’s.

Another method to get the information is (Windows XP) click on start, run, type in command then enter and at the command prompt type “ipconfig/all” and enter.

It should look something like this.

Keep in mind you need to do this before you set your computer to a static IP address so you have this information during that procedure. Write down the DNS Servers and Default Gateway.

Type “exit” at the command prompt and enter.

We are now ready to set your computer with a static internal IP address.

In Windows XP, open the control panel and click on network connections.

Click on network connections

Click on “Local Area Connection”

Click on Properties

Click on “Internet Protocol(TCP/IP)

and click Properties

This is where you will change your IP to a static address.

Your page will probably be blank.

Click in the circle “Use the following IP address”

Enter the IP address you selected above during the router setup for port forwarding.

The subnet mask will probably fill in for you when you click in it. If not enter, 255.255.255.0

Enter the default gateway you recorded earlier.

Enter the two DNS servers IP’s.

Review what you entered “no extra zeros or numbers”

Click OK

Click OK again on the next screen and you are done.

For those who didn’t have a router this is the next step.

Close everything you have open except VisionGS. If VisionGS isn’t running, start it.

Start your browser.

In the address box enter your WAN IP address followed by a : and the port you decided to use above. Make sure you start with http://

Example:

Press enter and you should see your web page with your webcam image.

Move around in front of the camera and make sure it updates every # of seconds you entered. If it doesn’t work, Check to see if you are running a software firewall on your computer and either turn it off or configure it to allow port access to VisionGS. If no firewall, go back and review everything you have done up to this point to find the problem.

If that doesn’t work, type “http://your internal IP:your port” in the browser address box.

If this works the problem is with the router.

If it doesn’t work, the problem is with your computer.

I now assume all is working and you want your friends to see your webcam at work.

You can call them and tell them exactly what to type in the browser address block or you can send them an email with the link. Here is the problem, if you are directly connected to the internet, your WAN IP will change every time you turn off your computer. If you use a router it will change every time the router looses power or your ISP decides to change it. (About once a month for me).

Solution, purchase a domain name that will always point at your IP even when it changes. I used ChangeIP.com

( http://www.changeip.com/default.asp ) .

They will sell you a domain name and provide a small program that runs on your computer to keep them updated on your present IP. That means every time you start your computer (router included) the program tells changeIP.com to update their DNS servers to point at the new IP. The domain name stays the same.

Example of their program running on my computer. When you click on the X the program doesn’t stop running, it reduces to the tray and runs in the background.

The only other thing I had to add was the port redirect. This was not hard, I logged on to changeIP.com after purchasing my domain name and went to edit on my domain name, added a full colon behind the IP and included the port redirect (8765).

Example below:

If you buy a domain name from someone else, first make sure the offer the ability to update your IP automatically, most domain name vendors do not offer this.

End result, if I am running VisionGS on my computer and you enter www.gfgcamsite.com in your browser, my webcam page will show.

I also tried it on my laptop which is connected to my router via wireless and it worked great. I was able to walk around the house and yard while my friend was watching.

One warning, don’t forget to turn off VisionGS when you don’t want others watching.

Been there done that because the phone call said “I like the bath towel !”.

VisionGS also includes FTP. If you have web space out there that provides you with a fast and reliable FTP uplink, you can let them run the http server for your webcam pages and send the images via FTP to that space. I was going to try this but my present web space provides an FTP service that only works about half the time and very slowly at that. I know I will move my pages soon, same domain name, different provider.

You can also set up VisionGS to capture images when the software detects motion.

Great for security. You can even have it send you an email with the captured image.

Imagine this, the thief gets your computer and camera and you get his picture!

Good luck with your webcam! I am not a computer guru but if you have problems, send me an email and I will reply with what I know and when I have time.

ftlgeorge@tuenite.com

this document is also available in a pdf format, click here

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