TCP IP Webcam access - please help! 1

[davcom1]

Posted this a while ago to another forum... no luck so perhaps it is better located here in TCP/IP!!??

Boss had a "great" idea to install webcams within our small company. The idea is for any member of staff at each location can check that everything is OK at the other site. We currently have two remote locations requiring web cams.

Location 1: Win XP computer with DSL connection
Location 2: Win XP computers, Peer to Peer network. Internet connection DSL shared through my PC at this location. Webcam is connected to another computer in the network.

Currently we do not have Static IPs.

I am using Webcam2000 which has a built-in webserver. I can get the computer's IP with "ipconfig" and then view the cam on our local network eg.

http://168.192.0.69:8080

using a little bit of JavaScript in a web page to make frequent image refreshes.

I cannot figure a way to get access from outside our network - via the Internet. FTPing images to our company webspace will be too slow.

My questions are:

1. Is there any way to access the Webcam2000's webserver from the 'net or does the computer with the webcam also have to be the Internet "server"?
2. Will static IP addresses help? - We would like the cams to run automatically straight from startup for security purposes without the need for the user to start this and run that.
3. Is there any better software out there which would do the job?

Any help/advice/guesses will be gratefully received!

Thank you,

David (davcom1)

 

[Serbtastic]

I'm running Webcam2000 at home so I can monitor things, so I can answer some of your questions.

1. Yes, you can access the webcam server from the 'net, you need to forward the correct port to the correct PC on your internal lan. Check out XP's online help for ICS and port forwarding. On the other XP computer with DSL connection, is it directly connected to the DSL modem? If so, then no port forwarding required, just open a browser to your dynamic IP addressort number.
2. Static IPs would certainly make it easier to find the webcams, in case their IPs changed, but you can use a dynamic dns client to always be able to find your clients. Check out

http://www.dyndns.org

for more info. As for starting automatically, google 'start application as a service in xp' and you'll get lots of hits, and ways to do this so that it starts up without a user logging in.
3. You could use Windows Media Encoder to broadcast live video instead of pictures every few seconds, but it uses more resources. Also, check out

http://ww.com

for a free alternative. It will allow live video if you forward the correct ports, or post static images if you don't want to open this security hole.

Let me know if you need further help/info/advice.