Basics

I wrote this quick guide to help the many people who email asking how to set up a webcam like the one on www.hencam.co.uk, I always tried to be as helpful and respond as quickly as I could but I figured if there was a guide that people could read online or even print out, then it would be easier all round!

For your webcam you'll need:

An internet connection (of course!)
Usually your Cam or PC will upload the latest image to your webspace via FTP – you'll need your Internet access connected for that of course. This means it wouldn’t be very cost-effective for something like dial-up (unless you have it connect, upload the image, then disconnect – and have a very low upload rate) – it's ideally suited to ADSL etc.

Some webspace
So that other people on the Internet can see your webcam images, and to allow them to be shown on your website, you need webspace with a web hosting company. I recommend a reliable, trustworthy company such as Exa Networks - they have the speed and resilience that your website will need, backed up with the technical skills (and they won't treat you like just another customer - they really do care about the service they give to you and will genuinely help you in any way they can). Thumbs up to Exa!

You'll ALSO need either:

Standard webcam and PC
This is the simplest solution as you probably already have a PC (or you wouldn't be reading this, right?) and maybe even a webcam too. If you don’t then they are available in many guises and range from about £10 upwards. Downside is that they aren't weatherproof so if you want to position it outside you'll have to think about getting some kind of protective housing. You'll also need to consider the length of wire and whether it will reach your subject.

An IP Camera
Useful if you don't want to have your PC on – the IP Cam will connect to your existing network and can upload images via several methods (usually http streaming and FTP). Downsides, they are expensive, but are available in weatherproof and wireless versions, so are well suited to remote and outdoor cams.

Webcam software
If you have gone the IP Camera route, you don't need this. But a standard webcam will need some software which will grab the image from it, then upload the image to your webspace ready for you to show it on your website.

How it all works

I'm going to assume you are using the webcam + PC + webcam software route (as this is what most closely matches hencam's).

For the webcam, I'm currently using an outdoor security camera. This offers the benefits of excellent picture quality, good night-time infra-red vision, completely weather-proof and cheap. The downsides are that it is wired (although it came with 100ft of wire – more than enough) and that it does not output video in a format my PC can understand, which means I had to have a converter to convert S-Video -> PC.

The software I am currently using is a free Microsoft PowerTool – it's called Webcam Timershot. It is intended to be used for taking pictures from a webcam and saving them to your local PC, however, with a bit of ingenuity you can get it to upload the images to your webspace – simply add a "Network Place" and set the wizard to use FTP and the path to where you want the image saving. Now set Timershot to save to that location, and voila!

To show your webcam image on your website, you can simply use an img tag to display it. Of course this won't refresh your webcam image automatically, so then you can set a meta-refresh on your webpage to periodically reload. This isn’t too smooth as there is a pause while it reloads, so there are various scripts and tools you can use.

You can use Java, Javascript or even Flash to reload your webcam image on your webpage – hencam uses Flash but the choice is up to you.

One of the most often used is the Flash viewer that is included with WebcamXP – you can get it by installing the demo and finding the .swf file – full details of how to use it are included in WebcamXP. Even if you choose not to use the program you can still use the Flash viewer from it...

Webcam software

To get you started in your search for software, have a look at WebcamXP, Webcam32, Tincam etc – you'll soon find the right software for your setup.

Don't forget to send me your cam page and we can link to each other!

Thanks for reading, I hope it has been useful. If it has been helpful, consider doing something amazing like donating to hencam! :) thanks!

Adding a "Network Place" to point to your webspace

If you are experiencing problems adding a Network Place and getting Timershot to save images to your webspace, hopefully the following will help you:

Open up "My Network Places" - you can do this by either: clicking "Start->My Network Places", or open up the "Network Connections" by clicking "Start->Control Panel->Network Connections" and in there you will see a "Other Places" list on the left, click the "My Network Places" to go there.

When you get to "My Network Places", click the "Add a network place" (in the "Network Tasks" list on the left of the window) which will start the "Add Network Place Wizard".

Follow the wizard:

To continue, click Next.
Select the "Choose another network location" option which allows you to "Specify the address of a Web site, network location, or FTP site". Click Next
Enter the FTP host - you need to enter ftp:// at the beginning (to tell windows it should use FTP).
You also need to know the path where you want to save your webcam images to (for example, when I FTP in to my website, I am in the root directory, and I need to go to www/htdocs/webcam which is where I want my images saved to) - so I make a note of "www/htdocs/webcam" for later (I add it to the FTP host details so that windows knows exactly where to save my images to.

The FTP host is usually your main web address followed by the path you need to follow to get to the directory where you want to save your images to (eg: ftp://www.hencam.co.uk/www/htdocs/webcam) but double check - sometimes you need to enter ftp://ftp.yourhost.com where "yourhost" would be your hosting provider's domain - check if you are unsure! Click Next.
Untick the "Log on anonymously" box! Now enter your FTP username (check with your hosting if you are unsure what it is). Click Next.
Enter a nickname for the network place (this is the friendly name windows will use to identify the location) - you can leave it as it is. Click Next.
Well done, you did it! Click Finish to close the Wizard.

If you left the "Open this network place when I finish" box ticked, windows will try and connect.

Assuming all is well, you'll now see the folder which although it looks like a normal folder on your PC, is actually the contents of your remote web-host folder! Because of this Network Place you just added, your PC can save to your remote (website) folder just as it would with a local folder!

Good luck, and if you need any help or anything at all, just let me know!