Embedding Live Video from an IP WebCam

Question

We are using a Sony SNC-RZ30N IP-based webcam to monitor osprey nests and would like to stream the video feed via our own webserver.

Rather than use the built-in webserver of the camera (which requires either ActiveX or Java on the client side) to display the live feed, I would like to weed out just the live feed and display it on our campus webserver (Win2k8/IIS7). Perhaps in an iFrame or the like.

Unfortunately, documentation for anything other than FTP'ing a static image snapshot from this camera seems to be pretty much non-existent.

There are other "video surveillance" packages (ie: ProSight SMB) that will feed up a web page with the live feed on their own built-in webservers (along with controls to position the camera, which we don't want displayed) - but that is undesireable.

I simply want to capture the live stream from the camera and embed it a page on our website so that we can control how the page looks as well as other relevant hyperlinks.

Thx.

Answer 1

I don't have enough reputation to comment, so a new answer...

In that case I think there are only two options: run a service that converts the existing video feed to a more useable feed (for example to wmv, is accepted by most clients), or create some kind of 'applet' (like in Flash) that updates the image every second or so?

WebcamXP seems to support your camera (http://www.webcamxp.com/ipcams.aspx), so maybe that's an option?

Answer 2

Some IP-based webcams (I know the Axis cameras do), also offer a static JPG or a motion JPEG over HTTP. like http://<ip>/img/static.jpg.

Maybe that helps you?

Answer 3

You could use the built in FTP features of the cam, to upload the picture to your webserver, and write some simple php code to read the uploaded image, display it on an HTML page, and update it equal to the output frame rate of the camera. Most cameras output to picture formats rather than video.