Do You Have a Working Webcam Setup for Your Website?

Weather Weather Photography
1

Hello,

Does anyone out there have a webcam uploading successfully to their website? Could you please tell me what hardware and software you are using?

Trying to get such a setup in place is the bane of my existence. Why does it have to be so hard? I’ve been trying for years with a multitude of cameras and software. Either the software won’t handle a high-resolution camera, or the software causes my webspace provider to blacklist my IP because they think I’m hacking, or the software freezes up constantly. I’ve tried so many solutions and everything fails for a different reason.

Right now I’m using Weather Display’s web cam upload capabilities. But the dang thing is constantly freezing up - I mean like it doesn’t go more than a day or two before freezing up and needing to be rebooted. That’s on TWO different laptops, so it’s not the computer’s fault.

I tear my hair out in giant chunks over this. Has ANYONE out there been successful? All I want to do is:

  • [li]Use a big picture, like 1920x1080 pixels
    Upload a photo every 60 sec.
    Put some text on the photo
    Make a time-lapse movie of the day and upload it, (I can only dream)[/li]

I’m willing to go out and buy an IP camera if someone can assure me that that will work better and can guide me to some upload software that actually works. I’d even upload live video if I could.

Thanks to anyone who has successfully worked this out and will let me copy their system.

Gary
Okotoks, Alberta, Canada

2

personally I use a usb camera, years old now, logitech 9000 ,no problems at all with WD’s webcamcapture
you can get IP cameras now that upload to your web site

3

Until 2 days ago I had a IP camera. A very intense hail storm took it out

4

Blainec, can you tell me the brand and model of the IP cam you lost? Were you using Weather Display to upload, or did the camera come with software?

I see you are in Calgary, so I understand very well about the hailstorm. I live between Okotoks and Millarville. The storms that day were moving from SSW to NNE. They were just getting serious as they passed over me, with just a bit of pea-sized hail. By the time they’d gotten 40km to your neck of the woods they were monsters. Sorry you lost the camera and I hope your home, cars and landscape, if any, were not too badly damaged.

Gary

5

I used a FASCAM IP Camera. I can’t remember the model number.
I also used WD to capture and upload the image. If you are looking to stream video, I suggest the you look at h264 cameras

As for the storm. I live in the northeast where most of the damage occurred. Some of the hail stone where the size of tennis balls

6

I’ve used Hikvision IP cams for years, but their built-in software is getting old now although it still works. My current SkyCam is a Hikvision DS-2CD2042WD-I and I’ve also got some Reolink IP Dome cams which give very good quality feeds.

I have the Hikvision linked up to IPTimelapse Basic software to produce my webcam image and time lapse videos on my website.
Unlike WD, you do have to pay to upgrade to a new version but the version I’m currently running has been fine for the last 4 years and it does what I want it too so I don’t think I’ll be updating any time soon. :wink:

There is the IPTimelapse Pro version which is $20US more but includes live streaming and a few other add-ons.

7

Thank you, Budgie. Your website is EXACTLY what I have been trying to do for - literally - years, off and on, with incredible frustration and only intermittent success. I really appreciate your recommendation of IPTimelapse. It amazes me that I’ve many times Googled ‘webcam upload software’ and never found that software in a search result. It would seem it is exactly the software I need.

Can I ask you a couple questions about your marvelous setup? (By the way, I had the pleasure and blessing of having lived in Scotland (Aberdeen) for 19months in 2004-2005).

  1. I can’t figure out any way that IPTimelapse will take a photo with my USB webcam and save it to my computer. So I am having Yawcam do that, and then IPTimelapse uploads it to my webspace. Do you do something like this, or am I missing some IPTimelapse functionality?

  2. How stable is your system - meaning how often does it require your intervention to fix an error or reboot a program? I still can’t get my system to run for more than a day or so without some damn thing or another stopping it - example: Yawcam trying to write to file and not being able to because the file is in use, therefore shutting down. I’m interested to know if it’s actually possible to ‘set it and forget it’ for days or weeks at a time.

I’m am very, very thankful for your suggestions. I have yet to try creating timelapse movies because I still have these damn glitches, but at least I have a little hope now.

Best regards,

Gary

8

Hi Gary,

Strangely, I hired an RV from Calgary back in May/June 2003, with my now wife, and did a 3 week tour of the Rockies. Best vacation ever with fantastic people and even better scenery.
We spent our last night watching a pre-season game between Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos at the McMahon Stadium! :smiley:

Anyway, back to IPTimelapse.

  1. I have two instances of IPTimelapse running, one for the 10 second images and one for the minute images. They save the images to different folders within the WD program but use the IPTimelapse FTP to upload the movies.
    On the 1 minute setup, I use the Schedule & FTP tab > “Capture Options” to capture the 1 minute image and use the associated FTP to upload that image after every capture to my website. I use the filename “jpgwebcam.jpg” for that file.
    I only use my IP webcam with this software, I’ve not tried using a USB webcam with it.

  2. Touch wood, my system is very stable and runs for weeks without having to do anything. I have StartWatch monitoring all the weather programs and the PC is a dedicated PC only running software related to my weather data and website.
    If you find a way to ditch Yawcam then you may find things improve, I also had problems with that software when it kept freezing and I don’t use it now. fwink was another software I used with my old USB webcams and I think it ran better than Yawcam, if you can’t get the USB cam working with IPTimelapse.

Cheers,
Martin.

9

Hi Martin,

Yep, we certainly do have some mountains worth looking at. We live southwest of Calgary and have about 110 degrees of panorama of the Rocky Mountain Front, along with a view of the psychotic mountain weather. Thus the desire to have a working webcam. And the desire to have a second, more for security purposes.

When we lived in Aberdeen, we took a nice week-long holiday and drove over to Oban, thence onto Sky, ferried to the Outer Hebrides, back to the mainland and then around the very north shore to complete the circle. Had good weather and really enjoyed getting out in the more far-flung reaches of Scotland. It looks as if we would have been quite near Lochaber.

I realized that I was working with a version of IPTimelapse that had no ‘camera’ button, thus the jury-rigged approach with Yawcam. But I have purchased the Pro version now and as one would expect, it is both taking the photos and uploading them. I’m now even more impressed with it than I was.

http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/AcreageCam1.jpg

It seems to be stable! (Hope I haven’t jinxed myself).

Next will be to get the time lapse videos working. I’ve set it up, but they’re not appearing in my web files yet. I’m sure I’ll get that sorted.

Then last, perhaps, will be to go from USB to IP. You’ve made the grievous error of proving yourself a competent and willing authority in these matters, so I can I pick your brain again, this time about IP cameras?

  1. With an IP camera is there a picture quality advantage over the 1920x1080 photos I’m currently getting with my USB camera?
  2. Does an IP camera need to be plugged into my laptop, or is it stand-alone connected only via wifi? (I assume the later, but some that I see seem to have connections). If it’s not plugged to the laptop, does it have to be near an electrical outlet, or can it run on batteries?

I’d like to place the cameras outside where they’ll have a better view, but if I do so they’ll be a long way from my laptops.

Again, I am very grateful for your help. You have helped me solve long-standing frustrations!

Best,

Gary

10

I see what you mean about the view! 8O

Budgie’s Top Tip: Create a new folder within the WD main folder for your timelapse images otherwise the WD WebFiles folder will be filled with webcam images and make finding WD related files harder. My 10-second video folder currently has 8002 files (images) in it, and that’s just from today! :wink:

With IP cams, you have a few types or ways to connect.

  1. A mains powered camera with WiFi network feed.
  2. Mains powered camera + a CAT5/CAT6 connection to your router.
  3. CAT5 or CAT6 cable only to the camera using PoE (Power over Ethernet)

1 is good if, like you, you need to put the camera away from the router but close to power (there are also solar powered cameras on the market now).
2 is really a waste of time as you may as well use one of the other two, who wants to run two cables when you can run one?
3 is what I use and have the cameras connected using one CAT5 cable connected to an 8 port Ethernet switch, which has four of the ports with POE.
The 8 port switch sits on my desk and there’s one CAT6 cable running to the router and I have 4 cameras and 2 PC’s connected to it. Saves running 6 cables all the way to the router. :smiley:

The camera image quality on my Hikvision (bearing in mind the model I use is now discontinued) can be set to what you want. The choices I have are 1280x720p, 1920x1080p, 2304x1296 & 2688x1520. I can set the frame rate for the video and the exposure for images (handy for night time shots).
The Hikvsion camera is a “bullet cam” for external use and is rated to IP66. I’ve had three of them and I’ve only had one get a bit of fog on the inside of the lens glass.

When it comes to replacing the Hikvision I’ll probably go for something like this Reolink 5MP bullet cam as it will fit right in with the other Reolink security camera I have. :wink:

11

Hi ,
I use also IPTimelapse basic.
I have only 1 instance taking a picture every 15 seconds and I upload every 4th picture, so every minute there is a refresh on the website.
The text on the bottom is a text generated every 5 minutes by Weatherlink.
At the end of the day (sunrise - sunset) the video is automatically created and uploaded, I don’t use an intraday video.

Result :
https://www.matar.be/weather/wxwebcam.php

I run Weatherlink and IPTimelapse as a service on my NUC, so when NUC would shutdown and restarts , they automatically start sending again to the Internet.

12

You guys are a wealth of information and helpfulness.

Ok, so I finally have a stable system with IPTimelapse and two cameras running off two laptops. Huzzah! Major progress.

Next to replace my USB cams with IP cams. The Reolink IP Dome cams go for CDN$68 and have 5mp whereas the Hikvision is about twice as expensive for only 4mp. So I’m going to get a couple Reolink cams unless either of you think I’ll be losing out on something.

I’m learning: PoE means Power over Ethernet. Never heard of CAT5/CAT6 but I’ve looked those up and understand.

The cameras should go under the eaves in front and in back. The router is buried deep in the basement where the utility lines come in. So I guess I’ll also get the 8-port Ethernet switch and run Ethernet cables from it to the cameras for power. That’ll be fun finding a way out of the basement and up to the eaves with coils of Ethernet cable. But it’s better than trying to bring mains power to them through the attic.

This is fun, now! Should have the cams next week. Meanwhile I’ll work on the All-Day time lapse movies. I’ll report any progress.

Thankx a bazillion to you both!

Gary

13

You could save yourself some money and get a smaller POE port switch. I only posted what I have and I went for an 8 port switch because that’s what I needed.
You can get them with 5 ports, one connection to the router and 4 POE ports for running cameras or just connecting your PC/laptop to the router.

With the camera, I would agree that Hikvision are expensive, but that was a good option when I got them 5 or 6 years ago. I have 3 Reolink dome cameras for security around the house but went for a bullet camera for my SkyCam. The reason being; the dome cameras are designed for looking down or straight out, where as the bullet cam can screw onto a facing and be adjusted to look at the sky. I also find them easier to adjust the view.

Lastly, check the lens that’s fitted to which ever camera want. Some have a narrower field of view than others. :wink:

14

I’ve now purchased and setup a new Reolink RLC-410-5MP bullet camera as my SkyCam.

Setup was easy, as I already have three other Reolink IP cams so I was up & running in about 30 minutes.
The image quality over the Hikvision is excellent, much clearer with the 5mp sensor than the 2mp in the Hikvision. I’m still trying to figure out the best settings to run colour images all night, the sensor or controls aren’t as adjustable as the old camera and being overcast and raining for the last 24 hours hasn’t helped.

It’s now running on IPTimelapse and uploading to my website. I have the camera visible online but I’m still trying to figure out how best (or if it worth) getting it to live stream to my website. It only allows access for live streaming to the RTSP & RTMP ports, which only seem to work with Flash. I don’t want to use Flash as it’s on the way out for websites and some browsers won’t use it. I’m trying a live stream to YouTube and then embed the Youtube channel on the website, but this is still very much in the experimental stage at the moment.

The IP cam image & timelapse videos can be seen at: https://www.lochaberwx.co.uk/wxvideo.php

15

Quote from: Weather Display on 16-06-2020, 00:13:01

personally I use a usb camera, years old now, logitech 9000 ,no problems at all with WD’s webcamcapture
you can get IP cameras now that upload to your web site

Second that, i even have a spare 9000, cant fault the camera

Brian, is webcamcapture able to use onvif? Many wifi cameras are onvif, so easy to use and means the software can use many, many wifi cameras

16

Glad you like your new toy, Budgie! I’m just a little ways behind you.

IPTimelapse seems stable on both laptops with USB cams and is uploading pictures, yesterday’s videos and intra-day videos. Mobirise, my website software, unfortunately only will embed videos from YouTube, and IPTimelapse doesn’t have a way to upload to YouTube, so I’m stuck with just having a button/link to push in order to view the videos instead of them running in my webpage. But that’s not the end of the world. IPTimelapse has frozen up twice on one of my laptops. Both times it was at 3:00-4:00am when my AVG antivirus scan is running. So I’ve turned AVG off and hopefully that was the cause of the crash.

My Reolink RLC-423-5MP cams just arrived! Took only minutes to get them set up and visible on my iPhone. Tomorrow I will try to get the IP cams to talk to IPTimelapse. The guy from IPTimelapse gave me the instructions for these cams, so it should be easy (famous last words).

Excited about the added picture/video clarity with the ReoLinks!

Once everything is running properly - the most daunting task: Finding a way to run PoE cable from the basement to the eaves. I have in-floor heating with concrete slabs between floors. Ugh. Hoping that I can squeeze the cables next to air-flow ducts or electrical cables. It’s gonna get nasty.

Almost there…

G

17

The link I’ve used to connect IPTimlapse to the Reolink jpg image is listed on this Reolink FAQ page.
Complete the URL with your local IP address for the camera and add your username & password at the end.
Then paste the URL into the “Enter link to a jpg image on the internet” section on the main page of IPTimelapse and put a tick in the “IP camera” box. The drop down menu next to the tick box should be set to “General”.
Then save the settings and your image should appear on the main screen. :wink:

18

I just got myself two Nest cameras and they’ve been online 24/7 since June 12th. They are both IP cameras and as long as you share the URL publicly, they are already live streaming without any extra software. You can see them here:

http://portcoquitlamweather.ca/wxnestcam1.php (North East Cam)
http://portcoquitlamweather.ca/wxnestcam2.php (South Cam)

The only thing I don’t like about them is that I haven’t found the exact router settings that will prevent them from periodically disconnecting, but they usually come back on by themselves after a few minutes. Also in order to capture video from the day’s events, you need to subscribe to Nest Aware, which I am not doing, partly because I’m on the 4th floor and I don’t need to have face recognition which is included in the subscription.

WD’s webcamcapture program doesn’t work with them because I can’t find a valid http streaming URL for Nest cameras. If webcamcapture worked with RTSP, then it wouldn’t be so much of a big deal, I could just use another app like ONVIF Device Manager to find the URL and simply paste it into webcamcapture. I also can’t put any of the current stats or date and time display on the live stream or find a way to put a logo on the image.

Thanks for the idea about IPTimelapse, I want to give that a try later today.

19

Just thought I’d close out this thread with a BIG thanks to those who helped. I FINALLY have webcams and time-lapse videos that work consistently and I’m enjoying them so much. The key to it all was the IPTimelapse software, which was brilliant. AND getting IP cams instead of USB cams. No more frustration with this!

In the end, I’ve ended up with this:

http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/AcreageCam1.jpg
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/AcreageCam2.jpg
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/Intraday_Webcam1Video.mp4
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/Intraday_Webcam2Video.mp4
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/Intraday_Webcam1ZVideo.mp4
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/Webcam1Video.mp4
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/Webcam2Video.mp4
http://www.thepaukerts.net/thepaukerts/Webcams/Webcam1ZVideo.mp4

One last thing to do, is to embed these in my webpage instead of having button-links. Hard to do since I use a web-authoring service (Mobirise.com), but I have a good lead on how to get it done.

Oh and then I’ll want to add another camera or two… :wink:

The fun never ends. Thanks, folks.

Gary

20

Lovely clear images on both cameras, Gary. :thumbright:

To embed the videos on your website: If you can change the HTML code on the page using something like Notepad as the editor, you can use the HTML5 video coding like this:

<video width="900" height="506" controls>
       <source src="/Webcams/Intraday_Webcam1video.mp4" type="video/mp4">
       Your browser does not support the video tag.
       </video>

Just change the width & height of the image to what you want, you can change where it says “controls” to “autoplay” and it will start playing when the page loads.
You can also add an image, as I have done on my page, by including the “poster” command:

<video width="900" height="506" controls poster="/images/skycamvideo.jpg">
       <source src="/Intraday_skycamvideo.mp4" type="video/mp4">
       Your browser does not support the video tag.
       </video>

I re-wrote my video page this evening and changed it from using JWPlayer’s javascript to HTML5 and it works really well. :smiley: