Setting
Up Your Own Webcam
YES! You can set a webcam up yourself, and it really isn’t that
difficult. Check out our simple instructions below and give it a go!
First things first... before you do anything, decide
what method you’ll be using - still shots? streaming video? etc..
then choose which hardware and software solution will fit your situation
best.
Streaming WebCams
Images of the WebCam in a continuous motion (like in a TV)
Image quality tends to be poor and the motion is not as smooth as the
TV
This method consumes a lot of resources and it's not as easy to set
up as the snapshot webcams.
Snapshot WebCams
Image is only refreshed every few seconds, there's no continuous motion
like in a TV. Quality is superb, the resources are minimal and they're
very easy to set up compared to the Streaming cams.
Some Important Points To Consider
Consider the image size of the shots being taken by the WebCam: the
greater the image, the lower the refresh rate. A 640x480 (width x height)
image can be great to show an amazing panorama, but obviously users
with a very slow Internet connection would have a snail-like refresh
rate.
Different pieces of hardware and software allow different capture sizes.
For refresh rates of 20-30 seconds per image, a reasonable user-accessible
image size can be 320x240. For lower refresh rates, try with an image
size of 160x120, which will let you refresh rates of up to 10 seconds.
For video streams, try to keep an image size of 160x120 so slow Internet
connections can have a chance of seeing something.
Know which are the resources available to you on your connection to
the Net.
What You Need...
|