Publish IP camera WVC54GCA on the web

Since we bought this camera, I wanted to publish the beautiful view of the neighbour’s garbage part of their garden.

All of this in live, for the world to see. That cannot be more important matters.

Seriously, except from the total uselessness of publishing our garden’s view, I thought that publishing a live cam on the web was really simple.

Now, let’s face the fact; it is not.

The reminiscence of the computer engineer sleeping in me woke up and finally found how to publish a private IP camera on the world wide web. Not that you need a computer degree to achieve it.

Here we go with the tutorial, if that might save you some time, it will make my day!

What you need

A cup filled with your favorite coffee.

The Linksys WVC54GCA properly configured and already working on your network.

Access to your router/modem.

Before we go

Here are the various ways Linksys offers to retrieve the camera stream.

To display a jpeg snapshot of the current image;

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/snapshot.cgi

———————-
big snapshot:

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/snapshot.cgi?size=3&quality=1

where size =
1 = 160×128
2 = 320×240
3 = 640×480
and quality =
1 = very high
2 = high
3 = normal
4 = low
5 = very low

also:

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/mjpeg.cgi

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/video.mjpeg

——————————————–
To view the mjpeg video stream (which is supported by browsers-other-than-IE);

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/video.mjpeg

To view the mpeg video stream (from Windows Media Player);

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/video.asf

To view the built-in video host page (with zoom controls and ‘snapshot’ buttons;

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/main.cgi?next_file=main.htm

Mobile Snapshot mode – Captures JPG from the camera at mobile size (160×120):

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/img/mobile.cgi

Reboot the camera remotely (Requires admin rights):

http://x.x.x.x:xxxx/adm/reboot.cgi

You might think that accessing directly the stream and displaying within a player would be a good idea, but actually, it is not.

1. it could eat all of your personal bandwidth if your camera is suddenly accessed by thousand of curious.
2. I couldn’t find any player (except QuickTime) that can read one of the format above. Thus I wrote a Flex program that could read the stream, but that wouldn’t solved point 1 anyway.

Thus, the approach I choose was to access the static images and refresh it from time to time.

Here we go

Finished your mug of coffee already? Go for a new one!

First, you’ll need a DDNS that will work as a relay. If your using your camera from home, your internet provider assign you a fresh IP address from time to time. Thus, there is no reliable way for the world wide web to access your camera, as its IP changes. By using TZO services, they will create a domain name for you and the camera will send TZO your IP every 15 minutes (or the interval you choose).

Don’t ask me for another service than TZO, it’s the only supported by Linksys.

1. start here: https://www.tzo.com/portals/Linksys.php?x=1
2. choose the WVC54GCA camera and choose your domain name
3. now, I’m going lazy. Follow this tutorial to set up your camera: http://www.tzo.com/MainPageSupport/HowToPage/LinksysWVC54GCTutorial.html

The tricky part is the port forwarding if your modem is not a linksys. But, that can be overcome.

Now you should be able to see your camera home page from the domain your choose at TZO.

Web part

I opted for the most laziest choice.

1. change your web forwarding option at TZO, as in part http://www.tzo.com/MainPageSupport/HowToPage/LinksysWVC54GCTutorial3.html of this tutorial
2. now, as address, choose http://yourwemdomainbytzo.com:1024/img/snapshot.cgi?size=3&quality=1 you can choose other options, as listed above. Choose Silent mode.
3. create a HTML file and drop in the following script

<a title="test" href="" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.xxx.linksysremotecam.com/img/snapshot.cgi?size=3&quality=1" width="640" height="480" border="0" name="refresh"></a>
      <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
      <!--
      var t = 5 // interval in seconds
      image = "http://www.xxx.linksysremotecam.com/img/snapshot.cgi?size=3&quality=1" //name of the image
      function Start() {
      tmp = new Date();
      tmp = "?"+tmp.getTime()
      document.images["refresh"].src = image+tmp
      setTimeout("Start()", t*1000)
      }
      Start();
      // -->
      </script>

Upload it to the webserver of your choice and voilà!