How Your Webcam Lets You Watch Your Home From Work

Want to watch your home from your office? Or watch your office from your home? With the right camera, some free software, and a little help from Chinavasion, now you can!

In this brief guide, we’re going to show you how to put your webcam online.

These instructions are targeted at webcams, but the steps for putting your CCTV or IP surveillance cameras online are almost exactly the same.

Before you can get started, you’ll need to pick out a webcam. Any webcam that connects to a computer through USB will do.

Cameras with higher resolution (for example 640×480) and higher frames per second (fps) will give you better image quality.

Chinavasion offers a selection of high quality, low price webcams, and all of our webcams are plug and play: they do not require installing any drivers.

 

These are just some of the fantastic wholesale webcams Chinavasion has to offer click on a picture to learn more about the webcam

 

Once you have a webcam, you need a computer with internet. Your computer will host the webcam on the internet, so the faster your computer and your internet connection, the better the results.

After you have a webcam and a computer, you will need some software to enable your computer to host the webcam online. Don’t worry, it’s free! There are several brands of webcam server software. One of the most widely used webcam hosting programs is WebcamXP.

WebcamXP is available for free download (webcamxp.com/download.aspx).

Once you have connected your webcam and installed Webcam XP you are ready to put your webcam online! Just follow these five easy steps:

1. Open WebcamXP
2. In the menu on the left, choose “Web / Broadcast”.
3. Minimize Webcam XP, open your web browser and go to Whatismyip.org (whatsmyip.org/). This site will display your IP address. Copy that address.
   
4. Go back to WebcamXP and paste or write your IP address into the box that says “IP Address / Host Name.”
   

Click “Activate.”

Congratulations, your computer is now hosting your webcam online!

All you need to do to see the webpage where your webcam is being hosted is to click the link in the bottom right of the screen in WebcamXP titled “HTTP Online @…”.

Chinavasion webcam tip: On the next page, choose “Flash” in the drop-down menu. This will make the feed update a little more smoothly.

 

By typing the address of your camera’s webpage into a web browser, you (and anyone else) will be able to watch the feed from your webcam online.

In the example above, “http://113.87.217.20” is the IP address of the computer, and “8080” is the port where the webcam is located.

To watch the camera, the full address must be typed in a web browser in the form: “http://113.87.217.20:8080.” This address will probably change every time you turn on your computer, so make sure you double check your IP address.

Want to do more with your webcam?

WebcamXP has other features that we’ll leave you to explore on your own, such as the ability to create a chat room, password protect your videostream (Important for the security minded), and embed your video on a website.

WebcamXP also has software that allows you to check your cameras from your mobile phone!

Do you want to put your CCTV camera or IP camera online?

To put your CCTV surveillance camera system online, all you need is a converter to allow you to plug your CCTV camera receiver into your computer, such as an AV to USB or an AV to VGA converter.

Once you have a converter, just follow all the steps listed above.

Additionally, WebcamXP has a separate software for putting IP cameras online that is also easy to use.

Check out Chinavasion’s wide selection of webcams, CCTV surveillance cameras, and IP cameras, and get put your camera online today!