Using Netcam Studio in place of webcam 7

I am using webcam 7 to control 16 IP cameras. I have written and developed my own website application in HTML and JavaScript, which accesses my webcam 7 install.

A friend wants to get started doing the same arrangement using the software I have written.

I don’t know whether he should purchase webcam 7 or Netcam Studio. Would Netcam Studio allow him to use the software I have written to view the cameras? In other words is the protocol and setup used by Netcam Studio compatible with Webcam 7 ? I am considering upgrading to Netcam Studio as well, but I would rather not redo the application I have written.

Thank you.

The way to access streams is a bit different but it shouldn’t be a huge deal to adapt your web application because the system of pulling jpeg images is very similar.

It’s regarding authentication that it’s a bit different since Netcam Studio doesn’t allow any anonymous access.

It’s possible to give access to everybody but it requires created a user account, retrieving the corresponding token allowing to communicate with NCS and using it in your own website if you don’t want users having to login every time.

Then instead of pulling

/cam_1.jpg

you will request

/Jpeg/0?authToken=xxxxxxx

The sources of Netcam Studio Web Client are available and there is already a javascript Class that implements the basic commands (Login, GetCameras, etc…) + the code for refreshing the stream on a page so if you are familiar to web development which seems to be the case, it should be quite easy for you to adapt your application so that it supports both by having a look at Netcam Studio’s Web Client.

You’ll find some useful information here regarding the basic commands:

and can request help if needed.

Many users still prefer and continue using webcam 7 essentially because they are used to it and because Netcam Studio may look a bit more complicated but usually after playing with it for a while they quickly adopt it and rarely go back…

On the other end Netcam Studio is designed for being integrated in application like yours and offers more possibility than webcam 7 over web services such as:

  • Retrieve all informations / details about the video sources.
  • Control the different features (Motion Detection, Recording, etc…).
  • Access the library

But anyway it will require some work in your application but if it was just relying on webcam 7 to display some of its streams it shouldn’t involve much changes.

Thank you for the reply and great explanation.

Sounds as though I need to download the NCS trial and modify my application to work with it and see how that goes.

I do prefer not to require visitors to log in. And I understand I can work around that requirement.

And like you say, I just rely on webcam 7 to display IP camera streams and one AVI file. But the other information available could result in additional advantages.

Probably no reason to procure webcam 7 if NCS will provide more features.

Thanks again.

If your webcamXP / webcam 7 license is less than 2 years old or was renewed in the meantime we will provide a corresponding license for Netcam Studio for free.

Anyway the free version should allow you to get started and see how it goes with your cameras and within your project.

Another key aspect is also to be able to give access to specific users only to some cameras and everybody can install the mobile application for free. For use cases like yours it may be useful

Thank you for the help Steve.

I do have the free version installed and have 16 cameras on it. I have two issues:

  1. So far I haven’t found a way to display an AVI file as I do in webcam 7. A single jpeg graphic file would work just as well for my purposes. But I would like to display it as I would video from a camera even though I only need a single frame.

  2. When I embed code in my website to display video from NCS, how do I decide whether I should use Jpeg, M-Jpeg, or OGG? I have the 16 or so IP cameras and the M-Jpeg appears to be much smaller than the Jpeg, which I have used previously. On my webpage, I display the 16 thumbnails, and click on any of those to place that camera in a larger screen. It seems that if I use Jpeg, I will have to initialize each camera with the full code. And then switch by ID afterwards.

While I haven’t completed the transition to NCS from Webcam7, I believe I am close. Once the transition is complete, I will, most likely, request the upgrade per your offer.

Thank you Steve,
Frank

Last night, I had saved my camera setup to NCS. I now find that the camera setup has changed. Does the free version not allow the setup file to be saved? Or did I fail to save the info correctly?

I am having trouble with some cameras and I am trying to deal with them in sequence as I make the transition.

Thanks.

You can stream a local video file instead of a source but for this VLC 2.1.5 needs to be installed on the same computer (VLC-32 bit if you installed NCS-32, 64-bit otherwise).

Then when you add a new camera under custom address / url, select rtsp_tcp and instead of typing a http:// url put the full path to your local video file (c:\temp\video.mp4). This is not officially a features however it works and I use it for testing purposes.

There is a generate html wizard which you probably found already, this one allows you to select the code to generate if you want jpeg-push, mjpeg or htm5 streaming. Actually you can keep the code that you have in place that works with webcam7 just replace the target addres by:
/Jpeg/0?authToken=1234
or
/Mjpeg/0?authToken=1234

You aren’t forced to use the full javascript that ncs offers.

Regarding settings, there is no limitation due to the free / trial version so something went probably wrong.

Normally settings are saved automatically when you exit the software so apart if the software crashed i don’t know what happened. Just review the event logs after restarting NCS, if something went wrong during reloading the settings it should inform you and report some more information about the errors.

Yes, I found the html wizard. That is great. I was wondering whether there is an advantage of choosing one of the options over the others.

Another issue I’ve discovered. Since I use NCS/webcam7 as the source for video for my webpage, I need the camera ID numbers to correspond to my webpage. I just assigned 16 cameras to their corresponding numbers. Then I disconnected camera #0 since I just want to use 1 - 16. I shut the server off and back on and I discover that all the camera ID’s have shifted down 1 position. e.g. My number 1 camera is now number 0.

Is there a way to manually change the camera ID numbers or to reinsert a camera in position 0? If not, I will have to rebuild each of the 16 templates.

Thank you.

You mentioned a video file can be streamed if VLC was running. Is there a way to stream a single jpg frame – a photo, for example, without involving another program?

Not VLC running, VLC installed on the computer is enough.

For a single frame you have to connect a special source with nothing and import your image using the overlay editor.

OK! Thanks.

I’ve embedded the NCS video in my website but have two issues remaining to make the transition to NCS:

  1. When I access my site, I am asked to log into NCS even though I have authToken on each video item. After logging in the one time, each of the 16 cameras displays without additional login.

  2. When using /Jpeg/0?authToken=1234, the video does not update. In Webcam XP/7, I used ‘&[random number]’ following the .jpg for each video source. When I attempt to add that to the end of the authToken (/Jpeg/0?authToken=1234&98765), the frame does not display. What am I missing?

If I use /Mjpeg/0?authToken=1234 on my site, the video updates, but when switching between video sources for display in the main window, switching time lags significantly. If the jpeg approach can work, I would prefer that.

Thank you for your time and support.

Frank

  1. Are you sure that you use the permanent token (that has no session timeout and never expires) and not a session token that is subject to those limitations ?

  2. the view of netcam studio client uses:
    server:8100/Jpeg/0?uniq=0.008459463948383927&authToken=a0a5d36a-6c8e-4d87-a13d-46af1d62b941

try replacing your &1234 by &uniq=1234 so that it’s a valid key/value request

both) If you use the code generated by the wizard do you have those problems as well. If shouldn’t and you just need to spot the differences between the generated code and the code from your page.

You are correct. Using the wizard works well. And the ‘&uniq=1234’ works well for the Jpeg approach.

It seems my page is transitioned to NCS !!

I need to try various browsers, etc.

I successfully placed an overlay to create a single frame/graphic source per your advice.

Thank you for the help!

No license needed to create overlay. Just right-click and select overlay. The overlay editor or Netcam Studio works pretty much the same than the one in webcam 7. I have just noticed that remote image over HTTP is broken, i will fix for next release so the local images have to be copied in Netcam Studio’s web folder (it says exactly where if you move your move over the information icon which placing images).

Yes Steve. I was able to save the image to the folder and to display it as the appropriate source. All is working well.

Thank you!

After reinstalling NCS on my production computer, what configuration files would I move over?

Thanks

For the settings, you can move the Server.config file located in

C:\ProgramData\Moonware\Netcam Studio\Server

The user accounts are stored in Moonware.Security.xml in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Netcam Studio

Can I install the trial version of Netcam Studio on the same harddrive as webcamXP and have them co-exist?

I would like to test NCS on my ‘production’ PC, but would rather not bother the webcamXP install.

Thank you

Yes they can co-exist without problem. Just they cannot access the same local / usb cameras at the same time.

I have a webcamxp license that’s less than a year old. How can I get a corresponding license for Netcam Studio for free?