usb cams, is it possiable to make them ip cams?

[large_ghostman]

GM11

Does anyone know if you can take a usb cam and turn it into a ip cam? I can get very cheap £5 cams but they are usb, I need to feed them into a router so I can stream them onto a website. I just wondered if anyone knew of any hacks?? or what the difference is between the two types? I have googled without much luck.

 

[nsaspook]

I'd like to turn lead into gold too. Most modern IP (1MP or greater) cams have a full OS like embedded Linux. You can buy a USB to Ethernet bridge and connect USB cams to it but you will still have the same crappy picture from a cheap camera.
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/338/850e9cb7-27f3-4252-952c-a2cd9f9c541e-221357.pdf
or you can use a PC platform with cam software. http://www.webcamxp.com/download.aspx

 

[large_ghostman]

GM11, Thats what I am looking for!
For now cheap webcams, will be used, we need cams for different experiments the kids are setting up, and each experiment they want to have on the web site 'LIVE', so we have to go the cheap option for now. Getting hold of old cams and small ones broken laptops isnt too hard, ok quality isnt great but its a start! I wasnt sure if you could get a converter like that. We are being given 4 ip cams as well, but I am trying to use as much free and recycled stuff as we can, no one is going to mind a crappy £10 webcam we got for free or found in a tip, if we set it up inside a bird box, obviously its easier to run ethernet cable 100 meters than usb cable, and makes getting the cam on the web site easier.
I did my arm in putting the backhoe on the tractor, I was actually digging out one of the ponds.. A pin slipped out and one the safety chains caught on a lever as part of the arm system dropped, the tractor had its engine running so the back arm moved when the lever was pulled, my arm was between the backhoe and hydraulic lift arms, man it hurt!!!
Anyway the kids want some underwater cams!! in the ponds. The whole thing has been alot of fun so far. If I can get someone to help design the site, then hopefully we can make it really interesting, we have a small heard of red deer that live in our wood, and some pine martins and red squirrels, in the summer we had over 200 pairs of swallows nesting here, loads of bats and all kinds of wildlife, so sticking cams around the place should be good for the kids to set up and monitor.
There are loads of biology/ecology experiments I have for them to start. Anyway thank you for the information, now I know you can get a converter chip, I can start asking people to look out for old webcams being chucked out

 

[ronsimpson]

I think you can take a USB camera and connect it to a raspberry pie or a beagle bone black and make a IP camera.
I don't know how I just have seen u-tubes if it.

 

[large_ghostman]

GM11
If thats the case then maybe a micro with OTG usb and a Ethernet chip might be possible? or maybe a simple way to buffer the cam signal over a long wire and reconstruct other end into a usb hub? I need to find out how cams work, in a ideal world if I could connect a cable and say use it to drive some kind of transistor buffer, then I could just use very long USB. I honestly dont know enough about this stuff. I would definitely like to find a way to use the tiny laptop cams, there are alot of interesting things we could use small cams for

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

Raspberry PI - have the camera close to the PI, and a long Ethernet lead from the PI.

 

[large_ghostman]

GM11

I will have to look see how much they are, I can get ip/cctv cams for around £20, if I add PI to it then the cost outways the advantage. dificult!

I have a tv question later

 

[picbits]

I actually do this. It isn't as easy as you may think.

If you use a very cheap webcam, you need a lot of processing to convert it into a jpeg image. If you use a half decent webcam it will do this itself and output much lower data rates. I use Logitech webcams (around £10-£15) which support mjpeg. I then feed it into an Acer Revo or similar running Linux and mjpeg-streamer which converts it into a html or similar stream depending on how you configure it.

I use mine for CCTV and it works really well, has run for years and gives some rather nice images at 720p / 10 fps. I use a bit of software called "Motion" on my main Linux server to stream and detect motion on the remote webcams and record to both timelapse and motion triggered high framerate.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I actually do this. It isn't as easy as you may think.

If you use a very cheap webcam, you need a lot of processing to convert it into a jpeg image. If you use a half decent webcam it will do this itself and output much lower data rates. I use Logitech webcams (around £10-£15) which support mjpeg. I then feed it into an Acer Revo or similar running Linux and mjpeg-streamer which converts it into a html or similar stream depending on how you configure it.

I use mine for CCTV and it works really well, has run for years and gives some rather nice images at 720p / 10 fps. I use a bit of software called "Motion" on my main Linux server to stream and detect motion on the remote webcams and record to both timelapse and motion triggered high framerate.

That all sounds pretty cool

You ought to write a blog on here about how to do it.

 

[ronsimpson]

PicBits, Are your Logitech webcams USB or wireless or 10 base-t?

 

[large_ghostman]

I will pass this onto dad. The main cams they are going to use could be anything, it depends on what gets chucked out! The cheap ones are off the list tho. People seem to throw out webcams a fair bit at the recycle center. Also we have been given 15 laptops that are very dead!! mainly motherboard problems etc, I know they would be very keen to try and use the cams from them, we have a Massive rabbit warren near the house, it was started this year (we watched from the house).
It would be so cool to get some tiny cams lowered through holes down into the tunnels. Just not sure on the technical side.
Mum and dad have had an idea for a huge project for ages, dad has put alot of work into this so far. The ultimate goal is to make it spread, so other Schools get help etc.
I am really proud of my mum and dad,

 

[picbits]

I really should start writing down what I do lol. The cameras are USB and are plugged into an eMachines ER1402. Using a cheap webcam uses 80-90% CPU, using an mjpeg compatible webcam consumes 2-3% CPU.

Here is an "undesirable" the camera caught last month -

Some timelapse from last year :

The system once set up works very very well although low light isn't too brilliant.

 

[large_ghostman]

Ok thanks alot!! so now we know what kind of cams to look out for, I did mess with a cam here last year and took the red filoter out, then you can make it night vision with IR Leds.

 

[large_ghostman]

Ok so usb has a D+ and a D- data line, does data go both ways on each line or one direction only? I think I have an idea, but it will only work if the data goes in one direction on each line.
I might try and hook up the LA to a cam, I think there has to be an easier way (cheaper). Blueroom posted a page ages ago on it was a pic32, it had a streaming webcam on the pic.
So it has to be possible to get data from the cam and pass it over longish distance to a central hub. Anyone know what the max lengh of a powered USB cable is? dad is never going to get his head around USB, I am going to try and help with this one lol

 

[picbits]

It is bi-directional. You need to set the webcam to a certain resolution / encoding then request the data as a mjpeg format (on the Logitech) - not an easy thing to do and I would read up on USB communication protocols before you even think of trying to do anything with PICs.

I doubt you'd get the info you'd need from a LA - you might be better off looking at the rPi cameras and how they interface. They are incredible value for the money and will record in full HD if you want. They also come in standard and ir cut versions.

 

[Ian Rogers]

You can shovel snow fast!!! I'll give you a ring next time it snows round my way!!!

 

[picbits]

I had to - the hairdresser was on her way (car that turned up just after I cleared the drive !)

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The targeting seems to be working great, but the machine gun appears to be malfunctioning?

Very nice though - I had a quick google for Raspberry PI and found a nice easy webpage telling you how to set it up for streaming a webcam - I'll have to dig my PI out and have a play!.

 

[large_ghostman]

What software are you using? The one that picks out movement with a little square?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

What software are you using? The one that picks out movement with a little square?

Haven't you read post #8

And good morning to you!!.