WebCam2000 (WC2K) is a program for serving live still pictures on the Internet. It can serve the picture as a JPEG image or a bitmap file and can be used as a standalone web server or as the backend to a CGI script. This version of WC2K requires:
The WebCam2000 is by Paul Chinn but is completely free for any use. Please enjoy. You can reach me at loomer@1000klub.com and updates can be found at the WebCam2000 Homepage at http://www.1000klub.com/~loomer/webcam2000
WebCam2000 only has 2 files: "WebCam2000.exe" and "capoff.bmp"- to install, just put these files in the directory of your choice. To uninstall, delete them.
After starting the program you will see a blank window and the menu:
File Video Options Help
The Video menu contains a list of all Video For Windows capture devices on your system. Select the one you want to take pictures. After you choose the capture device a checkmark will appear by it and you will see the image it takes in the main window. Only one device can be selected at a time: if you choose another device (assuming you have more than one on your system) the first will be turned off. You can turn off the capture device completely by selecting it again. (see below for information about the "capoff.bmp" file)
Also under the Video menu are the options "Source", "Format" and "Display". Which of these is available depends on your capture device as does their function. Selecting them brings up dialog boxes that are specific to your device but should be familiar to you from using other video applications.
In the main window you can click the "View Preview" button to toggle a live video preview of the image capture. Some capture devices consume a lot of CPU power so you can turn the preview off if your system seems to slow down.
Checking "Enable Web Server" starts serving the images. You can see the results by using your web browser and the URL http://localhost:8080. If the server is not enabled, people will be unable to contact your computer and will receive an error message in their browser. See below for information on the "capoff.bmp" file for another, user friendly, way to disable image capture temporarily.
The Options menu currently only has one option, "Web Server", which lets you alter settings related to the image server. The defaults are probably fine for most people. The options in the "Web Server" dialog are:
You can use "Save Settings" under the File menu to save all the settings which will be restored automatically every time you start the program. Note: The settings provided in the various capture device specific dialogs(Source, Format and Display) are not saved. Whether these values are saved or not appears to be device specific and not within WebCam2000's control. If anybody has information on how to save these settings please let me know.
Once you've set the server up and are happy with the images it is capturing you can minimize it to get it out of the way. An icon will appear in the System Tray that displays the status: a little video camera alone means the server is off so no images will be served; a video camera with a globe means your camera is live to the world and on The Net- don't do anything I wouldn't do! =^) Double clicking the tray icon will restore the window to its normal size.
If no capture device is selected but the server is on, the image in the file "capoff.bmp" will be served to people who contact your server. You can replace this file with any bitmap file you like of any dimension. If WebCam2000 is configured to serve JPEG images, "capoff" will be automatically converted to a JPEG image. This way you can take your camera offline temporarily but keep visitors informed via a message. The included "capoff.bmp" contains a plug for the WebCam2000.