Need a multi-channel video capture card that works with WebcamXP

[Steve Q]

Bryan, I already have a copy of the webcamXP manual. Several months ago, I briefly looked at the section regarding controlling webcamXP via windows messaging. I was also considering using this approach to control webcamXP from Homeseer. But I had put this on hold due to lack of time. I will try in the next week or 2 to get a basic script working. I will post back when I get something working.

Steve Q

[Steve Q]

Bryan,

I can't figure out the proper syntax to control webcamxp from Homeseer. I can't get any of the admin examples, shown in the operating manual, to work. When you logon to your webcamXp site, can you get it to capture an image? I am not able to get this working.

Steve Q

[TechHA]

Steve,
Yes, I can capture a picture from within the admin of webcamXP 5.

Example link that I click on to take a picture:

http://xx.xxx.xxx.xx:8080/adminSettings.html?action=Capture&camID=1 

It stores the file in the 'Capture' folder.
The Motion generated pics are in the 'Alert' folder.

[TrOjAn]

Bryan,

Have you considered a "how to" on your site for this camera stuff.

Even now I still get lots of PM`s asking how to get X working with Y all from HS.. it would seem from your posts above that YOU have got an external system working from within HS which is a VERY good achievement.

I for one would also be interested in some screen grabs etc of the events and HOW you have it controlling WebCamXP.... well done

TrOjAn

[jjsmd]

Ditto that

I would be very interessted in exactly how you did that.

I looked at WebcamXP a while back but it would only let me store captured images with a time stamp attached. I presently use activewebcam to constantly capture images and I store about 10 images before they are overwritten with new ones.
I use those images to display on my touchscreen and in emails.

When using WebcamXP since they were always date stamped, old images would never be overwritten and my hard drive would fill up pretty quickly.

Can you use the admin settings to strip out the date stamp of captured images?


joe

[TechHA]

Unfortunately I can not control webcamXP from HomeSeer. There is documentation suggesting that it can be controlled by outside sources. Steve Q is looking into this as we speak.

What I can do, is use webcamXP's motion sensing capabilities to take snapshots. I then use Jon00's Picture Viewer within HomeSeer to view them. Jon00 was nice enough to alter/update his Picture Viewer to 'see' the file names created with webcamXP on a separate computer.

WebcamXP also has a nice web interface. If you can access the video computer from the Internet, then you can view the camera's from within HomeSeer too. I just bring up the interface in a window within my touchscreen script.

Here are some screen shots:
This is viewing one live cam at a time.
http://techha.com/hastuff/webcam1.jpg

This is viewing 4 live cams at a time.
http://techha.com/hastuff/webcam2.jpg

This is the admin area. Notice the link that says '[Capture an image]'. If I click this it takes a snap shot. So the trick would be to be able to virtually click this link when ever HomeSeer wants it to.
http://techha.com/hastuff/webcam3.jpg

Trojan, perhaps you might know someone that would also be interested in looking at how to get HomeSeer to talk to webcamXP5.

Hope this helps.

[Moskus]

I looked at WebcamXP a while back but it would only let me store captured images with a time stamp attached

No, it won't. You can access the different cameras like this:
http://your_ip_and_port_to_webcamxp/cam_1.jpg

And you can even decide the name on the files yourself.

Only problem is that to get the current camera, you need to refresh the buffer in WebcamXP. What that actually means is that you need to load a image twice, the last time will get the "latest" image.

I do this in the vb-code for Jon00s webpage builder, so that when the browser pulls the images from the it has already been refreshed.


(And the reason there's two cameras showing the same picture, is because I'm testing a camera)

[jjsmd]

Thanks for your reply

It's been a while since i played with Jons webpage builder

1) do you mind telling me exactly how you grab 2 images so that the image refreshes in vb code?

2) what do you mean, "I can name the file anything I want"?

Thanks
joe

[Moskus]

1) Here's a cut-n-paste from the Buildpage.vb file:

¨Try
        Dim myP1 As New System.Diagnostics.Process
        myP1.StartInfo.FileName = "c:\program files\homeseer 2\prepare_cam1.bat"

        Dim myP2 As New System.Diagnostics.Process
        myP2.StartInfo.FileName = "c:\program files\homeseer 2\prepare_cam2.bat"

        Dim myP3 As New System.Diagnostics.Process
        myP3.StartInfo.FileName = "c:\program files\homeseer 2\prepare_cam3.bat"

        Dim myP4 As New System.Diagnostics.Process
        myP4.StartInfo.FileName = "c:\program files\homeseer 2\prepare_cam4.bat"

        Dim myP5 As New System.Diagnostics.Process
        myP5.StartInfo.FileName = "c:\program files\homeseer 2\prepare_cam5.bat"

        Dim myP6 As New System.Diagnostics.Process
        myP6.StartInfo.FileName = "c:\program files\homeseer 2\prepare_cam6.bat"


        myP1.Start()
        myP2.Start()
        myP3.Start()
        myP4.Start()
        myP5.Start()
        myP6.Start()
 
        Dim cont As Boolean = True
    Dim dtNow as Date = Now
 
        Do While cont
            System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100)
            if myP1.HasExited andalso myP2.HasExited andalso myP3.HasExited andalso myP4.HasExited andalso myP5.HasExited andalso myP6.HasExited Then cont = False
 
            If Now.Subtract(dtNow).Seconds >= 3 Then
                cont = False

                myP1.Kill()
                myP2.Kill()
                myP3.Kill()
                myP4.Kill()
                myP5.Kill()
                myP6.Kill()
            End If
          Loop

    myP1.Dispose
    myP2.Dispose
    myP3.Dispose
    myP4.Dispose
    myP5.Dispose
    myP6.Dispose

Catch ex As Exception
    If Logging=1 then hs.writelog("Jon00_Buildpage","Error at Create image variables (" & ex.Message & ")")
End Try

The bat files typically look like this:

@echo off
wget http://username:password@localhost:84/cam_1.jpg
del -y cam_1.jpg

... using wget and "username: password@" can be omitted.



2) There's an option in WebCamXP. If you're not satisfied with cam_X, then choose something else.

[TechHA]

Just wanted to give a quick update...

In my quest to have HomeSeer control when Video/Pics are taken, I've made the switch back to Active Webcam. The main reason for this was the ability to send commands to the program. Thanks to Stipus and the Script Connector (which I already use for other stuff), I can now send commands straight to Active Webcam (or any other program that uses line command functions) on the remote computer.

Here's how to send commands using Script Connector:
http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=135961

So far I've had pretty good success using AWC. Will let this system run for a few days and let you know how it's going, scripts I've set up, etc.

Hope this helps.

[jjsmd]

Moskus

Thanks for sharing your VB code as well as the batch file. it works perfectly.

Since you are using Webcamxp, do you know if I can somehow use the embed feature of the buidpage program to embed the feed from a single camera? I know that I can embed say
http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8080, but when I do that I get the muti view page ( or single view page with all the scrolling options). Is there an way using WebcamXP of getting just a single camera feed?

[Moskus]

I haven't looked into that yet, but I'll give it a try...

[TechHA]

Have you considered a "how to" on your site for this camera stuff.

Even now I still get lots of PM`s asking how to get X working with Y all from HS.. it would seem from your posts above that YOU have got an external system working from within HS which is a VERY good achievement.

I now have a working system using Active Webcam Pro on a dedicated computer separate from the HomeSeer computer. If someone can figure out how to control WebcamXP 5 from the command line it would work just as easy.

To see how I do this, check out this link:
http://techha.com/community/technogoof/index.html

Feel free to ask any questions you may have. I'm sure I've forgotten to put something in the write up.

I'll be posting some screenshots soon too.

[ghostrider1111]

jjsmd

I have done the same using webcamxp. I used a program called filezilla to setup ftp on the homeseer box and set it up with a folder under html in the homeseer directory, in my case I created a directory called capture. I have webcamxp ftp to the homeseer box every second and it places the pictures in the capture directory (cam_1.jpg, cam_2.jpg, etc.) You are able to pull the picture up by navigating to the web page for that specific camera (http://myhomeseerbox/capture/cam_2.jpg).

[jjsmd]

Gohstrider:

I have been doing that with Activewebcam, but I have been looking into WebcamXp because I heard it might be slightly less "buggy" then Activewebcam.

The problem I have been having with WebCamXP is that it names the files it captures (via FTP or otherwise) with a time stamp and if I do that every second it will fill up the hard drive pretty quickly. Using the regular menu wizard in WebCamXP doesn't give you the flexibility of saving the image as say "capture.jpg" so that each second it just overwrites the previous image.

Using Moskus's code I can capture the image and save it as any name I want so that works, I am just trying now to find a way to call up a single cameras live feed so that I can view it by itself without having to view all cameras at same time.