Solved Need webcam software to capture image and post to website

alkaufmann · Dec 29, 2013

Many years ago I had a webcam and bought software that allowed me to automatically capture an image every so often and upload it to a website. Now I have Microsoft Studio webcam and it does not come with any software that I can set up to automatically capture images and upload them to the website.

I know there is software out there that can do this and I have been searching the Internet to find it. So far I have had to restore my system three times. :shock: It seems that the software I find comes with a bunch of crap software that even if you tell it NOT to install, the crap software gets installed too. I figure that any software that comes with crap is crap by association; I don't even bother looking at the webcam software, I go straight to restore and get rid of everything.

I am hoping that someone here can provide me with a link to good webcam software. I might even consider buying another webcam if it came with the software.

Ak

oneeyed · Dec 29, 2013

You can use reputable software like virtualdub (Welcome to virtualdub.org! - virtualdub.org), vlc (https://www.videolan.org/vlc/) or even ffmpeg (FFmpeg) to capture snapshots from your webcam. This can be done via command line.

For VLC, the command line should look like :

Code:

vlc --dshow-vdev="Monitor Webcam" --dshow-size=640x480 -V dummy --intf=dummy --dummy-quiet --video-filter=scene --no-audio --scene-path=D:\temp --scene-format=jpeg --scene-prefix=snap --scene-replace --run-time=1 --scene-ratio=24 "dshow://" vlc://quit

This captures 1 second and saves it as jpg images on D:\temp
More help on command line options : http://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_command-line_help

For Virtualdub (much easier) :

Code:

vdub /capture /capdevice Monitor Webcam /capfile D:\temp\video.avi /capstart 2s /x

Same as above but saves it as an avi video file.

For ffpmeg :

Code:

ffmpeg -f dshow -i video="Monitor Webcam" -c copy raw.avi \-c:v libx264 -preset veryfast -t 1 -crf 25 D:\temp\video.mp4

This saves as a mp4 video file (h264 format)

Code:

ffmpeg -f dshow -i video="Monitor Webcam" -t 1 –r 25 D:\temp\image%d.jpg

This saves as jpeg images.
More info here : http://sonnati.wordpress.com/2011/0...s-army-knife-of-internet-streaming-–-part-ii/

Replace Monitor Webcam with the correct name for your webcam as seen by direct show. This can be done via ffmpeg too :

Code:

ffmpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy

To upload (via ftp, I assume but you didn't say), you can also do it from the command line : How to automate FTP uploads from the Windows Command Line

Finally you can merge both of these solutions in a .bat file that you run in task scheduler at whatever interval you want.

alkaufmann · Dec 31, 2013

I will try your suggestions very soon and let you know how it goes.

Thank you very much and Happy New Year!

Ak

Solved Need webcam software to capture image and post to website

alkaufmann

New Member

My Computer

System One

oneeyed

New Member

My Computer

System One

alkaufmann

New Member

My Computer

System One