Video Out: The Wonderful World of WebCams

There is something enthralling about WebCams. Perhaps it's the ability to instantly see what's going on in some distant location. Is it snowing in Beijing? Is Melvin the goldfish still swimming around? All you have to do is log onto the Web and take a look!
What began with a few "goofballs" hooking up cameras to the Web so that others could dial up their sites to see live video, has become a popular feature of many Web pages. Here's how you can add your own distinctive twist to this growing segment of Internet data.

What Makes a WebCam?

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of actually setting up a WebCam, let's start by defining it. What is it that distinguishes a WebCam from say, a streamed video presentation?
According to the WebCam Producer's Guide to Fun (Critter Publications, 1999), an online video source must meet three criteria to be a true WebCam. First, it must be live. Whatever people visiting your site see must be going on at the present time.
Second, it must not be an edited or switched program. If you are streaming a live program that has editing or switching involved, then that is a live broadcast, not a WebCam.
Third, your online source must come from a single computer-contained camera. According to these criteria, using your camcorder hooked up to your capture card would not count. But that's definitely no reason to stop you from doing it that way.
So with these points in mind, you have decided to hookup a WebCam so that people from anywhere on earth can tune in and see if your dog, Sparky, is in his house. But how do you put a WebCam in Sparky's doghouse? Where do you start?<…