Setup a home webcam i can view from work.

I want to set up my laptop with a webcam looking out my window at my 2 dogs so i can watch them from work. One of them is digging up my yard when we leave and i want to catch him. Plus, i'd like to see the deer in my yard from work too.

And i have no idea how to do this. I tired Media Encoder, but couldnt get it to work. I think my router and modem have firewalls and i cant figure out how to get around them.

I was wondering if anybody knew a free way to accomplish this? Mabye putting on a webpage somehow?

 

gotomypc.com or something similar to stay cheap

X10 surveilance camera system if you want to spend a few bucks

 

Logitech now has a remote security camera that you can hook up to your PC.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/video-security-systems

And I think price wise they are reasonable as well.

 

Just buy an Asus G73 laptop. It's got the built in security camera program.

 

Might be more money than you want to spend but my parents have a blackbox set up at there house constantly running monitoring the whole exterior of there house. It is clear as day on there laptops and can be viewed on any computer they authorize. It uses a DVR type set up that records and then archives to its own hard drive.

 

All these are good, but here is what i have.

I have 2 desktops, and one laptop. 2 logitec web cams. 3MB DSL. All i want to do is hook up one webcam to my laptop or desktop and point it at my yard. Then broadcast that on the web somehow so i can see it from work or my phone or whatever.

And i cant figure out what software to use to do that.

 

Get two skype accounts keep them both up and in a conversation so you can see whats going on. Or do it in MSN messenger with two accounts.

 

Not to thread jack:
Just curious, since you know it is your dog, what are you going to do when you catch him on camera?

 

Either way, try these:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10301349-248.html

Disclaimer, I have not used any of these.

 

I think he wants to know which of the two dogs is digging.

 

My friend uses vitamin D, he seems to like it

http://vitamindinc.com/

 

I know its one of the 2. I need to know which one, so i can try and correct it. I dont want to punish both dogs. But mainly, i really want to see my yard from work. Keep an eye on things. See how much snow Im getting, stuff like that.

 

Got it, thats what I get for skimming the thread. Good luck.

 

If you want to correct the behavior, you need to correct while they are doing the behavior, not afterwards.

As for the camera, they have some pretty cheap DVR/camera sets you can buy online anywhere from $100-$300. Depends on how many cameras you want and how much storage you want on the dvr.

With a webcam you would need to make sure your computer doesn't go to sleep. Someone mentioned skype, i would be worried about connectivity issues. In my experiences with skype, it tends to have issues with connection and without someone on the other end to accept the "redial" you might loose connection and not be able to reconnect.

 

I didnt realize it was so hard to put a webcam on the internet.

I mean its pretty simple. I want to look at my yard from work over the net. You would think in this day and age i could do that with a damn laptop and a webcam fairly easy.

I dont want to talk back and forth. I cant install anything on my work PC. Just IE and Firefox. I should be able to bring up a web page or an ip address and access my camera.

 

iphone has an app for this. you can view your cameras on tha phone. i read a story where this guy was out of town and someone broke into his house, he called the cops to his address and watched them get busted while he was on vacation.

 

Here you go:

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/How-To--Stream-Video-from-Your-Webcam-to-the-Internet

You might want to try Vitamin D as well though, because Vitamin D will send you email alerts when it recognizes movement so you can let the camera do all the 'catching'

EDIT: Noticed the guide didn't provide instructions for setting up a webpage. I used to host my own, but it can be easier to let someone else do that, such as google sites.

 

There was a story of this with a lady who had a logitech setup, but that cost about $300 if I remember

 

Any DVR with an IP address and the proper viewing software should be able to do this. I have access to all of the cameras at my company's stores across the country at the click of a mouse. The technology has actually advanced to IP based cameras so you each camera has its own IP address and can be accessed individually. IP cameras are still a little pricey though.

 

Most DVR camers systems can do this, but you'd have to buy equip to do this, which it sounds like you dont want to do.

You can set up the camera to record to your laptop and just review the video when you get home or you can use something like logmein.com create a free account and have the video running on your laptop and just log in to the computer remotely and view the webcam footage just like you would if you were sitting at your computer.

Not sure what kind of bandwidth this uses though or any way for streaming video footage over internet for that matter. Might not go well if the IT guys stop by and ask you to step away from your desk...