setting up a webcam server

I'm sure there's software out there that you could easily find with Google, but...

I do know that VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) provides the ability to stream video from a server that runs their application. However, that assumes that you run your own server.

If you're on a shared server, I'm going to say that your hopes of this happening are probably slim-to-none. Anything like this will take some pretty good bandwidth and processing, and probably also requires extra software install on the server (or at the very least, a modification of Apache and some other things).

I could be wrong, since I'm not familiar with the field, but these are some educated guesses... Hopefully that helps.

benf wrote: I want to set up a website where me and my friends can login and chat using a webcam and mic?

I meant to reply to this sooner, sorry. Am a little confused at what you're trying to do, are you:

1. Setting up a server with a webcam and mic that people will be able to access from a web site?
2. Setting up a server that people using webcams and mics can connect to and see who else is connected and whether their webcam is on?

If it's the former you'll want to do what Kyle is suggesting. I think VLC can even get video streams from devices (like webcams) and stream them across the Intertubes. You'll obviously have to do this through your local machine, setup NAT and such on your firewall etc.

Let us know what you're doing and where you're getting stuck and we'll help.

Hi jeeves thanks for the reply. Yes i want to set up a server (at home i think bandwidth will be large on a rented server) and as you stated as a service allow for people to plug in their webcams and the system will detect it. Anyone else on the same server can also veiw and chat to others on there.

On sitepoint someone suggested using flash server. Really what i want to know is what and how you go about doing this. I realise that a webcam is just loads of images that are dished up to the viewer in a certain frame rate - how many images per minute.??

But does certain software just recognise what is going on with little configuration? How is this all done.