Streaming vs. HTTP
I've got a cheezy little webcam set up, looking at my dog all day. Everything works but I'm unclear on what some of the terms and options mean. I've already posted my questions on the forum of the webcam software maker but I'm getting no response over there. Sorry if these questions are software specific but I thought you all may be able to clarify some terms if they are generic in meaning.
"Streaming" - is it streaming video all day long whether anybody's watching or not, or does the webcam somehow know when somebody's watching and only stream the video then. Seems like a bandwidth waste if it streams all day long just for one person to wander in watch a dog sleep for 10 seconds. Please tell me it only streams when somebody "connects".
"HTTP" - What is this thing? My guess is that the webcam is not transmitting any video or still images at all until somebody hits that particular webpage, which triggers a single request to transmit one single still image? Then refreshing the page refreshes the image. But no bandwidth is being used at all until somebody hits that webpage. Is this all correct or do I have it all wrong?
JeevesBond posted this at 22:53 — 25th July 2007.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
Yup. Think about it like this: if it were streaming all day long, where the heck would it be streaming to?
The only bad news is that if multiple people connect to your webcam, then you'll be sending out multiple streams, increasing the amount of bandwidth being used. If lots of people connect the webcam will seem slow and surfing for you might become difficult.
It will probably work something like that. I think a lot of webcams work with animated gifs, when someone connects it sends them a gif, although the gif never finishes downloading: the webcam just keeps adding frames.
Unless you have a weird setup (like streaming to a server, then people connecting to that: proxy style) it shouldn't use any bandwidth unless someone connects to the camera. Naturally am not a webcam expert, and all cams may differ, best thing to do is hook it all up, then see how it works.
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