Professional Online Video Streaming

very good
key review info
application features
  • Very easy to setup
  • (8 more, see all...)

Video streaming is no longer a task job. It is a simple matter of connecting a webcam to your computer, your computer to the Internet and having the right application to broadcast. Everybody can have his/her own television show and stream it over the Internet. Anyone connected to your HTTP server can see you.

WebCam XP Pro does a little more than online video streaming as it supports up to 100 cameras hooked to the same computer and it can also be used for surveillance of the perimeter of your house. Of course, HTTP streaming is an additional feature that allows you to watch what is going on in your home from the distance of your office. However, with a droplet of creativity, you can employ the feature for other purposes.

The price of the application is $39.95 and the purposes of its employment can vary from broadcasting yourself over the Internet to keeping an eye on your property. The 100 webcams support on a single computer recommends it for corporate use. You no longer need to set up a Web server as WebCam XP Pro transforms your computer into one.

The product is available for free for a period of 21 days. This version is not without restrictions, but none of them will hinder a proper testing of the application. Though its name suggests that it is created for XP platform, you can try it on Windows Vista as well because the program is fully compatible (Windows 2000 and 2003 are also supported).

The first time you start the application it will ask you for a WAN IP for online broadcasting of the images. Go with the wizard and test the connection. If you are behind a firewall or router you may encounter a problem as the port used by the application is probably not forwarded or the connection is not permitted. Don't fret as you will get a bit of help for the matter at hand, just choose one of the two options in the upper part of the dialog (router help or firewall help) and follow the online instructions.

If you want to run the broadcast inside a network things are very much simplified as all you need to do is provide the IP of your computer, and that is it. If you already have the camera connected to your computer you will be able to see the images it takes.

The interface is quite straight forward and you will plunge directly among settings and configuration options. The six tabs available in the upper part of the application window cover every aspect from video sources and configuring their rendering the image to webcasting the video.

Sources Monitor tab is split into two distinct sections: one for viewing the video (left part) and one for setting the image up and chat. If video preview is not working properly, simply click the corresponding thumbnail in the lower part of the screen, it will de-freeze the image.

WebCam XP comes as a perfect solution if you want to streamline local video as the application allows you to play local file sources, network file sources, IP camera (supports a wide variety, I stopped counting at 130) and Windows Media Stream (ASF). So there are great chances to create your own Internet television.

Tools/Options menu in the right hand side of the application window lets you set the purpose of the enabled source: HTTP POST/FTP Upload, HTTP Broadcasting or Windows Media streaming. Additionally, the user can take instances of the running video, record part of it or embed logos to the screen, just like a regular television, by means of the Overlay Editor.

WebCam XP proves to be a professional in the field as it also makes available applying effects to the streamed video. The choices in this sense are color inversion, black/white, gaussian blur (the level is user defined), split blur (the level is user defined), spray (the level is user defined), horizontal and vertical flipping, clockwise and counterclockwise 90 degrees rotation, horizontal/vertical mirror, color filter, night vision and infrared filter.

For a better positioning of the image you can play with PTZ controls (pan, tilt, zoom). The great part is that you can include them in the webpage so that the viewers can adjust the image by themselves. The options for this feature let you choose to use WebCam XP's PTZ, serial port PTZ or you can use webcam's PTZ if it is supported.

Taking instances of the video is as easy as clicking the right button. Galleries tab comes with this option. More than this, you can set the application to take instances from the running stream at a user defined time interval. All the images will be placed in the installation folder of the application and are accompanied by a thumbnail which can be set at whatever size the user desires.

Maintaining a link with online viewers is easy as the software is strapped with chat option. Each viewer can login with a name/ID/nick and talk to you. Don't worry about privacy because you can grant access to viewing your streaming video only to certain users, based on their IP, username and password.

For those that need the application for guarding a certain perimeter, motion detection sure is a blessing. Enabling it will cause the program to take a picture every time something moves. All the images can be stored locally in Alerts folder of the installation directory (or any other folder the user defines), sent via email to a user defined address, uploaded by FTP, posted on a website, or added to picture gallery. Additional options in this case can trigger an external program to run when movement is detected or you can record a movie so that you can better see the perpetrators.

For avoiding false alarms the sensitivity of the detector can be configured by the user according to the protected area. If a lower sensitivity is infused the application will never stop taking pictures, but the default 10% seems like a good value. It will not trigger the detector upon a blink of the eye and a hand gesture will not pass unobserved.

Regarding the quality of the video, that depends entirely of the user. Almost every user knows that the quality of a moving picture consists in the number of FPS. The larger it is, the better the quality. In Preferences menu you can configure your refresh options for the web, preview, capture, overall quality and permanent preview. Of course that according to these values, the streamed video will look better or worse and the same is available for the recorded video (and a better quality will require more HDD space).

As for the website the video is broadcast on, you have a few things to say, too. The user is allowed to set a title of the website, choose the internal CSS design, type in a welcome message and set its color as well as implement the navigation menu (show navigation links, online gallery, chatbox, PTZ controls and enabling file sharing). These minimum settings are more than enough for communicating with online viewers and letting them customize their view.

As video goes hand in hand with audio, sound configuration is not forgotten. WebCam XP lets you choose your audio source for the video and set the recording options. If you have enough space on the disk you can go for permanent audio recording and for this you have to set the audio compression filters as well as the video compression codecs.

WebCam XP is amazing when it comes to setting it up. Both advanced and beginner users will handle the application with the same ease. Setting up the connection is done in no time and the web/broadcast options require minimum knowledge. All you need to do to stream the video online is provide computer's IP address (port is default). For FTP upload there is more data to provide as in some cases you are going to need a username and password for access.

The Good

Highly customizable and very flexible, WebCam XP Pro has a very mild learning curve. It can be used both for broadcasting video of yourself on the web as well as streaming local videos.

It supports 100 webcams on a single computer and you can switch view with a single click.

Restricted access to web server's page is enforced by means of username and password as well as by adding IPs to the exception list. Any user can be granted a certain time duration for watching the online video.

Supported streaming modes includes flash client, javascript client, java client, and Windows Media streaming and the list of supported devices is pretty comprehensive (USB webcams, TV, Analog, Multi-Input capture cards, IP cameras, Windows Media Streams and local video files).

The Bad

The test was done with a single camera and the PC was about 100MB of RAM short during the process. So you really need a heck of a computer if you need the application running smooth.

Some options are restricted due to trial limitations, but I found no info on remote administration of the application.

I do not know if this is a trial limitation or just something to be fixed, but audio wouldn't work as much as I tried. The application showed me that the microphone was working properly, but there was no audio.

The Truth

The application is easy to set up, to handle and quite inexpensive ($39.95). The user no longer needs to set up a web server as the application does this automatically.

A scheduler permits you to set actions to be taken at certain times. It can be configured to capture pictures, record video, change motion detector sensitivity, enable the HTTP server, enable motion detector, etc. Actually it can be set up to do all the stuff you can do manually.

Although there are some restrictions to the trial version, they will not hinder you during testing (21 days).

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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