How the webcam site is built

This page is not a very hot one. But, I hope it could help you to have very hot time. It tries to explain how I set up my webcam site. Such a site can be created with an ordinary PC connected to the WEB through an ordinary phone modem.

The site looks like a classic webcam site. This means that it displays a captured picture periodically (every 30s). It's not streaming video, and there is no sound. Creating a streaming video site requests a larger bandwidth, and specific software on the viewer's PC.

My site is not created by using the most standard way. In the most standard way, webcam sites work as follows :

The viewer calls an ordinary internet site with his preferred browser. The page contains THE picture taken by the webcam. The page is designed so that the browser reloads periodically the picture.

On the webcam operator side, a specific software (some freewares exist) takes periodically a shot and uploads it to the server through the FTP link.

Such sites could be set up easily but in fact making them work properly is relatively difficult, mainly if the site contains adult material.

If you want to create a freely accessed webcam site, you will not want to pay too much for the web server. So that you will need a free, reliable and quick hosting service accepting adult material and featuring a very good ftp system. Please, if you find one, tell it to me.

I tried to make my site work this way, but I had to change in order to get good results.

Now, the site works as follows:

The idea is to use my computer as a web server. Almost any computer connected to the internet can be used as a server. I use a home-made (I shall tell later why) software to do it, but several free web servers can be found on the internet. One of the best I found is Inframail (from Infradig). The Viewer browser accesses directly my own computer. No FTP requested. The acquisition program simply takes a shot periodically and stores it on the hard disk. When a visitor accesses the site, he reads the pages and the pic directly from the hard disk of my computer through the personal webserver.

The only problem for doing this comes from the fact that the internet address of computers connected to the web through classic internet service providers changes each time the computer is connected. I had to find a way to give a fix address to the visitor.

That's why the free hosting service remains. When I'm offline, their server contains the site you are currenty reading. When I'm online, I know my current internet address, so that I can upload to the free server a very special page, which simply redirects the visitor to my computer.

All that might seem a little bit complicated, but it works and it's a very cheap way to set up such a site, and thus to make it free.

I must tell why I use a homemade web server. It has two specific features. First it can host a chatroom. Chatting with the visitors, and sometimes seeing them chatting together is very fun! Then the server contains counters, which tell me instantly how many visitors are online. That's fun too.

Well, there would be a lot of details to talk about, but I made this page simply to tell that a webcam site can be run by individuals, only for fun, with a very few money (if you have the computer).

If you want to exchange about webcam sites, feel free to e-mail me:

Known (or almost known) languages: French and English.