I need to use an IP camera as a webcam - what do I need to do?

[Razer]

So, I'm working on a project in my mind where I will replace a lot (50+) of analog cameras with IP cameras. My existing cameras are basically web cams that also put out an analog stream through a converter. The analog input goes to a NVR/DVR, the web cam output is used by kiosk software to record a stream when someone is using the kiosk. I can seemingly hook up any webcam to the kiosk software and get it to record, if it shows up as a camera in Windows then I can choose it and the kiosk side is good to go.

I'd love to use something like the Hikvision Cube cameras mounted behind the glass of the kiosk and get a 3mp IP stream to record to the NVR, but how can I get the camera to show up as a webcam on the kiosk? I have tried a couple of software programs that are supposed to be able to do this but have had no success with getting it to work with Hikvision cameras so far anyway. I've only worked on this for a few hours but thought I'd ask before getting too deep if anyone had ideas.

I'm open to other cameras, cube style will be perfect seemingly, so if one existed that worked as both that would be awesome. Or if there is software that will emulate a webcam (that works!) and could be configured to load as a service and work automatically at boot that would be great too. Seems the software I've tried so far cannot find a http mjpg stream to connect to on my Hiks so maybe another camera would work.

Just looking for ideas, thanks all!

 

[nayr]

oi; thats going to be a headache.. Your Kiosk software is apparently using the operating systems camera API/Libraries, I know there are plenty of programs that hack this subsystem so you can inject videos/gifs/etc to fake your webcam image... but none of the ones I have ever seen were capable of taking an external RSTP stream and injecting it into the WebCam API's..

might look around at the many "Fake your webcam" applications and you might get lucky and find one that can do it... there typically taking static files/local assets and playing em but you might get lucky.

the approach I would take would be a small linux box that can fake a USB device and has ethernet; then with some clever coding I might be able to make windows think the linux box is a webcam and send it video.

 

[Poine]

I have been used Safer IP Cameras for years with its high quality, including its real HD 2.0MP IP cameras. Look its video effect via video below(of cause its real effect will be greater than video shows)

 

[bp2008]

LOL what kind of company uploads 1MP video to demonstrate the quality of their "2MP" camera?


Anyway, I think most webcam-faking software uses mjpeg video as this was once the most popular format (when all cams were 640x480 or smaller). Hikvision does not support this as far as I know. Dahua does, to some extent, but I think it still sends video via RTSP and it saves each jpeg frame in such low quality it actually loses color data in a lot of places. Blue Iris can provide any camera stream in mjpeg format, though that would be another piece of software to complicate things.

Have you considered using a USB camera and some software that will stream its video to your NVR? (i'm sure there are free methods to do this)

Maybe you could use both a USB camera and an IP camera?

 

[Razer]

I'm open to all options right now, but it would reall need to be a single camera due to space reasons. Yes, I could take a USB camera and fake it to an IP camera too, but so far anyway the USB cameras are just not in the same league as the IP cameras I've used. Plus, at least on the Logitech HD USB cameras I've used they have a big system overhead for some reason and many of my kiosk machines might not have the processor.

I found a few pieces of software to try, one looked very promising called webcamXP and I installed it and it even has Hikvision cameras (along with an surprisingly long list of others) listed as supported. I go though the setup though and still get nothing so I must be doing something wrong. Going to keep trying as there is software for this out there if I can find the right combination I think anyway. The lack of mpeg4 video stream in the Hiks may kill me there....