Webcam from another PC to BI

S

Saxet

n3wb
Mar 24, 2015
8
0
Austin
I recently purchased a remote property where I'm only present on the weekends. I have BI and several cams including a Logitech webcam on the PC that runs BI that is set to record when I'm not there in the (mostly) unlikely case of a breakin. My wife also has an always-on PC with a webcam in her remote home office. How might I add that webcam (USB connected on a different PC) to BI on my PC? I'm not sure that even possible, and I haven't been able to find anything searching the forums that talks about how one might do that. Yea, I do realize it's just a webcam...
 
Saxet said:
I recently purchased a remote property where I'm only present on the weekends. I have BI and several cams including a Logitech webcam on the PC that runs BI that is set to record when I'm not there in the (mostly) unlikely case of a breakin. My wife also has an always-on PC with a webcam in her remote home office. How might I add that webcam (USB connected on a different PC) to BI on my PC? I'm not sure that even possible, and I haven't been able to find anything searching the forums that talks about how one might do that. Yea, I do realize it's just a webcam...
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I did it below in April of 2018, but it assumes BI is installed on the remote PC as well.

TonyR

Thread 'Show cam stream from a Remote BI server on a Local BI server'

If you have access to a Remote BI server and would like to display one or more cams on your Local BI server, this works. I am not promoting port forwarding here so make your own accommodation for VPN.

Create a new cam on Local BI server as follows:

http: = "Remote-BI-Server WAN IP or DDNS Hostname:XX" (XX = Remote BI Server Port)
The "user" is a user on the Remote BI Server as is that user's "Password".
Choose "Generic" and "Raw H.264"
Path = "/h264/CamX/temp.h264" (CamX = Short Name of cam on Remote BI server)

The image below reinforces or clarifies the above instructions. On your...
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I don't have BI installed on my wife's PC, but that's a cost I'm willing to incur. Honestly, I didn't know that was even a option. :-\
 
Saxet said:
I don't have BI installed on my wife's PC, but that's a cost I'm willing to incur. Honestly, I didn't know that was even a option. :-\
Click to expand...
What are the specs on the wife's PC?
Make/Model/CPU/memory, etc.?
 
I have since implemented a second BI license to handle this due to bandwidth usage...... but I was able to incorporate cameras at a remote location into my BI system at home. As long as you have access to the IP address of the camera at the remote site, you can include it as a camera in the local BI setup. You of course have to have "outside" access to the camera through port forwarding (ouch) or something like Zerotier that secures the remote site. As I remember, it was as simple as having the external IP address of the remote camera, either through a static IP address or dynamic DNS. Just another thought for your consideration......
 
TonyR said:
What are the specs on the wife's PC?
Make/Model/CPU/memory, etc.?
Click to expand...
it's a Frankenstein - Ryzen 9 3900 (12 cores, 24 threads), 32GB RAM, built in 2020 as my developer PC but I have recently upgraded and this is a hand-me-down. I think it still has plenty of horses to run BI and a webcam though. I use DDNS from Free Dynamic DNS - Managed DNS - Managed Email - Domain Registration - No-IP and port forwarding on my regular BI rig and other than having to confirm via email that I'm still interested in their FREE service once per month they have worked OK for me. Of course, I'm always interested if there are better DDNS options available.
 
Saxet said:
it's a Frankenstein - Ryzen 9 3900 (12 cores, 24 threads), 32GB RAM, built in 2020 as my developer PC but I have recently upgraded and this is a hand-me-down. I think it still has plenty of horses to run BI and a webcam though. I use DDNS from Free Dynamic DNS - Managed DNS - Managed Email - Domain Registration - No-IP and port forwarding on my regular BI rig and other than having to confirm via email that I'm still interested in their FREE service once per month they have worked OK for me. Of course, I'm always interested if there are better DDNS options available.
Click to expand...
Should run BI just fine.
Ideally, do a fresh install of Windows on a 256GB or greater SSD using the MS Media Creation Tool on a flash drive; also put BI and BI's "db" folder on that SSD, put BI video clips on a spinner, ideally a surveillance-rated HDD such as a WD Purple.
 
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