With Streaming WebCam you can see live streaming video like it would in a TV. However, the Internet is still too young to handle soo much traffic. You'll need a lot of bandwith to send streaming video at a reasonable rate and quality.

Streaming means you see the images of the WebCam in a continuous motion in a flow but the reality is that the image quality tends to be poor and the motion is not as smooth as the TV. This method consumes a lot of resources and it's not as easy to set up as the snapshot WebCams. Snapshot webcams can be easily installed but the picture will be refreshed once in several seconds.

With a limited bandwidth the greater the image size, the lower the refresh rate of streaming webcam. A 640x480 image size will be OK for a snapshot webpage but if you set a refresh rate of 2-4 of more times a second for the stream, you would better use the smaller image of 320x240 or 240x160. With a higher refresh rates, try an image size of 160x120, which will let you refresh rates of up to 10-15 per seconds.

The best image file format is JPEG files (.JPG) because it has the smallest file size for images from cameras.

There are 3 methods of creating webcams:

Client pull
This method is the most used by WebCam users to show single snapshots. It is the most easy method to set up, and the one that works perfectly for dial-up style Internet connections. It also won't take much bandwith from your connection, so you're still able to surf the Web or get email while your WebCam snaps shots. This method is usually accomplished with an FTP connection that sends the last shot captured by the WebCam to the site that hosts your web page. Note that this method does not allow serving video feeds.

Server push
This is the most resource-consuming method but it is also the most live method, as it will allow the users to view live video streams coming directly from your camera. It requires a high bandwith connection, dial-up connection does not work. Firewall protected networks can have limited access to this method. Not all browsers support Server push, only recent versions will display the stream. Moreover, to set up a properly Server push WebCam, you'll need a fixed IP (dynamic IPs require more resources and rarely used) and a small Server push software.

LAN
If you operate in a LAN connected to the Internet and a small web server running in it, you can make your webcam page to point directly to locally saved images captured by your webcam software.

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Read How To Refresh The Image >