Using a Website to store video's as a home security system

hi everyone,

my names Phil and i am a complete novice to building websites, and have only started researching it this morning.
i want to build a website purely and simply so it can store images/videos that my webcam takes in my house while i'm out. i don't want anything fancy looking, just basic and practical, that needs a password and username to enter it.
i have a webcam with "motion sensor" and also "remote imaging" (takes images at preset intervals), so getting the images isn't a problem, i also have webspace/domain with my ISP provider ... my problem is building the website as minimalistic as possible (to save memory space).... creating a password/username system to get access... and being able to stream the "Live images" directly to the website.
any help would be greatly appreciated, and as i'm on a VERY tight budget, freee software is always better for me

thanks in advance


Phil

P.S laymans terms only

Well you're lucky that a lot of this (the coding) can be done with a basic text-editor and there are many others, more suited to your needs, available
online for free. This is all providing you learn to handcode websites which is not nearly as scary as it sounds. The tricky part will be to get your photos to be saved on your server. If they are saved on your computer which is not accessible like a server is then it will be quite complex. I've never done anything like this but I know that its possible as I have seen systems similar to this in operation. There mat be some specialist software available that
automatically puts your webcam images/video on to a server for you. Then it would be a simple case of linking yourself to them somehow.

Maybe someone else will have more of an idea. You may want to post in one of the programming sections though as this will require some server-side code (and possible more) to get it off the ground.

I like that you have just jumped in, as it were, if you give it a chance you'll start to understand this stuff. It's not really complex, it's just new.

Pete.

Hmmm. That is the wrong way to approach this if you want to do it yourself.

You're gunna have to learn PHP / mySQL (or hire someone... I'm open for work...).

The website part is easy if you just want a little private page with a login. But you will need to find some program that automatically uploads the new images. I don't know of any ftp program (a program used for uploading files to a web server) that can do that. (But I could write something like that pretty easy in C#.)

Ah, so you want to be able to log into the website and see what's going on in your house when you're not there? I won't ask. I haven't got anything particularly helpful to say, but I do wonder whether your free webspace with your ISP will be able to accommodate this?

I think you could probably find an FTP program that uploads files from a certain directory at set intervals. Your computer would have to be permanently on of course but I do think its possible.

Pete.

"i won't ask"

well i feel obliged to explain. i've had my house broken into 3 times in the past 12 months, and the last time they took my PC with it. the police won't investigate it unless they have "solid evidence" and i need a solution that will work even if they find the camera.... the only solution i can come up with is getting the images exported to a server so the evidence is safe even if they take my PC (a brand new replacement from my insurance company)

i don't plan on streaming videos, just still images every 10 secs, it will use 12 mb per day, so i would have to delete the images daily, but it will be worth it

I actually think that asp.net would be better for this as can't you use languages like C# with asp? Its a more flexible language from what I heard though I've not used it much.

Pete.

What a bummer. You've got a real good incentive to do this then. If this really is the only website you want to build though, I doubt you actually want to learn any programming languages do you? I'm not trying to put you off learning stuff because we encourage that plenty on here! I'm just thinking that you were really looking for a very easy, cheap (free!) way of doing this? There are scripts you can download, but you obviously would need some knowledge in order to integrate them into your site, but you might be able to get the relevant help along the way on this forum without actually having to fully learn a programing language.

to be honest, building websites interests me anyway, and for all the time i spend at my PC, i might aswell invest that time wisely.
having said that, i'm already baffled by the language etc, so it seems like its either gonna be a loooong learning process, or i'll have to pay some1 to do it.... which isn't really an option for me


i suppose the 1st thing i need to do is build the website, with a username and password log in process, and then worry about the FTP/streaming problem once thats done. is there any particularly user friendly, website building software that would suit these needs ?

Well great, if you're interested in building websites in general, then you've definitely come to the right place! You won't find many people recommending website building software on here though (Except for Dreamweaver, using code view, and that's quite expensive), we encourage people to learn to hand code from scratch. Have a look at some of the beginner resources. You'll really need to learn some basic html and css first, but the password entry thing is a bit beyond the basics.

ok... so my 1st step is to build my website using hand coding....

i understand that HTML is the "language" that websites use, but from the other posts in this thread it seems there are several versions of the HTML language i.e codes. so i guess the question is which "codes" should i be looking into 1st ?

thanks for the help so far btw, appreciate it

Let me try to explain. HTML is what browsers use to display a webpage. Other languages can be used in conjunction with HTML but the HTML is not optional; it is essential for the running of a site. Luckily it is a very simple language to pick though it does have it little quirks. Another language which is even easier than HTML to learn is CSS this is all to do with the presentation of a site. If you want this background or that layout or a border around that bit then ideally it should all be done using css. These are the two core web languages, however there are more (the list is endless) that can enhance the web experience.

Thes follwing languages are server side languages. The code is executed on the server and then the results outputted to html usually. Languages such as php, asp.net, perl, ruby. These are server side programming (more or less) languages. They are more difficult than html and css and have a lot in common with conventional programming languages (C#, Java etc) but they are a lot simpler.

You would do all the displaying the page and what not with HTML and forms (such as login forms) would also be built using html. However your login form would be handled and processed using a server side language and the information you want to save and then display would probably be stored in a database and then extracted from that database using a server-side language also. The complicated part (the most complicated part) would be getting those files off your computer and into the database automatically and at set intervals.

You see web design at its most brilliant is a variety of skills and technologies integrated into one cohesive application. Combine this with great design and what you have is the reason for the sucess of the internet. Web design isn't easy, I won't pretend. You can learn as little or as much as you want but you can get a lot out of this and you can learn this stuff relatively quickly (I did). The important thing is not to be overwhelmed by what I have just said or by the scope of these technologies. The other important thing is to really want to have a go.

If you want to do this then start with html and then start to integrate some php. This will be a good starting point for a project like this. If you get stuck then ask us, that's what we're here for. If you want to know some great resources then also ask us.

Pete.

i certainly came to the right place with this forum anyway, you guys have been great so far, thanks .
in 1 day i have had help/feedback/advice from 5 or 6 people, its absoloutely awesome !
i'll get started with html and php then.

is this link a complete listing of all the HTML commands ?

http://www.transaction.net/web/tutor/cmdtable.html

Remember CSS with your HTML first, then the PHP

i found this site while i was browsing the web. it looks quite promising for what i need in a FTP, but i don't understand all the specs etc .
http://www.cuteftp.com/eft/

i haven't started building my site yet. i'm still researching into wether my aim is going to be achievable for me. i'm very confident that i'll be able to create the website, given time, but before i start, i want to know if its going to be possible to find an FTP program(or alternative method that i can do myself) to publish the data over to my website at preset intervals.
what do you guys think , will this software be up to it ?
thanks in advance ,
Phil

*EDIT* i just realised that they are offering a server to act as a host, not just a FTP.... and its for businesses, so they'll want to charge me the earth ...... Please, correct me if i'm wrong tho

Hello phi11,

I just thought i'd explain what an FTP program is first so you understand what it mean's when people talk about it.

FTP is a program that can come in handy when creating a Web site or tranfering files etc. FTP is an acronym that stands for File Transfer Protocol. An FTP client is a program that allows you to easily move files from one computer to another.

In the case of creating a Web site, this means that if you create the pages for your site on your computer, either using a text editor or some other Web page editor, then you will need to move it to the server where your site will be hosted. Which is were the ftp client come's in use.

So in your case, you'd want a website were every amount of set time it would capture the screenshot's and automatically upload them to your web host, via a ftp program or other program so when you get home you can re-download them to do whatever. right?

Now onto the technical side of thing's on how to do it, i wouldn't really understand, but the mod's can help you there.

Also, for what you want, there are a lot of free web host's out there they would cater to your need's without you having to pay money for a ftp server.

Hope that helped.
-Evil

it sure does Evil...... after looking around and listening to the advice from all you guys, i've decided to draw up a complete plan of what i need/want, and how i'm going go about it.


once i have a clear list of things i need to do, i should be in more of a position to research the answers to my questions, rather than hassling you guys with every little problem.......


any feedback on my plan of action is welcomed and appreciated...... especially step 4)



1) Set my WebCam(s) up so when it/they detect any motion, they take still images every 10 seconds for the following 30 minutes
*i've already done this using my "Creative WebCam" and "Creative WebCam centre", and the images are saved to a directory on my home pc.
2) build a website/domain, hand coded to my specific needs.....which for this project are
*a very basic and plain, "username/password login" as an index.html/home page
*1 sub-directory page where i can store the uploaded image folders.
i will need to do both of these tasks using HTML,CSS and PHP codings.
3) an FTP program to transfer the image files between my pc and the host server of my website. i will need to use this to upload the images, but also to download them when i need to access the images.
*i have FTP commander already, which was free, but i will need to familiarise myself with it.
4) (This is the bit i'm still unsure about) i was under the impression that there could be an FTP program that would be able to find the files from a preset directory on my home pc, and then publish those to my website at preset intervals. if not by FTP then i need to find an alternative method.

after listening to everyones input and reading around myself it seems thats going to be the most difficult part because not many people seem to have done this before.
having said that, i agree that its definitely achievable, but its just a matter of cost or complexity, as i'm restricted with both.

the exciting thing for me is, that if this gets up and running, there will be a walkthrough talkthrough guide for ANY layman to be able to achieve it. meaning burglars better beware, because anybody with a pc, internet connection, website and a webcam, has access to the ultimate security system at a very basic cost, plus LOTS and LOTS of time,

Many FTP programs have automation features which may be suitable for this use. My only concern is that if all of the files are in the same folder then each time they are uploaded they will upload everything in the directory. Unless you manually delete these files or find some way to automatically delete them (or get the file to expire after a set time?) then you will add to your bandwidth costs which obviously we want to keep down if we can.

The more I think about this project, the clearer it becomes in my mind. I believe this is entirely possible by just using web languages and making use of already existing (mostly free) software. We also need to figure out a way of getting those images to expire after a set amount of time or to only upload changed files. Ideally the FTP software would scan the designated folder for any changes and if there has been any changes then it would upload these changes (new files) to the server via FTP. I'll have a play with my FTP and see if it has any automation features.

Pete.

YEa you will need some sort of synchronisation which I think you can do. I know Dreamweaver has a sync option. Although it isn't automatic.

Pete

if you find the automated function on your FTP, just let me know and i'll change over to the 1 you have. i haven't got far with FTP Commander, so it wouldn't be a problem to switch, especially if i know yours can send the files automatically.

i think the ideal process would be for my camera to detect motion, and begin taking still pictures every 10 seconds, for 30 minutes(180 still images) . once that 30 minutes is up that folder would be saved in my local directory....... so, like you say, the logical thing to do would be to have the FTP scan that local directory every 30 minutes for any changes to the file, and publish the changes to my site.

with that in mind, perhaps rather than trying to get the FTP program to detect changes to the directory, would it be possible to get the FTP program to cut and paste the files... rather than copy and paste the files . effectively that would remove the files from my directory as soon as they are published. i'm probably being a moron, but it sounds good theoretically