[Fiasco]

Hi all,
This took me a few hours to work out, so I thought I would document it here for future searches.

This describes how to stream a webcam from your pc to xbmc.

1) Setup streaming on your PC
Using Windows Media Encoder, setup a stream from your camera. It is pretty straight forward to follow the wizard.

The streaming url will be something like
mms://192.168.1.3:9002

Test this by plugging the url into Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer.
You should see a video stream from your webcam.

2) Create a playlist file - webcam.pls

Code:

[playlist]
NumberOfEntries=1

File1=mms://192.168.1.3:9002
Title1=My WebCam
Length1=-1

Version=2

3) Ftp the playlist into your /UserData/playlists/Video folder

4) Now in XBMC, go to Videos, select Library Mode

5) Browse to Playlists and find your webcam playlist

6) Right click (white button), select Add to Favorites

7) Done, you can now view your webcam from xbmc!


This will of course work with external webcams etc (eg: surf cams) - you just have to edit the playlist file accordingly (see wikipedia).

HTH

I am using XBMC on a windows machine and putting the playlist file in that folder structure doesn't put the file in my playlist. I can browse using the Files function under Settings to find the playlist file and execute it.

Is the location where that file is supposed to go different on a windows machine?

I can add it to favorites from the files area but is there a way to make the webcam playlist appear under the "playlists" section of videos in xbmc?

Also, how can I make my playlist loop back to the beginning when jumping through cameras.

I'm using the memphis zoo webcams in this playlist.

[playlist]
NumberOfEntries=2

File1=mms://72.55.116.2/polarbearcam
Title1=Webcam
Length1=-1

File2=mms://72.55.116.2/pandacam
Title2=Webcam
Length2=-1

Version=2

[jonnypajamas]

I'm on a windows machine as well, I can click the playlist but nothing happens, and after I click it again it tells me too many consecutive failures. the panda and polar bear cam work great, but my address doesn't. I'm going to try using 127.0.0.1:8080 instead and see if it's that.

im running server 2008

[jonnypajamas]

I tried every combination but it won't play. when I click my cam source it runs a buffer filling line but says the name of the previous cam source. If I open panda and then click my own stream it shows the word panda, buffers and then nothing. I can view it in wmp.

[fmaesso]

Hi!
I´m testing the webcam.pls with the 9.11 version Beta1 and the Windows Encoder and now run.

Sorry for my bad english

Fernando Maesso

[kobayashi]

Anyone comment on whether or not these instructions are still valid?

Using stable Dharma and I do not have a /playlists/Video folder /UserData. My Win7 search can't find any playlist files or folders either.

[x23piracy]

Hi,

has someone an idea howto just really stream the cam if someone uses the stream?
It's bad to have the cpu on 20-30% usage also if no one uses the stream.

Is there any possibility for WME to do so?

And yes this solution allready works, simply its just the stream to setup up, xmbc
can play playlist with whatever since years...


Greetz X23

[lihov]

Any body have successful experience in streaming video from axis ip camera to XBMC?

[sketchysunday]

This might help those trying to view streams from webcams / IP cameras. Most often they are MJPG. Create a .strm file and put the URL of the stream in it, then XBMC can play the stream. I have noticed you need to put a .mjpg extension for it to work.

I'm using mjpg-streamer on Ubuntu to stream mjpeg from a webcam over the network. It's accessible by Firefox, VLC and XBMC. The problem with mjpg-streamer is that the stream URL is

Code:

http://192.168.0.2:8080/?action=stream

XBMC doesn't understand this URL. In order not to mess with the parameters passed to MJPG-streamer's HTTP server, I added &ext=.mjpg at the end of the URL.

Code:

http://192.168.0.2:8080/?action=stream&ext=.mjpg

This URL in a file with extension .strm can be viewed by XBMC. I'm assuming ext can be renamed to whatever you want since the parameters between & and = don't matter in this case.

[Cy3lic]

Any body have successful experience in streaming video from axis ip camera to XBMC?

XBMC support the Real time streaming protocol rtsp://

The Axis cameras can deliver that.

Simply create a .strm file wich is simply a text file.

Containing the following:

rtsp://user:password@Camera-IP:554/mpeg4/media.amp

The text file has to be renamed to become a .strm file

the simplest way to do this is to put the text file in the root directory C:\

Lets call the file axis.strm.txt

Example:

in the command prompt type:

C:\>ren axis.strm.txt axis.strm

Move the file onto the XBMC or in a shared network location.

Now you will be able to get a stream directly from the camera providing that they are on the same network segment.

Enjoy