Modem video camera

[Pat Barry]

I know the refresh rate will be slow. I'm OK with that. The question is, what would it take, other than a computer, a camera, and modem of course, to have a video camera set-up such that I could dial in, connect with a remote PC, and have it download an image or a slow scan video to my internet connected PC? Lets say my house doesn't have DSL or broadband internet connection and just old fashioned telephone /modem service. I want to be able to call my house somehow thru my internet connection, from work for example, thru the telephone access, have the PC at home answer, and then respond by sending the picture from the camera. Is this possible? What would I need to install software wise, hardware wise? Is there a certain type of camera I would need? How about a particular type of modem?

[Alan Caro]

Pat Barry,

There are a lot of options for remote viewing. See:

https://www.google.com/search?q=remote+home+video+monitoring&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

The least expensive way to do this is to use a webcam such as the one built into a laptop or one used for Skype, an application made for this purpose, and you can dial up viewing from the remote location. If you want to have a scanning camera that would have to be purchased specially of course. If I were to do this, I'd use the Logitech webcam perched on the top of my monitor for Skype and perhaps something like iCam.

Alan Caro

[Pat Barry]

Pat Barry,

There are a lot of options for remote viewing. See:

https://www.google.com/search?q=remote+home+video+monitoring&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

The least expensive way to do this is to use a webcam such as the one built into a laptop or one used for Skype, an application made for this purpose, and you can dial up viewing from the remote location. If you want to have a scanning camera that would have to be purchased specially of course. If I were to do this, I'd use the Logitech webcam perched on the top of my monitor for Skype and perhaps something like iCam.

Alan Caro
Thanks Alan, but I need a bit more help understanding the details for getting the remote PC to answer a phone call and then somehow respond with the image. This seems to be oh so easy if the remote camera is on the www but for a dialup answering system the details are baffling me.

[Eric DeSilva]

On a hunch, I wondered if there were trail cameras that were cellular equipped, and there are. Trail cameras are those things that hunters deploy to help identify deer trails and such, usually motion activated. Just google "cellular trail camera" and see if any of those fit the bill.

[John Aspinall]

Thanks Alan, but I need a bit more help understanding the details for getting the remote PC to answer a phone call and then somehow respond with the image. This seems to be oh so easy if the remote camera is on the www but for a dialup answering system the details are baffling me.

Pat -
It will be easier to understand if you separate into two parts:

Remote access (for any kind of data) to the computer.
Capture of a picture on the computer.

The reason the two parts can be separated, is that they are independent. You can have 1. without 2. You can have 2. without 1. You can have both.

For remote access, via dialup, you need (as you know) two modems. One modem on the image-capturing computer; one modem on the computer at the other end of the connection.
Then you need low-level drivers to establish (what looks like) a network connection over the telephone line between the two computers. Back in the dialup days (25 years ago) we used to use PPP (Point to Point Protocol) or SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) to do this. Your main task will be finding PPP or SLIP drivers for a recent vintage computer.

Once you have the telephone connection looking like a network connection, everything else (image transfer, etc) will look as if you were on a "real" network.

[Pat Barry]

Pat -
It will be easier to understand if you separate into two parts:

Remote access (for any kind of data) to the computer.
Capture of a picture on the computer.

The reason the two parts can be separated, is that they are independent. You can have 1. without 2. You can have 2. without 1. You can have both.

For remote access, via dialup, you need (as you know) two modems. One modem on the image-capturing computer; one modem on the computer at the other end of the connection.
Then you need low-level drivers to establish (what looks like) a network connection over the telephone line between the two computers. Back in the dialup days (25 years ago) we used to use PPP (Point to Point Protocol) or SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) to do this. Your main task will be finding PPP or SLIP drivers for a recent vintage computer.

Once you have the telephone connection looking like a network connection, everything else (image transfer, etc) will look as if you were on a "real" network.
This is good info John, thank you. Lets call my camera the remote site and the site I'm at now to be the local site. Can the local site be an internet site such as a DSL connected or cable internet connected PC, or would it have to be an actual modem/telephone connection?

[John Aspinall]

This is good info John, thank you. Lets call my camera the remote site and the site I'm at now to be the local site. Can the local site be an internet site such as a DSL connected or cable internet connected PC, or would it have to be an actual modem/telephone connection?

It's not an either-or situation. The local site must have a modem to call the remote site. The local site may also have other kinds of networks connected to it (DSL, cable, satelite, fiber, ...).

(Modern computers support multiple network connections. For example, most laptops have both a wired and a wireless network connection. Those are two different networks, at least for a few feet, until they get connected together by your router. Your router is just a little computer with 4 (8, 12,...) network connections hanging off it.)

[Mike Olson]

I believe Remote Desktop Protocol RDP is able to do a direct dial to another computer. At least back when I had XP I'm pretty sure I did that a few times. Not sure if it's still available in the new versions of windows.

I would basically give you control over the other computer and you would just see whatever is on the screen.

[Pat Barry]

I believe Remote Desktop Protocol RDP is able to do a direct dial to another computer. At least back when I had XP I'm pretty sure I did that a few times. Not sure if it's still available in the new versions of windows.

I would basically give you control over the other computer and you would just see whatever is on the screen.
Hi Mike, I did some reading on this and it looks pretty deep with regard to my knowledge. They also talked of it being a server based application. I know at work we have this sort of thing that the IT support guys use to remote control our workstations and figure out issues. I think its beyond what I can do. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Myk Rian]

I ran a dial-up BBS for 14 years, (Hartland Pride BBS) and have never heard of anything like what you are wanting.
There are several ways to do it the other way, such as the other end call you, or send an e-mail with a picture. Great when you have motion detection software running. I used to do that when we went on vacation. The computer was always on anyway, answering BBS calls.
The only way I can think what you want to be possible is have the other end connected to something like a video chat site, all the time. You access that from where you are.

[Pat Barry]

OK - here is an alternative. It costs $20 per month for the dial up service but with that the service provider offers this:
All customers with broadband or dial-up Internet service are eligible to utilize an additional 5 Mb of server space on our servers for hosting a small website. You must contact the provider to activate this service. This service requires that you create your website on your computer and use and FTP client to upload and maintain the website.
If this were to work I'm thinking I could upload a picture to my website periodically and then view the picture via a regular web address. Not sure how to upload the picture but I'm thinking there might be some ideas triggered for some of you more tech savvy types with this approach

[Grant Wilkinson]

I would look into a remote control software solution. You could have a camera connected to a home PC, running whatever video application you want so that the image from the camera is playing on that PC. Then run the remote control software. I use Teamviewer, but there are lots of them out there. On the remote PC, you run Teamviewer and connect to the machine that the camera is connected to. On the remote PC, you will see whatever is showing on the camera-mounted PC. The connection will stay open for as long or as short a time as you want.

[John Aspinall]

What are you really trying to do?

[Garth Almgren]

OK - here is an alternative. It costs $20 per month for the dial up service but with that the service provider offers this:
All customers with broadband or dial-up Internet service are eligible to utilize an additional 5 Mb of server space on our servers for hosting a small website. You must contact the provider to activate this service. This service requires that you create your website on your computer and use and FTP client to upload and maintain the website.
If this were to work I'm thinking I could upload a picture to my website periodically and then view the picture via a regular web address. Not sure how to upload the picture but I'm thinking there might be some ideas triggered for some of you more tech savvy types with this approach

This is the easiest approach. There is webcam software out there that will capture an image on a regular basis then establish a connection to the internet (be it dial-up or broadband) and upload that image to a remote server where you can then view it at your convenience. Active WebCam and WebCam Monitor are two that come to mind. Active even has some tips for using their software with a dial-up connection: http://www.pysoft.com/ActWebCamHelp/Connecttion.htm

[Pat Barry]

What are you really trying to do?
I want to be able to remotely see an image from a camera. The location with the camera isn't currently on the internet but has a standard phone line. So I'd like to use a plain old fashioned modem to port the camera over the telephone to a computer on a remote (lets say web) site. Its all apparently very easy to do if both ends of the connection have internet service but this is not the case currently and I was hoping to avoid an upcharge of >$40 per month just to get this

[Pat Barry]

This is the easiest approach. There is webcam software out there that will capture an image on a regular basis then establish a connection to the internet (be it dial-up or broadband) and upload that image to a remote server where you can then view it at your convenience. Active WebCam and WebCam Monitor are two that come to mind. Active even has some tips for using their software with a dial-up connection: http://www.pysoft.com/ActWebCamHelp/Connecttion.htm
This is excellent - thanks for finding this Garth. I will explore this solution. Its a push system rather than the pull system I had been originally thinking about but it certainly seems like it will get he job done. Do you by chance use this yourself?

[Myk Rian]

I had software like Garth mentions that came with a Creative webcam. It had all kinds of functions and options.

[Garth Almgren]

No, I haven't used it myself - it's been a few years since I played around with trying to get a webcam online. Now I just use my security camera system, which has it's own web interface that I can always access through my broadband connection.