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Getting your streaming video on to the internet and your website can seem a daunting task...especially when your ISP sticks you with a dynamic
IP instead of a static One. Some ISP's (Information Service Providers) dont make it easy for you either as the "FREE ROUTER" some of them
supply you with may not have a DYNDNS section in an attempt to force you into buying a static IP address instead of using a free or very low
cost service.
Whatever software or hardware you are using, to get your pictures streaming from your cameras on to the internet, the first thing you must do
is ensure your home equipment is visible on the internet. So lets work out the best way for YOU to get your webcams or IP Cameras, CCTV and
DVR's up and running.
We are going to start talking lots of numbers and terminology now which is unavoidable, so to try and keep things clear in your head, think of
what we are trying to do as sending a letter. Its not a perfect analogy but it will do for this example. In order to get the letter to the right person
we have to use an address. We have to know the Country, City, area, road or street, house number and name of the person. When the letter
arrives at the post office the postman looks at the local address details and then can deliver it to the recipient.
To access a camera over the internet we need to know the Internet IP address of the router and the port number that we are forwarding to, then
when the request for a picture arrives at the router, the router needs to know what local IP address, subnet mask and default gateway settings to
deliver the request for a picture to.
We will worry about the fact that a Dynamic IP address changes later for now we will get all the settings to work so we can access the camera
from the Internet then deal with a remedy for a dynamic IP afterwards.
Your current IP address, the one that your ISP is broadcasting is shown on the top bar of this page above the search box. If you have a
static IP address then this number will not change. However most domestic and some commercial broadband services dont provide a static IP
address unless you pay for it separately. If its not a static IP then its called a Dynamic IP address. This number could change at any time and
will almost definetly change if the router or modem is powered off and on again. Dynamic IP addresses are allocated by the ISP so you have no
control over them. For now you can use this number to set things up and test, and check if its changed by just returning to this page. We can
sort this problem later when everything else is working.
Now for connecting cameras and other equipment to the internet you need a spare network socket on your router for each new device. You can
always expand the number of sockets by adding a 4 to 1 ethernet switch or even bigger. This will connect to 1 spare port on your router and give
you 4 or more extra inputs. If you only currently have 1 computer and this is connected to a broadband modem then you will need to by a router.
These are easy to add to broadband modems and usually will work straight out of the box. If your using a wireless camera then you wont need a
spare socket.
Now on your local network, that is the devices in your premises connected to your router, each device will have its own IP address. Each
computer, camera DVR, Printer must have a different IP address so the router can route data to them properly. Think of the router as the post
office that the mail has now come in to. Now its in, the router has to look at the data and know where to deliver it. Usually all the devices on a
routers local network also have dynamic IP addresses. This is fine normally as your sending requests out from the router to ask for information
e.g downloading programs or viewing web pages etc. But for data coming in, the router must know where it has to go. So what we do is set the
camera to a fixed IP address on the local network. To do this first we need to know what the IP range is and what some other numbers are too.
You can do this two ways, either log on to your router and get the details from the settings there or you can get a pretty good idea of all you
need to know by opening a DOS window on your PC then typing in IPCONFIG and pressing return. This will show you the computers current
settings. What we need are 3 x sets of numbers.
1) The IP address of the computer - so we can guess the range.
2) The Subnet Mask
3) The Default Gateway
IP instead of a static One. Some ISP's (Information Service Providers) dont make it easy for you either as the "FREE ROUTER" some of them
supply you with may not have a DYNDNS section in an attempt to force you into buying a static IP address instead of using a free or very low
cost service.
Whatever software or hardware you are using, to get your pictures streaming from your cameras on to the internet, the first thing you must do
is ensure your home equipment is visible on the internet. So lets work out the best way for YOU to get your webcams or IP Cameras, CCTV and
DVR's up and running.
We are going to start talking lots of numbers and terminology now which is unavoidable, so to try and keep things clear in your head, think of
what we are trying to do as sending a letter. Its not a perfect analogy but it will do for this example. In order to get the letter to the right person
we have to use an address. We have to know the Country, City, area, road or street, house number and name of the person. When the letter
arrives at the post office the postman looks at the local address details and then can deliver it to the recipient.
To access a camera over the internet we need to know the Internet IP address of the router and the port number that we are forwarding to, then
when the request for a picture arrives at the router, the router needs to know what local IP address, subnet mask and default gateway settings to
deliver the request for a picture to.
We will worry about the fact that a Dynamic IP address changes later for now we will get all the settings to work so we can access the camera
from the Internet then deal with a remedy for a dynamic IP afterwards.
Your current IP address, the one that your ISP is broadcasting is shown on the top bar of this page above the search box. If you have a
static IP address then this number will not change. However most domestic and some commercial broadband services dont provide a static IP
address unless you pay for it separately. If its not a static IP then its called a Dynamic IP address. This number could change at any time and
will almost definetly change if the router or modem is powered off and on again. Dynamic IP addresses are allocated by the ISP so you have no
control over them. For now you can use this number to set things up and test, and check if its changed by just returning to this page. We can
sort this problem later when everything else is working.
Now for connecting cameras and other equipment to the internet you need a spare network socket on your router for each new device. You can
always expand the number of sockets by adding a 4 to 1 ethernet switch or even bigger. This will connect to 1 spare port on your router and give
you 4 or more extra inputs. If you only currently have 1 computer and this is connected to a broadband modem then you will need to by a router.
These are easy to add to broadband modems and usually will work straight out of the box. If your using a wireless camera then you wont need a
spare socket.
Now on your local network, that is the devices in your premises connected to your router, each device will have its own IP address. Each
computer, camera DVR, Printer must have a different IP address so the router can route data to them properly. Think of the router as the post
office that the mail has now come in to. Now its in, the router has to look at the data and know where to deliver it. Usually all the devices on a
routers local network also have dynamic IP addresses. This is fine normally as your sending requests out from the router to ask for information
e.g downloading programs or viewing web pages etc. But for data coming in, the router must know where it has to go. So what we do is set the
camera to a fixed IP address on the local network. To do this first we need to know what the IP range is and what some other numbers are too.
You can do this two ways, either log on to your router and get the details from the settings there or you can get a pretty good idea of all you
need to know by opening a DOS window on your PC then typing in IPCONFIG and pressing return. This will show you the computers current
settings. What we need are 3 x sets of numbers.
1) The IP address of the computer - so we can guess the range.
2) The Subnet Mask
3) The Default Gateway
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As you can see here for our example, the IP
address ends in 6 and the subnet mask and default
gateway are clearly visible too.
Now write these down for reference. The mask and
gateway we will need to go into our camera and
these two are the same for all devices.
On our system the router IP ends in 1 and all the
other devices follow on up from that so there are 5
devices connected at present.
We know now that we arent going to have many
more so we could set the IP address in our camera
to end in 10 and still have room for 3 more before it
and the rest after it (up to 254) so for our example
we will set the IP to end in 10.
So now we go into the cameras configuration
settings and set the IP address type fixed or
manual or static, depending on the cameras
terminology used.
address ends in 6 and the subnet mask and default
gateway are clearly visible too.
Now write these down for reference. The mask and
gateway we will need to go into our camera and
these two are the same for all devices.
On our system the router IP ends in 1 and all the
other devices follow on up from that so there are 5
devices connected at present.
We know now that we arent going to have many
more so we could set the IP address in our camera
to end in 10 and still have room for 3 more before it
and the rest after it (up to 254) so for our example
we will set the IP to end in 10.
So now we go into the cameras configuration
settings and set the IP address type fixed or
manual or static, depending on the cameras
terminology used.
Next we will set the manual IP address in the camera to 192.168.1.10. Then we set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. The we set the default gateway to 192.168.1.1
While we are here we can set the port number for the camera too. This is like our City in our letter posting scenario. There is only 1 country to worry about - the one we are
in (our router) but there can be many Cities. So our port number we will set at 8888 (we are using this as its one of the many ports not used for anything specific on a router).
So all the programming in our camera will be as follows: IP 192.168.1.10, Mask 255.255.255.0, Gateway 192.168.1.1, Port 8888.
To check this works locally you should log on to the camera by typing the IP address and the port number into your browser like this. http://192.168.1.10:8888 If all is well
the camera picture will appear.
While we are here we can set the port number for the camera too. This is like our City in our letter posting scenario. There is only 1 country to worry about - the one we are
in (our router) but there can be many Cities. So our port number we will set at 8888 (we are using this as its one of the many ports not used for anything specific on a router).
So all the programming in our camera will be as follows: IP 192.168.1.10, Mask 255.255.255.0, Gateway 192.168.1.1, Port 8888.
To check this works locally you should log on to the camera by typing the IP address and the port number into your browser like this. http://192.168.1.10:8888 If all is well
the camera picture will appear.
OK so thats great we have our local address all set up and we can see it on our PC (the post man in the post office in the city knows where to deliver the letters he gets).
But now we have to get the letters first into the country (the router) then to the post office in the city (the port) and this is done in the router. The router will have a great
feature which can be called a number of things depending on the make of the router unfortunately. It can be called Port Forwarding, Network Address Translation (NAT)
Pinholes, Game and Application Sharing plus many more. It all boils down to the same thing. When a call comes into the router from the Internet on the Internet public IP
address followed by a port number, the router knows which IP address on the local network to forward the data to.
Now you will have to look at your routers manual and instructions for the details on how to do this for a particular router. There is also a good site call Port Forward.com
which has lots of information to help with specific routers which may help you too. What you do is go into the router settings, then forward your camera port to the local IP
address of the camera. So in our example, tell the router to forward port 8888 to 192.168.1.10. Thats it.
Now look at the IP address this web page is reporting to you ( at the top on the right hand side above the search bar) this is your current Internet Public IP address. If you get
someone using a different connection e.g. call a friend to type in that address followed by the port number into their browser, the browser should call the router, the router will
see the call is on port 8888 and will know exactly where to forward the call for a picture to. Then the person calling in will see the video feed.
For example if your public IP is reported as 212.10.12.10, you would type in http://212.10.12.10:8888 that call for a video feed comes into the router which knows that 8888
has to go to 192.168.1.10 and forwards it accordingly and the feed starts.
If you need to set up more cameras, you simply do all the same as above, but use a different port number and local IP for each camera, then to access them from the
Internet you type in the same Internet IP address for each camera, followed by the different port number for each camera.
When all this is done and working, all will be well - until your ISP changes your Dynamic IP address. You can soon get it going again by simply logging on here and finding
out the new public address - but that will get to be a real pain after a while. Two solutions to this, either pay your ISP for a static IP, OR use a FREE DNS forwarding service.
These are great as you get a name instead of an IP to remember and the name never changes, you program the account information into the router then when ever the router
detects an IP change, it updates the name.
For more information on this feature see the Dynamic DNS Information section and check out Portforward.com if your having trouble setting up your router.
But now we have to get the letters first into the country (the router) then to the post office in the city (the port) and this is done in the router. The router will have a great
feature which can be called a number of things depending on the make of the router unfortunately. It can be called Port Forwarding, Network Address Translation (NAT)
Pinholes, Game and Application Sharing plus many more. It all boils down to the same thing. When a call comes into the router from the Internet on the Internet public IP
address followed by a port number, the router knows which IP address on the local network to forward the data to.
Now you will have to look at your routers manual and instructions for the details on how to do this for a particular router. There is also a good site call Port Forward.com
which has lots of information to help with specific routers which may help you too. What you do is go into the router settings, then forward your camera port to the local IP
address of the camera. So in our example, tell the router to forward port 8888 to 192.168.1.10. Thats it.
Now look at the IP address this web page is reporting to you ( at the top on the right hand side above the search bar) this is your current Internet Public IP address. If you get
someone using a different connection e.g. call a friend to type in that address followed by the port number into their browser, the browser should call the router, the router will
see the call is on port 8888 and will know exactly where to forward the call for a picture to. Then the person calling in will see the video feed.
For example if your public IP is reported as 212.10.12.10, you would type in http://212.10.12.10:8888 that call for a video feed comes into the router which knows that 8888
has to go to 192.168.1.10 and forwards it accordingly and the feed starts.
If you need to set up more cameras, you simply do all the same as above, but use a different port number and local IP for each camera, then to access them from the
Internet you type in the same Internet IP address for each camera, followed by the different port number for each camera.
When all this is done and working, all will be well - until your ISP changes your Dynamic IP address. You can soon get it going again by simply logging on here and finding
out the new public address - but that will get to be a real pain after a while. Two solutions to this, either pay your ISP for a static IP, OR use a FREE DNS forwarding service.
These are great as you get a name instead of an IP to remember and the name never changes, you program the account information into the router then when ever the router
detects an IP change, it updates the name.
For more information on this feature see the Dynamic DNS Information section and check out Portforward.com if your having trouble setting up your router.
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