HTTP Server

SiteCam can save images and movies to most web servers--be they local or located at an ISP.

This section is for users with a server running on the same machine that is running SiteCam. If you are using a dial-up connection to the internet, see the section on using FTP.

Live (streaming) images are available when used with a WebSTAR API compatible server. CGI access is available on most web servers. CGI and Plug-in Access are for returning GIF and JPEG images. The WebSTAR Flush command will work with any media format and will flush both WebSTAR or Quid Pro Quo servers.

CGI Access

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a simple method of exchanging data between a web server and another application. If your web server supports WebSTAR API plug-ins, you should use them instead of CGI mode because of their more efficient operation. The CGI will request a single image from SiteCam by the webcam's document name.

If the Send Image is checked, the entire image will be transferred to the web server in memory. If Send File URL is checked, a temporary file will be created with the latest image and a reference to that file will be sent to the web server. If you check Send Image, the entire image will be captured in RAM and sent without first going to disk.

Plug-in Access

Plug-ins are the best way to exchange data between an application and a web server. Although not all web servers support plug-ins, a WebSTAR plug-in is included with the SiteCam package. Consult your web server documentation to find out which plug-in standard is supported.

Streaming images is a nice way to show real-time graphics to a wide variety of browsers without having to use a special application. If you check Allow Video Streaming, images can be streamed nonstop until a set number of images have been sent, a period of time has elapsed, or until the viewer hits the browser's Stop button.

Max Time limits streaming to a maximum number of seconds.

Client Images/Minute sets the number of images to send per minute for each client. This setting can prevent users on high-speed networks from using too much of your available bandwidth.

Total Images/Min governs the combined images/minute rate that all users watching streaming will get. This setting is used to limit the bandwidth used by the document's streaming video.

Images/Client sets the number of images to send to a user. After the last image is sent, the user will need to reload his browser window to see more images.

Cache Flush

If you are saving images to a local web server directory, you will need to flush the data cache each time it saves an image that you intend to serve on your web site. If you do not, images could be sent out with invalid header information and broken images will be seen on the browser side.This feature only works with WebSTAR or Quid Pro Quo servers running on the same machine as SiteCam. A remote WebSTAR compatible server can use the noCache plug-in that ships with SiteCam.