Setting up a webcam

From eBay I got an IP camera:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/ieGeek-1080P-Wlan-IP-Camera-Ausen-Uberwachungskamera-WIFI-Outdoor-Webcam-ONVIF/143976840072?fbclid=IwAR331V62Rb4HOoDo8ZUUesX3XNlnfHYEbAhZpmJ6h6uzL64mWA_gDf5GvZk

This is one of the low-end cameras, but I did not need a microphone, and the camera seemed to have all that was needed: HD resolution, IP control over Wifi. So I did install it at a window in the 3rd floor of the house.

The camera works in principle well, and the Wifi gets a good connection even when the camera is not very close to the base station.

But there are a few niggles which are quite annoying, and I did post this to the seller on eBay let them know about those, so that possibly some improvements can be made.

1. The provided connection protector for the Ethernet cable connection cannot be used without destroying the included connecting Ethernet cable, because the cover cannot be slid over the connector. So one would have to cut that cable, then slide the protector over the cable, and then later reconnect the cut cable to its other connector.

2. The mounting of the camera is only suitable for vertical wall mounting. If mounted horizontally, then one cannot adjust the camera roll angle, in case the surface is not exactly horizontal.

3. The setup with the Android tool CamHi works Ok. But with that software it is not possible to set up automatic regular saving of an image.

4. The built-in web server provides the option of setting up a regular image saving. But the preview of the web server does not work, because it uses Adobe Flash. This Flash is an antiquated standard and is no longer in use, it has been disabled by all web browsers since Jan 2021. So one cannot preview the images with that web server. Previewing on the Android app works well, because that is up to the newest standard.

5. Saving an image to an FTP server works well, but unfortunately one cannot specify the image name. An automatic name is given, but that is not useful for a webcam, where a constant fixed image name would be required. It would be OK if that same image would be overwritten, but the software does not provide this option unfortunately. I would need to write some scripting on my own Webserver.

6. The captured image is only of "Second Stream" quality, images are only in 640x352. There is no way of setting it to the actual HD quality, which is a pity - this is an HD camera, and it appears not to be possible to save any HD images.

7. The PC client "HiP2P Client" in version 6.4.9.4. is useless - it keeps only asking for username and password, but does not use these credentials with I have configured on the camera.

8. There is a software "ClientPlus_Setup", which installs "WebControl 3.0.7.1", but that appears to do nothing.

So overall there are some significant issues... especially the changing filename and the low image resolution of the saved images prevent me now from using this camera as a proper webcam... This is a pity, because the camera hardware appears of a robust and sturdy quality, and the video that I have seen on the Android app in full resolution, looks reasonable.

Maybe some of the software can be changed on the camera, a new firmware could be provided.

To overcome some of the shortcomings regarding FTP I did write some PHP scripts for my webserver, which I had set up more than a decade ago. The PHP code needed to be updated from PHP5 to PHP8, and I needed some methods of finding the newest picture out of a list of daily recorded images. This was not very difficult - the webserver with viewing the latest picture is here:

http://www.reinholdbehringer.co.uk/_NussdorfWebcam/

Eventually I will do some further modification of those scripts on the server, but for now this shall be OK. It is a pity that the resolution of the captured images is only 640x352 ... but I have no means of setting this higher. This is how the camera stores its images. Possibly need a more expensive cam if I want to save real HD images.