Wireless Internet Cameras

Wireless Internet Cameras

Remote Video Monitoring with the Creative Live! Wireless Internet Cameras:

Webcams just make video fun, with the immediate gratification of capturing short clips, plus live video messaging across the Internet. Plus, webcams can be used for remote monitoring, some even with motion detection -- to watch for the arrival of a delivery truck out the front window, or to catch the cat jumping on the counter. But you don't necessarily want to tie up a computer to act as a video server for a connected webcam, so a better option for this kind of use is to use a dedicated Internet camera with a built-in network interface, like the Creative Live! Wireless.

The webcams are designed to plug in to a computer, typically with a USB 2.0 connection. The camera pours the video (and associated audio) down the wire, and you then need to run software on the computer to process the data -- converting formats and displaying the video -- or to act as a server so you can access the video from other networked machines. But if your main use is this kind of wireless internet cameras, then you don't want to tie up a computer doing all this video processing and resending -- plus, using a dedicated network camera is more turn-key and reliable than using a computer and software on a general-purpose computer.

Setting Up of wireless internet cameras:

The Creative Live! Wireless internet cameras comes in two parts: the small camera and the network server box. The wireless internet cameras has an adjustable focus ring and "multi-attach" base, so you can stand it by itself, clip it to a window or a monitor, or install it with the included wall mount bracket.

The base unit is very light and quite small (around 4 x 4 1/4 x 1 1/2 inches). The front panel has LEDs to show when it's connected, and the rear panel has the wireless antenna, an Ethernet port for a wired network connection, two USB ports (one for the camera), and the power connector.

The Live! Wireless is a breeze to set up. Plug it in (wired) to your home network, and it connects into the network through your router (DHCP). Then run the creative wireless internet cameras setup wizard software, which looks around your local network and finds the camera. You then can change camera settings including the name (when working with multiple cameras), time zone and time, and username and password for secured access. You also can set up the camera for access as Wired, Unsecured Wireless (802.11 b/g), or Secured Wireless with WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy) / WPA-PSK (Wi-Fi Protected Access-Pre-Shared Key) enabled.

Monitoring Video from a Browser:

Once the Live! Wireless internet cameras are live on your local network, you can connect to it from any computer without installing any other software. Just fire up Internet Explorer, enter the camera's IP address (displayed during setup), and connect to the built-in Web server in the base unit. Enter your user name and password, and the browser opens up the Creative Live! Wireless server with video playing in the window.