Use smartphone as webcam

Many would doubt the concept as of why one would prefer using his phone as a webcam? Well, there are a bunch of reasons to push this idea:

• Old phone having no front cam? You could use rear camera for video calling instead of buying one.
• A good chance that it can stand for a pretty good “Security camera”, monitoring your babies or other watch hours, without buying expensive standalone cameras!
Oh yes, it is a matter of concern that you would buy a new camera for the purpose but still if you want to save those few dollars/rupees, you can stick to this idea. Don’t sell that old one in your pocket, it can still serve you well.
Now the question arise on How-to-do stuff? Isn’t it? Well there are certain right apps that would provide you with satisfying interface and make worth it.

Android:

Play store as well as private developers provide a number of apps for this purpose. But beware of those fake tagline, you could be fooled and end up in wasting worthy data or leak of some personal information.
Out of the most tested, IP Webcam is the best one which proves for this purpose. Unlike DroidCam (which require a similar application to be installed in Windows), this app works through your browser, giving you the compatibility and freedom to move over platforms.

Step-to-do:

1. Connect you phone and computer to the same Wi-Fi network.
2. Install the app IP Webcam on your phone.
3. It is advisable to close any app which uses your phone’s camera (kill’em using task manager).
4. Launch the app. Scroll down until a tab appears- “Start server”.
5. The app will now display a URL, something like- http://abc.de.fg.ij:klmn (alphabets represents numerical).
6. Enter this URL in your web browser and hit Enter.
7. In the browser, you’ll see a drop down menu next to Video renderer. Select Browser.
8. Next, you’ll see Audio renderer. Select HTML wav.

Now you’re good to go. You’ll see a live video feed in your browser. You can record it via browser. You’ll get used to controls once you use it.

Although there might be some problem in HTML wav audio streaming, you can prefer VLC media player for this purpose.

Download it from here, install it. Go to Media>Network Stream and enter the URL generated from the app.
Once the app is running, you don’t need to keep the phone’s screen on. It works smoothly even if phone is locked but video feed experience is slightly better when phone’s screen is on.

iOS:

EpocCam and PocketCam rule the app market in race of making your iProduct a better webcam. PocketCam is messy to configure, and gives access to only black n white video, no audio in free version. You can rely on the paid one to get better service.

EpocCam is free and quite easy to set up too! Here’s how to make it under use:

1. Download EpocCam on your iDevice as well as for your Mac or PC.
2. Make sure both the devices are connected on the same network.
3. While installing, several prompt may appear asking you to install some drivers. Install them, they essential audio and video drivers used by the app.
4. Start the app on both devices.
5. The app will automatically searches for the device running EpocCam on the same Wi-Fi network. Soon, the video from your iDevice will be shown up on your computer.
6. There might be a few occasions when the app won’t connect your device to your computer. In the case, restarting the app quickly fixes the issue. Also, there is no video recording feature in this app, but video recording apps like CamStudio, ScreenPresso, etc. will work for you.

Video Calling- Setting up your phone as a Webcam:

Android:
Disappointing though, IP Webcam doesn’t work with Skype, so you need to stick with DroidCam and its PC Client to work.

Step-to-do:

1. Install DroidCam on your phone, as well as on your computer. (As DroidCam Client, here)
2. Connect both the devices to the same network.
3. Open the app on the phone and write down the Wi-Fi IP listed on the main screen.
4. Open the Windows client and paste the IP on your computer.
5. If you have slow internet connection, select low from the video quality drop down menu.
6. Click Start.
7. Now you’ll see video feed from your phone on the DroidCam Windows application.
8. Better to keep your phone unlocked, to avoid minimal stutter and lag. Keep android app open and turn off auto-lock.
9. Restart Skype (if it is already opened) and select DroidCamSource1 as webcam.
   Good to go again. Use your phone as the webcam.

iOS:

The procedure is simple. EpocCam enables you to connect to Skype and use your iDevice as Webcam.
Steps-to-do:

1. Install app on both devices, as mentioned earlier.
2. Start the app, it will connect automatically.
3. Now, restart Skype and select EpocCam as the webcam.
4. Now you’ll be using your iDevice as Webcam.

How to set default camera on Skype:
Skype on your PC will require the camera configuration.

Steps-to-do:

1. Download and Install desktop version Skype app.
2. Sign in to your account and enter Tools>Options.
3. Click video setting under the general tab.
4. Select the correct camera from the drop down menu next to Select webcam. The name of the camera will be similar to the name of the app
5. you are using. Select it.
6. Click save.

You can now place video calls from your computer using your phone as a webcam!

Note for iPhone, iPad users: The app stops working if you hit the home button or lock your phone.

 

If you have some suggestions of your own please let us know in comments!

 

 

12 best applications to start with Linux-Ubuntu Os

 

The Ubuntu paltform is like a make your own meal buffet at a restaurant. You can choose what software you will run in order to unleash its true power. The control over your own system is a lot more and you quite literally have the power. Here are some apps that will make your Ubuntu experience a rather enjoyable one.

1) Firefox

The Firefox web browser by Mozilla is one of the open source world’s most prized possessions. The non-profit organisation (Mozilla) has developed a fast, easy-to-use browser, which is the chosen one for development purposes.

2) Parcelite

Parcellite is a lightweight GTK+ clipboard manager. It is a stripped down, basic-features-only clipboard manager with a small memory footprint for those who like simplicity.

3) Bittorrent Sync

This is arguably the best syncing app that is available today. It’s graphical user interface makes it extremely easy to use and you can transfer files without having to constantly sync them with the cloud.

4) System Monitor

GNOME’s System Monitor presents a graphical user interface solution for the Top utility in Linux. In addition, it provides a solution for many of Top’s limitations and provides a real-time perspective of the user’s CPU through graphs. It is also easy-to-use.

5) PulseAudioControl

PulseAudio Volume Control (pavucontrol) is a simple GTK based volume control tool (“mixer”) for the PulseAudio sound server. In contrast to classic mixer tools this one allows you to control both the volume of hardware devices and of each playback stream separately.

6) Skype

You can use Skype for Linux as long as you have version 4.2 of Linux and a webcam. The features it offers are,

– Free Skype to Skype calls.
– Low cost calls and text messages to mobiles and landlines.
– Video call your contacts.
– Free instant messages to your friends, family and colleagues.

7) Kdenlive

Kdenlive is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies. The software is completely free, as defined by the GNU foundation.

8) OpenShot

OpenShot Video Editor is a free, open-source video editor for Linux licensed under the GPL version 3.0. It’s features include trimming and arranging videos, adjusting audio levels, transitions between videos, compositing multiple layers of video, chroma-key/green screen effect, and support for most formats and codecs.

9) SpiderOak

SpiderOak makes it possible for you to privately store, sync, share & access your data from everywhere. It provides the ability to utilise cloud technologies while retaining that precious right we call privacy. It has a ‘zero-knowledge’ privacy environment ensures that only you can see your data.

10) Dropbox

One of the best known and most trusted cloud storage and sharing options that are available today, Dropbox has a huge user base and is used all over the world.

11) Writer

Writer has all the features you need from a modern, full-featured word processing and desktop publishing tool. It’s simple enough for a quick memo, but powerful enough to create complete books with contents, diagrams, indexes, and more. You’re free to concentrate on your message, while Writer will make it look great.

12) SimpleScreenRecorder

SimpleScreenRecorder is a Linux program that was created to record programs and games. Its features include,

– Graphical user interface (Qt-based).
– Faster than VLC and ffmpeg/avconv.
– Records the entire screen or part of it, or records OpenGL applications directly (similar to Fraps on Windows).
– Synchronises audio and video properly (a common issue with VLC and ffmpeg/avconv).
– Reduces the video frame rate if your computer is too slow (rather than using up all your RAM like VLC does).
– Fully multithreaded: small delays in any of the components will never block the other components, resulting is smoother video and better performance on computers with multiple processors.
– Pause and resume recording at any time (either by clicking a button or by pressing a hotkey).
– Shows statistics during recording (file size, bit rate, total recording time, actual frame rate)
– Can show a preview during recording, so you don’t waste time recording something only to figure out afterwards that some setting was wrong.
– Uses libav/ffmpeg libraries for encoding, so it supports many different codecs and file formats (adding more is trivial).
– Can also do live streaming (experimental).
– Sensible default settings: no need to change anything if you don’t want to.
– Tooltips for almost everything: no need to read the documentation to find out what something does.