If I told you that there are literally thousands of publicly accessible cameras that you could pull up on your computer right now… would you believe me?

A little Google search, inurl:/view/index.shtml, shows us only one brand of public IP Cameras.

I tell you this because of my current project that i have recently had a lot of success with.  My goal is to setup cameras through out my apartment in order to monitor what goes on within it.

What I’m wanting is three very basic things.  It took me a few days of research to verify that they were possible.  The first thing I wanted for my camera project was the ability to use my web-cam along with network IP cameras I will purchase over time.  I wanted to be able to access all of the cameras the same way… which meant that I needed a computer software to turn my USB web-cam into an IP Camera, or at least act like one.  The second thing I wanted was to have a software package that will display the video feeds from all my cameras on one 20” LCD I have in my office.  This LCD will work exclusively to display the security system.  The system itself, using this software would act much like a DVR and record the video feeds to a file on it’s hard drive.  Lastly I wanted the ability to view the cameras remotely on my iPhone. 

I was very happy to find that all of this was possible with two pieces of software.  One is called IP Vision Pro, and is an iPhone app available through the iTunes App Store for only $24.99.  This application gives me the ability to  watch and control IP Network Cameras which are publicly available over the internet. 

The second software package I would need is called WebCamXP.  I will be using the Pro license because it has the ability to have unlimited number of cameras, among other very useful features.

This software not only connects to IP Network Cameras like the IP Vision Pro software, but will also turn my USB web-cam into an IP Network Camera as well. 

WebCamXP also has the advanced features of those expensive monitoring programs like DVR functionality.

Now that the software is out of the way, I can focus on cameras.  When I have additional camera research I’ll be sure to post it here…