IP CAMERA LEARNING & RESOURCE CENTER

Y-cam have made a name for themselves recently by providing feature-rich entry-level IP cameras at affordable prices. They are also one of the few IP camera manufacturers to fully embrace infrared monitoring.

Now Y-cam is releasing the Y-cam Bullet and we have managed to get hold of one for testing. The Y-cam Bullet is an outdoor-quality network IP camera which offers Wi-Fi connectivity, on-camera microSD card recording and true night vision surveillance using switchable infrared-cut filter and built-in infrared LED lighting.

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To access your IP camera from an external Internet connection you need to know the IP address assigned to your connection by your ISP (Internet Service Provider). This address is known as the public or external IP address and is expressed in the form of four numbers between 0 and 255 separated by a point e.g. (89.72.192.100). You can easily find your current external IP address by visiting www.mycamIP.com.

However, most domestic ISPs give customers a Dynamic IP address which is likely to change if connection is lost, or change periodically without warning. This means that the external IP address you use to access your camera may frequently change leaving you unable to connect.

A Dynamic DNS service allows you access to your IP camera by acting as a go-between. You set your camera to automatically update the Dynamic DNS service with its current external IP address and when you use your Dynamic DNS address it will always link you to your camera. As an added benefit you can also choose a unique and memorable host name which is easier to remember than an IP address.

This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of setting up a Y-cam network camera with the free Dynamic DNS service from www.DynDNS.org. This will include the camera setup, choosing your host name and registration with DynDNS.com. We will then show you how to access your camera using your chosen host name.

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The Y-cam Shell is a great way to mount your Y-cam White, Y-cam Black and Y-cam Knight camera outdoors. It is designed for ease-of-use and work with the wireless capabilities of the Y-cam range.

We are asked regularly why the cameras’ internal LEDs (Black and Knight) reflect back from the Y-cam Shell’s internal dome. There is a very simple solution to this.

Each Y-cam Shell comes with two manuals - one for the Y-Cam White and one for the Y-Cam Black and Y-Cam Knight. The difference between these cameras is night view capability through built-in infrared LEDs. When installing your camera into the Y-cam Shell ensure you follow the instructions from the appropriate manual.

The only other difference during installation is that for the Y-Cam Black and Y-Cam Knight you must remove the Shell’s internal dome before installing the camera. The dome on both the Black and the Knight cameras is capable of external installation and when mounted in the Shell this is what projects from the front of the housing.

Y-Cam Shell with internal dome in place.

Y-Cam Shell with internal dome removed for installation of Y-Cam Black or Knight.

If you install your Y-Cam Black or Knight into the Shell with the internal dome still attached the infrared LEDs on the camera will reflect on the internal dome and ruin your night-time images.

We think the Y-Cam Shell manual isn’t particularly clear on this point and many people miss this key step in the installation process.

Taking what we have learned from HOWTO: Create video clips on demand for local hard disk storage using the Y-cam IP camera we can take it a step further.

How about instead of manually creating video clips each time we have the camera create them automatically when it detects motion? Sounds like that kind of thing would be useful eh? Well it’s very simple to set up so let’s take a look at how it is done.

This guide is suitable for the following Y-cam models:

Y-cam White
Y-cam Black
Y-cam Knight

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One of the interesting features of the Y-cam home security camera is its ability to record short video clips with audio. These video files are stored natively in .asf format, suitable for playing back using Microsoft Windows Media Player.

This guide will show you how to create video files on demand by manually selecting the video start and stop points from the camera’s live view interface. We will also show you how to choose the location for storage of your video clips and also how you can limit the maximum file size per video.

This guide is suitable for the following Y-cam models:

Y-cam White
Y-cam Black
Y-cam Knight

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See our handy cheat-sheet below which notes the key differences between the 1st and 2nd-generation models and also the difference between the Y-cam White, Black and Knight IP cameras.

Note there is no change in the camera’s physical outer appearance between 1st and 2nd generation models.

Here’s a quick HOWTO guide for something we get asked about a lot. How to use your Google Mail (Gmail) account with your Y-cam to send emails.

Almost all IP cameras have some form of email functionality but not all support a secure SSL connection which Google Mail requires. This isn’t normally a problem as the email account details you get from your ISP can be used in most circumstances but for people who want to use Gmail, read on.

This guide will show you the settings to use on the ‘e-Mail Server setup’ page in the Y-cam. How you then use these settings (alarm management, periodic sending) is up to you.

E-Mail Server Setup

The settings above should be self explanatory. The SMTP server name and port comes from Google Mail and you must enable both the Secure SSL connection and Authentication for it to work.

Then you must enter your own Gmail account details noting that when it asks for the user name you only use the first part of your Gmail email address.

Then the only important setting is the Receiver mail addresses of which you can enter up to 3. These are the email addresses which will receive the email from the camera.

All other settings are optional but you can see what they are by the entries we have used above.

If you find you can’t get the camera to send an email using the settings above then it could be the ISP is not allowing it. Some ISPs won’t let you use any other SMTP server other than their own (British Telecom BT are a good example of this). For these cases simply use the SMTP server details from your ISP in the camera (normally minus SSL and Authentication being enabled).

If you have any questions or feedback please leave comments below.

We get asked a lot what the difference between a Y-cam Black and a Y-cam knight is. In general:

• They are both ideal for home surveillance
• They can both operate wirelessly
• They are both easy to set up
• They both have audio built-in
• They both deliver quality images in zero-light environments
• They can both be used to create video clips
• They both detect motion and send an email with an image attached
• They can both be used outdoors with the Y-cam Shell
• They both have a maximum resolution of 640×480 pixels (VGA)
• They both stream to MJPEG and MPEG4
• They can both be viewed on iPhones and other cellphones
• They both come with free multi-live software
• They are not both the same color

In short, they’re exactly the same as one another apart from the color.

We hope that settles it.

Note: Applies to 2nd Generation Y-cams only.

Viewing the video feed from your 2nd Generation Y-Cam Black, Y-Cam Knight or Y-Cam White is easier than ever, now that Y-Cam have built controls into their cameras for just this purpose. Here are the details you need:

iPhone and iPod Touch

On the iPhone or iPod Touch you can visit the camera as you would in any desktop browser and once logged in the Y-cam will auto-detect the browser type (in this case Safari) and display a motion jpeg stream. This is a live video stream directly from the camera, but not optimised for the mobile viewing platform.

Mobile phone with browser and 3gpp capability - VLC player

On your phone’s browser visit http://ipaddress:port/en/mblogin.asp and you will see 3 options: Live picture, 3gpp stream and mobile settings. From here you can choose whether to view a static image, a video stream optimised for cellphones, or change the settings (which you may have to do to get the 3gpp stream working on your phone.

BlackBerry

As above. There are VLC players compatible with the BlackBerry which can be used to view 3gpp streams from the Y-Cam.

Direct 3gpp stream

The direct url for 3gpp streams is: rtsp://ipaddress:port/live_mpeg4.spd

This will work in 3gpp enabled phones, but will also work on your desktop in players like Quicktime and Real Player which support the 3gpp video stream type.

If that url does not work tyr this one: rtsp://ipaddress:port/live_mjpeg.sdp

Live picture

To view a live picture from the Y-Cam on your phone go to http://ipaddress:port/snapshot.jpg. This will display a static image captured at the time of request. To see a new snapshot you will need to refresh the page.

“How can I show the live image from my IP camera on my web page?”

We get asked this question a lot.  Whether it’s from a customer of ours who has a business they would like to promote, say from the leisure or tourism industry or from a customer who is an end user and is working on their family website, we can help with the answer.

We will be running a number of these guides to cover as many camera manufacturers as possible.  This guide will focus on the Y-cam.  The Y-cam is ideal for use as a streaming IP webcam as it is affordable and can be placed outdoors using it’s specially designed Shell housing.

This guide will be suitable for:

Y-cam White
Y-cam Black
Y-cam Knight

It will work for both 1st and 2nd generation models.

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