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20080208 [PC Pro]
How to set up an IP camera
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1 Using your camera's setup guide, plug in the power and network cables and attach the network cable to a free port on your router. Usually, you can then run a discovery utility from a CD that searches the network for any cameras. |
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2 You'll need to change your camera's IP address to match your existing network, and ensure that it's a fixed IP address. If your camera has Wi-Fi, configure the SSID, security type and password. Finally, set a username and password that need to be entered before the video can be seen, as you don't want strangers watching. |
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3 For wireless cameras, remove the network cable and turn the camera off and on again. When it starts up, it should automatically connect to your wireless network. Whether it's wireless or not, you can browse to your camera's web interface by typing its IP address into a browser. |
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4 Type in the username and password. You may be asked to install an ActiveX or Java applet, which is downloaded from the camera. Once this is done, you should be able to see live video. If you have a pan-and-tilt camera, try the directional controls to see if it moves as expected. |
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5 In the configuration section of your camera's web interface, make a note of the ports that are set for web (HTTP) and video (RTSP) streaming. On our D-Link camera, they're set to the usual 80 and 554, but if those ports are already in use by another camera you can change them here. |
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6 Depending on your router, look for port forwarding, virtual servers or firewall rules. You need to open the outbound ports set in step 5. This Netgear router was already preloaded with common services, so we simply had to create two outbound firewall rules to allow port 80 and 554 requests from our camera's IP address. |
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