Web Cam stup for my site????

[Joe Pineapples]

Hi,
I am looking for info on how to set up a webcam service for my web site.
Is it difficult? i have setup a wecam on my home pc, obviously this is quite easy, but whats involved in a proffesional setup, with pay per view for members, that kind of thing?
Any info or tutorials would be a great help.
Thanks.

[Ace-imlive]

what exactly r u planning lol

[Livewebcamz]

What kind of service are you looking for?

If you want to discuss, please email me -- paul@livewebcamz.com

I might be able to assist.

[LindaMight]

I have had six different webcam products on my website and I am here to tell you, they are ALL a pain in the butt! Either the quality stinks or they are so technical and cost an arm and a leg....I have long given up. There are sites out there that will let you use their software but you have to be available on their site as well as your own so they can reap some of the profit. Not only is all of this aggravating, but then you have to deal with the 2257 regulations about videos and such being documented.

I know I sound cynical.....but that's only because when it comes to webcams, I am.

I'd love to pass along a really good site and/or software program....and I actually had a good program ONCE....and they went belly-up. So....all I can say is that I wish you the very best.

Linda

[juggernaut]

I agree with LindaMight. This is the worst time to open a cam site. With recording the streams in the 2257 down to shoot everything else. The advice I would give you that I got way to late. Was "DONT OPEN A PAY SITE TILL YOU HAVE MASTERED TRAFFIC, DON'T OPEN A CAM SITE TILL YOU HAVE MASTERED EVERYTHING"
There are so many things that come into opening a camsite that I would recommend, if you are dead set on doing it. That you look into programs that offer you all their streams on your site in hopes you will send them sign ups. In the end you will make more money doing that then spending the money on servers, software, billing, model payouts, payouts in general, etc.
If you are new to the WM world and think like most do, open a cam site and the money comes rolling in you are in for a surprise. Sites like IMLive and Ifriends have been around for some time and have a very good staff who know what they are doing in order to make the site turn a profit.
I am lucky my wife is a host and if not for her my site would make no money at all. If you dont have a ton of traffic your hosts will not stay online on your site. It's just the business, those hosts are out there to make money. They dont care about your site, only the $$ and rightfully so. If you can provide them with visitors all day long to chat with then and only then maybe you will make money. If the visitors just sit and chat with the hosts all day and dont buy time then the hosts will leave.
Our site is only a little over 1 month old. We have found that 99% of the people who come to the site just sit and either watch the free video an never come into the chat, or they are from countries whom you dont see much in the line of signups comming from.
Its a really hard site to manage and keep running. My time schedule went from normal wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, to going to sleep at 5am and waking up at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. You need to stay up durring the busiest times of your site. If you dont and no one is there to answer customer or host questions then you will have issues with people not returning and hosts feeling they are not being taken care of.
Look around at IMLive and Livejasmin and Ifriends and see if you can sign up with them on their WM program. Build a site around their streams, this way you have seriously cut your self out a big chunk of startup cash.
I don't know if they are still running the program but IFriends I think used to give out $100 per sign up. Think about it, you open a site and after all is said and done, in the end you make be lucky to walk away with 10 or 15% from any sign up on your own site. If you have a customer who buys $100 worth of time you walk away with $10 or $15 after payouts, keep in mind thats allot of money for a person to buy. Most will buy the least they can. I see more people buying $30 cause its our smallest purchase, then I do buying $100. The people who buy the $100 are people who either know the host, or are (dare I say the word) Pro cam viewers. They know how the systems on most sites work and are confortable with purchasing that time. But its not an everyday thing for new sites. Now if you are on the IFriends program and that same person signs up then you just get an even $100 less the management nightmares of maintaining a customer DB and customer service, etc. Hope this helps, not trying to burst your bubble. It can be done but only with hard work and a commitment for a few years. If you can get past the major brick walls it should pay off, even if its a small site. But getting past the walls is the hardest part. Jugg..

[Joe Pineapples]

I have managed to get the web cam image of my lounge on to a remote html file that every body can see. This is using inexpensive software and java applets.
If I was to tuck that html file into a members only folder in my root directory - That could be a pay per view web cam area of my all ready up n running pay site. (URL is in my profile)

Shurly this is the way forward. It may not be the standard way of doing things, but if it works it works!!!
From the advice given here I don’t think I will get involved with any kind of web cam company, sounds like more hassle than its worth, especially as feel I could do the whole thing myself.
Briefly looked on a search engine at the 2257 regulations thingy – it looks like its just US at the moment, not sure on current UK law.
The other thing would be bandwidth...I bet I need tons and tons.

Thanks for the advice here

Ps. If i have missed any points, please let me know.

[LindaMight]

Oh yes...there is always the bandwidth issue as well. I think you are making a wise decision....it's just not worth it.

Good luck in your endeavors!

Linda

[juggernaut]

Originally Posted by Joe Pineapples

I have managed to get the web cam image of my lounge on to a remote html file that every body can see. This is using inexpensive software and java applets.
If I was to tuck that html file into a members only folder in my root directory - That could be a pay per view web cam area of my all ready up n running pay site. (URL is in my profile)

From what I get with this is that it would not be a true PPM system. Basicly the cam would be running everytime you turned on the software uploading the stream. Heres a little nightmare for you as I have been able to do this last year. But found out in about 1 hour not a good thing. Well I should not say not a good thing, just has issues. OK heres the pitch. Now from what I get from you this is a members site. So anyone can join as long as they meet legal stuff. So you have to run this as a per hour or day thing. In other words you will have to tell your members when you are online and going to be performing a show. If the show is 1 hour then after that the cam gets shut off an all is cool. Many camhosts do this and have started in the area os personnal websites like this. But they get to hard to manage or update. An the customers want updates. I'll be dammed if I'm going to plop out 20,30,40,50 a month for a personnal site that does not update weekly. At the least. So you will find yourself spending hours on end just making your own content. Ok Can be done. There is a weight lifter woman I saw on CNN, semi-famous and she was pulling in 12k a month doing her personnal site.
Now your PPM will not work with out a DB (data base) there has to be something to manage the user and the minutes they are in your video. Think about it. You will only be able to have 1 show at a time cause you will have to be the one turning the cam on and off. If you have two people in the video how in the world are you going to kick the person out whos time has run out? You cant tell the 2nd person to come back cause you need to shut off the cam to remove the other user. So it has to be a schedule thing. No big deal this also can be done. But lots of work. These are reasons people charge up to 25k for camsoftware. Cause it will manage all this for you and totaly manage the money end of it.
Heres what I see are the two best ways for someone to get in the cam business.
1) Only one host, IE yourself.
2) Take on any show with any medium. IE yahoo, msn, etc, hell you can make just a java page that you can send customers to who dont want to use messenger software an take the page on and offline as needed as its only for the cam image.
Now you will have to get your own processor and if you do then going solo is a great. thing. You are making up to 80% of the profit. Bandwidth is not an issue with a good broadband company. On average a cam stream in Java will push out about 100k, flash about 80k, MS media (my person fav cause of all the configs you can run on it and the quality is 2nd to none if you set it right) Can be pushed out anywhere from 50k to 700k. Now keep in mind everyone who connects to that stream just double the #'s Per second and you can get the idea of how many streams you can connect to it, Before is craps out.
Personnaly I tell you this. Sign up at the free yahoo cam girl sites. IE xxxcambabes.com or There are a few others but you will need a processor. Anyway turn on your yahoo and with in 2 minutes if you are HOT HOT HOT you will have someone begging you for a show. THey all want paypal or WU. Dont do the paypal as U will be banned and not get the money for 6 months in some cases. Just take the WU and run with the money. You will get the idea after one day of whats good and not good to do. If I had to do it all over again. I would have saved the 20k and just went solo. Maybe branch out after a few months to another contry and open a studio and just take the 25% after everything.

[juggernaut]

OH One last thing. Just in case you still have that itch. There are companies that offer a full service cam site. They are total turnkey operations, all you have to do it give them the $$. You get software, servers, bandwidth, models, support, etc. But they are very exspenive. Almost as much as buying software. But in the end you have nothing.. Thats right nothing. No software or anything. So just be very careful if you ever go that route.

[LindaMight]

Jugger...you just hit all of the "highlights" of webcam...haha. I've run into every single one of them. Fortunately I didn't lay out thousands....well maybe a few thousand only to have both companies go "belly up" and as usual...I was left with nothing.

To Joe Pineapples....... My experience with Yahoo, etc., watch out watch out watch out....even those who pay you to watch can a lot of times make copies of what you are showing....because they really are not interested in what you are showing for themselves...they want to make copies to they can reproduce it on their sites for profit. The thing that makes me want to STRANGLE surfers, members, would-be members, etc., is that they have NO IDEA how difficult it is to produce, perform, manage and update webcam shows....they just think that we can wave the magical sex wand and POOF....they can watch us in HIGH QUALITY, for hours on end....at low cost to them. I HATE WEBCAM and I would never try to accomplish it again.

[alentyev]

lol

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Thanks,
Dmitry

[Joe Pineapples]

Yeah I guess what I was really after was technical help and logistical advice.
As far as the actual movie content goes that is all taken care off.
Im not looking to make mega mega bucks, just a web cam service for my little niche website.

I have used quite a bit of webcam sotware over the last few days and have settled on
PySoft at the moment.

Although I still need to find out how to broadcast webcam as smoothly as possible across the internet.
I got some friends to log on with their broadband connections (4), it was well jeky and it kept stuttering.
I tried broadcasting from both my Ip and a remote server, there wasn't a huge amount of difference.

There must be a tutorial for all the technical stuff, or perhaps there isn't

and it seems you can also broadcast through a flash movie, I dont know if this method is better or worse than using java applet

Cheers

[Joe Pineapples]

Ok I have found the info I need, I can see now how it might turn into a real pain in the arse.

Thanks for the help