{"id":296,"date":"2010-10-12T06:39:52","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T13:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/12\/connecting-multiple-ip-cameras-to-windows-media-center\/"},"modified":"2012-02-08T16:19:29","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T21:19:29","slug":"connecting-multiple-ip-cameras-to-windows-media-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/12\/connecting-multiple-ip-cameras-to-windows-media-center\/","title":{"rendered":"Connecting Multiple IP Cameras to Windows Media Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

After publishing a piece on how to connect an Internet enabled camera to WMC, iPhones and iPads<\/strong><\/span><\/a> yesterday, I received a couple of emails basically saying, \u201cgreat, but I want to monitor more than one camera in a master view like stand alone IP surveillance software\u201d.<\/p>\n

I thought about this for a bit and then tested to see if an HTML page could be hosted locally, placed in the C:ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Accessories\\Media Center\\Media Center Programs<\/span><\/strong> folder with the appropriate MCL and PNG file. The answer was yes, and this now opens the door to more customizations.<\/p>\n

Further, I thought that the still images needed to be refreshed. Not much value in watching an image on the screen that just sits there. I fired up Microsoft Expression Web and created a page and added in a META REFRESH tag to reload every xx seconds (I used 30 seconds as the interval). While tables should not be used for layout on a page designed to be viewed in a real web browser (a deprecated means of coding), a nested table structure proved perfect for display inside Windows Media Center. I specified the Segoe UI font and ended up with something that looked pretty decent and worked.\u00a0 Here is the view inside Windows Media Center:<\/p>\n

\"mycameras\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here is the HTML code. You will need to replace the hostname, port, image path as I documented in the post linked above. The mycameras.html file I created contains the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<head>
\n<meta content=”en-us” http-equiv=”Content-Language”>
\n<meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”30″><\/p>\n

<style type=”text\/css”>
\na {
\ncolor: #DDEEFF;
\n}
\na:visited {
\ncolor: #DDEEFF;
\n}
\na:active {
\ncolor: #DDEEFF;
\n}
\na:hover {
\ncolor: #FFFFFF;
\n}
\n.style3 {
\nfont-family: Arial;
\nfont-size: x-large;
\nfont-weight: bold;
\n}
\n.style4 {
\nfont-family: “Segoe UI Semibold”;
\nfont-size: x-large;
\nborder-width: 0;
\ntext-align: center;
\n}
\n.style5 {
\nborder: 10px solid #FFFFFF;
\n}
\n.style6 {
\nfont-family: “Segoe UI Semibold”;
\nfont-size: x-large;
\ntext-align: center;
\n}
\n<\/style>
\n<\/head><\/p>\n

<body style=”color: #99CCFF; “><\/p>\n

<p class=”style3″>&nbsp;<\/p>
\n<table>
\n<tr>
\n<td>
\n<table>
\n<tr>
\n<td class=”style4″>Parking Lot Cam<\/td>
\n<\/tr>
\n<tr>
\n<td class=”style5″>
\n<img alt=”” height=”480″ src=”http:\/\/hostname.com:XYZ\/IMAGE.jpg” width=”640″><\/td>
\n<\/tr>
\n<\/table>
\n<\/td>
\n<td>
\n<table>
\n<tr>
\n<td class=”style6″>Home Office Cam<\/td>
\n<\/tr>
\n<tr>
\n<td class=”style5″>
\n<img alt=”” height=”480″ src=”http:\/\/hostname.com:XYZ\/cgi-bin\/video.jpg?size=3″ width=”704″><\/td>
\n<\/tr>
\n<\/table><\/p>\n

&nbsp;<\/td>
\n<\/tr>
\n<\/table>
\n<p class=”style3″>&nbsp;<\/p><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The MCL file (mycameras.mcl) is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<application url=”mycameras.html”
\nname=”My Cameras”
\nbgcolor=”RGB(255,255,255)”
\nstartimage=”.mycameras.png”
\nthumbnailImage=”.mycameras.png”
\nsharedviewport=”false”>
\n<\/application><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

After removing the files I created and used yesterday, I placed the html file, the MCL file, and the new PNG file in the C:ProgramDataMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuProgramsAccessoriesMedia CenterMedia Center Programs<\/span><\/strong> folder. Next I launched Windows Media Center,and\u00a0 opened Extras.<\/p>\n

\"mycameras.extra\"<\/p>\n

I finished by adding my new My Cameras extra as a top level Extras menu item.<\/p>\n

\"mycameras.main\"<\/p>\n

Now, if I add more cameras, I can just edit the existing HTML. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll have to change (reduce) the size of the displayed image to get more on a single page, but I now have a personal IP Camera viewport inside Windows Media Center. (And naturally, I\u2019ve added the second camera to my iPhone and iPad Smartvue configuration).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After publishing a piece on how to connect an Internet enabled camera to WMC, iPhones and iPads yesterday, I received a couple of emails basically saying, \u201cgreat, but I want to monitor more than one camera in a master view like stand alone IP surveillance software\u201d. I thought about this for a bit and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[47,19,25,42,44,70],"tags":[292,295],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":""},"post_excerpt_stackable":"

After publishing a piece on how to connect an Internet enabled camera to WMC, iPhones and iPads yesterday, I received a couple of emails basically saying, \u201cgreat, but I want to monitor more than one camera in a master view like stand alone IP surveillance software\u201d. I thought about this for a bit and then tested to see if an HTML page could be hosted locally, placed in the C:ProgramData\\Microsoft\\Windows\\Start Menu\\Programs\\Accessories\\Media Center\\Media Center Programs folder with the appropriate MCL and PNG file. The answer was yes, and this now opens the door to more customizations. Further, I thought that the…<\/p>\n","category_list":"Connected Home<\/a>, Media Center<\/a>, Networking<\/a>, Windows 7<\/a>, Windows Media Center<\/a>, Wireless Streaming<\/a>","author_info":{"name":"Barb","url":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/author\/barb\/"},"comments_num":"0 comments","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pvFKI-4M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmediaphile.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}