Suppose you have a spare webcam or IP camera and you want that unit to cover an entrance, a hallway, or a room. What is the best software for the task? Instead of getting lost in a maze of premium and proprietary options, today we present an alternative in the form of IP Camera Viewer, a free and simple software that supports up to four cameras simultaneously, combining IP cameras and webcams without a hitch.
The keyword is "simple". No systems costing thousands of euros, no 16 TB disk farms recording 24/7, no 4K feeds. All you need is a simple solution for pointing an IP camera or webcam in a specific direction and seeing what happens on your computer monitor. Configuring the cameras is as easy as connecting a USB cable or assigning an IP address on the same network, but what about the software? Before fighting with proprietary tools, you might want to try IP Camera Viewer.
How to Use Webcams as Surveillance Cameras with IP Camera Viewer
After installing IP Camera Viewer, the first step is to configure the cameras within it. Its official page reports that the program supports more than 2,000 IP camera models and virtually all USB cameras. In fact, IP Camera Viewer also works with virtual cameras like DroidCam, which reuses phones and tablets.
The rest is about specifying the camera layout, with a maximum of four. In the properties of each camera, you can adjust aspects such as its speed in FPS, color space and compression, the final output resolution, and the overall feed quality to optimize its performance. You can also adjust the microphone volume (if the camera has one), but the advanced audio options are the same as those of the operating system.
IP Camera Viewer does not include motion detection, recording functions, acoustic alerts, or email alarms, and anyone needing all that will have to acquire Security Monitor Pro, its "premium" sibling. However, for basic and direct surveillance, IP Camera Viewer is more than enough.
Official site and download: Click here
