Webcam in HTML 5

Question

Is there any Webcam feature in HTML 5? I couldn't find any and was wondering if it can be done without Flash and/or Silverlight.

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Alright. I found the answer. Looks like getUserMedia can do the trick. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro/

Sam Hobbs · Answer

HTML is primarily used in a client/server configuration. When used that way, the webcam is usually not in the local computer. Note that the original question can be interpreted in multiple ways. You did not specify what you meant so that makes the question ambiguous. You knew what you meant but it is not clear to everyone else what you meant. I think if you were to try to propose a standard for a HTML webcam API, you will spend a lot of time clarifying what is meant. The following are webcams that are not in the local computer. Mt. Wilson 150-Foot Solar Tower Current Towercam Image — Image only Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam — image only SBCC CoachCam Altadena WeatherCam Palm Springs Aerial Tramway ::: Long Valley Cam Webcam Catalina Island Avalon Tamalpais webcam BEACH CAM - Live webcam from Venice, California Farallones Web Cam Cable Airport

Mahesh Chand · Answer

Sam, WebCam means a client (user) machine's web camera. For example, if I am on C# Corner using a laptop, means webcam in my laptop. Server can't have a Webcam and access user's machine :) Flash and Silverlight have controls that can access a Webcam and capture user's audio and videos.

Sam Hobbs · Answer

Perhaps it depends on what you mean by webcam. Would the webcam be in the server or the client? Is there anything in HTML that uses the server? I am not aware of anything; that is what ASP and PHP do. A HTML page shows content for a web site but not from a web site. So that seems like a contradiction. For example the new HTML database API stores data locally but only for the purpose of the web site; the data is not from the web site. Note that there is not really a HTML database API since they are having difficulty being specific about what it should do. I think there is a fundamental inconsistency in function here. HTML is not designed for local applicaitons; it can be, and is, used that way but that is not its fundamental purpose. It might be obvious to us that a HTML web page would show content from a webcam someplace, but in terms of language implementors that must be precise in their definition of something, it might not be so obvious what a webcam element or API would do.

Manikavelu Velayutham · Answer

I think the implementation is in Draft status. Its possible using Jquery web camera Plugin. But few mentioned like using tag its possible. You can refer the below links http://blog.whatwg.org/whats-next-in-html-episode-1 http://active.tutsplus.com/articles/roundups/10-flash-things-you-can%E2%80%99t-do-with-html5/ http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD-html-media-capture-20100928/ https://labs.ericsson.com/developer-community/blog/beyond-html5-conversational-voice-and-video-implemented-webkit-gtk http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5083617/accessing-webcam-with-javascript