Can another computer connect to my webcam via USB?

Question

So I have my machine that has a webcam on it and I want to be able to access this webcam from another machine via USB. The other machine should be able to connect and see my machine as a webcam. Essentially I want to "forward" the webcam input into another USB's output. Is there a way for me to do this?

Answer 1

There is a way to do USB over IP, but it is propriety, costs money and has some quirks (as a USB packet takes about 3 IP packets)...
usbnet is the package you need if you really want to do USB over IP.

Alternative:

If you just want to stream the webcam on the ground floor to look at your dog from the top floor, VLC is indeed what you need:

Step 1: test video capture

• Install VLC if you don't have it.
• Start VLC
• Open the Media menu
• Choose Open capture device
• set capture mode to Video camera.

Then choose the correct video device name (usually /dev/video0) and if you stream from one computer to another computer nearby, leave audio off. (to eliminate feed-back)

• Click Play

If this works, you're ready to go to step 2. If not, play with capture device names until it works! ;-)

Step 2: Start streaming

• Open the Media menu,
• Click on the button Stream
• Click on the Capture device tab
• Don't change anything as it contains all the settings from step 1
• Click the button Stream
• Click Next
• Choose HTTP, Click Add, and click Next
• Choose Video - Theora + Vorbis (OGG) and click Next
• Click Stream

Voilà! You're streaming! (the Webcam light should be on) Now go to a terminal and type ifconfig and write down the IP address (probably 192.168.x.y)

Step 3: look at your stream

• Go to the other computer
• Open a browser
• Enter the address: 192.168.x.y:8080

Voilà: there's the dog! If you want to look at your dog from work, you'll also need to go into your router and do IP forwarding, or put the webcam computer in the DMZ (dangerous!) etc, etc, but the above should get you up-and-running in no time!