MacBook – Watch Mac’s iSight (webcam) on another Mac over LAN

macbook prostreamingvideowebcam

I have two Macs (A MacBook Air, and a MacBook Pro).

Now, I'd like to view the live picture of the webcam of one MacBook on the other. (So, I'd like to stream my webcam or, equivalently use my iSight as an IP Cam).

A nasty restriction is: I do have a router (and hence a LAN), but it's not connected to the Internet. 3G (cellular network) too is practically non-existent.

I have tried:

  • VLC Player: The tutorials on the net are mostly outdated (pre 2012). I tried, but I could not receive the stream. VLC would keep on telling me that it could not open it.

  • FFMPEG: It could find the cam and presumably stream it using RTP, but I could not find a way to watch the stream on the other Mac. (Neither with QuickTime, nor with VLC)

  • AtHome Video Streamer: This app only sends the image, but there is no app to watch it on the Mac. This app is only available on hendheld devices.

I am not afraid of the command line interface and also prepared to pay a couple of Euro's (Dollars, for that matter) for an app.

Best Answer

Try IP Cam by Senstic available on the Mac App Store (no affiliation with the developer).

This app claims to work over a private network without needing active connection to the Internet. From the app description:

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Start IP Cam on your mac.
  2. Take a note on the HTTP access address shown by IP Cam.
  3. For Wi-Fi remote viewing, enter the same HTTP address into the web browser from another computer or iOS device on the same Wi-Fi network.
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