OBS Studio is supposed to do streaming from a PC's webcam in Windows or Linux, somewhat similar to how an actual netcam streams but the netcam doesn't need a PC

OBS Studio is supposed to do streaming from a PC's webcam in Windows or Linux, somewhat similar to how an actual netcam streams but the netcam doesn't need a PC & software to do the streaming. With a netcam the PC is only needed to set up the netcam, then the netcam streams by itself, connected directly to your network, the PC can then be turned off. Either way you would be opening a port on your firewalls/routers to match the one you select for your camserver-PC (or netcam), for viewers to access the cam at yourIPaddress:port by using a media player like VLC or even the old Windows Media Player, which accepts a specific port for streaming media from a numerical or named IP address. Basically you use the "port forwarding" features of your router to allow the internet WAN to connect to your private LAN through that one specific port only, where the camera stream is present. This is considered a "pinhole" in your firewall. The viewing user does need to use a media player that has the proper codecs installed to play the format that your particular cam is sending. With encoding software like OBS you can choose to stream other formats besides the native cam output if you want.