Hi there-
Thanks for posting. I suspect that several of your questions might be answered by the following help article.
The first part mentions the supported file types. The main thing being that many IP cameras output RTSP, but browsers don’t natively support RTSP.
As such, most people use one of the solutions noted at the bottom of that article - namely using software like TinyCam (Android) or Blue Iris (Windows) to translate the stream to a supported format like MJPEG.
Any software that can translate the stream to a supported format would work, so if there’s different software you prefer, that’s fine too.
FFMPEG is a software tool for processing video formats… but if the cameras directly output a format supported by browsers like MJPEG, then you might be able to use it directly. Just keep in mind that Chrome has started blocking mixed content by default as noted in the above linked help article (non-SSL in an SSL page), so you might need to tweak your Chrome settings on your PC to support that.
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The main first step is being able to view the camera stream directly in your web browser.
Once you get that part figured out, being able to embed them in SharpTools is usually pretty straightforward with the Chrome Mixed Content thing being the main “gotcha” for most people.