[TowerTalk] WebCams/Tower Camera

[K. Alan Robbins]

Finally a subject here that I feel qualified to offer an opinion on :-)

 

My experience with the consumer wireless IP web cams is that while they are
a great value ($50-$60) they are quite finicky and from time to time they
simply refuse to come back online when the power fails, requiring one to
unplug them and plug them back in again.  While they claim to support DHCP
they prefer a static IP, with DHCP they are even harder to get started
again.

 

Streaming video at a decent resolution takes more bandwidth than you might
think, and your ISP gives you a much bigger "down" pipe than an "up" pipe,
the camera output is going "up".

 

To conserve bandwidth ftp the camera image every 15 or 30 seconds to your
(or someone else's)  web server with a static HTML page, such as mine @
http://moosecam.mooseworldwidedigital.com.  This is not a tower cam, just a
camera looking out a window in the house (which is also my office).   I took
the output from the Ultimeter 800 weather station in the shack and added it
to this page with a simple program I'd be happy to give away to anyone who
is interested.

 

On the computer I am using WebCam XP5 which works, and is free for one video
source, but crashes every five to seven days and has to be restarted.
WebCam XP5 handles the automatic ftp for you.

 

It is also quite fun to put free Google Analytics on your webcam page and
see who finds it, I have had people from all over the world visit the camera
page.

 

Next project here is definitely a tower cam and am really appreciating all
the links to good cameras to buy.  I am using POE in other applications and
it works flawlessly.

 

73 de W8VCK Alan in Michigan