Basic USB Web Cam Setup

This FAQ is for just the basics to get you started with a USB web cam in Weather Display. This is to be used for a USB web cam

To get started, the first step is to get your camera installed. Use the software that came with your camera to set it up. Follow the directions carefully - some software has you plug in the camera while the installation software is running so that the proper drivers get loaded. So, don’t plug your camera in without the installation software telling you to. Once that is done, verify that the camera is working with its own software.

Next, shut down the camera software. This is very important because only one application can use the camera at one time. If the camera is being used by the current software, Weather Display will not be able to recognize it. Also, wait a couple minutes after shutting down the software before going into Weather Display - sometimes the software will not release the camera right away. You might still see an icon in your task bar for you camera still showing there - that should be OK - just be sure the camera viewer is shut down.

OK - now to the fun part…

In Weather Display, click on Setup > Control Panel > Web cam Setup/View.
Select the “Current Web Cam Image/Main Settings” tab, then click on “Setup/view Direct Live Web Cam Capture”.

Now the webcamcapture program should be running - you should see a little camera icon in your system tray near your clock. Double click on that camera icon to bring up the program screen. Then click on the “Capture Settings” tab.

Follow the numbers in the image below for the next few instructions:

1 - Turn the switch on
2 - See that your web cam is showing in the drop down box. If it is not, then you camera is not being recognized by Weather Display. Go back to making sure your camera is working in its own software, then be sure the software is shut down.
3 - If Weather Display is seeing your camera successfully, it will show in this window.
4 - Click on the “Start Now” button, and also check the box for “Keep Live”.
5 - You should now see your image in the window (live).
6 - Here you can select the “preferred video size” - start out with “device size”.
7 - You can click on “Device” which will open a screen where you can make adjustments to your camera image.

OK - if you’ve made it this far, that’s great. Now on to saving the images.

Click on the “File Save” tab.

1 - Turn the switch on.
2 - Click the button “Set the web cam directory”. As it says, just simply select any file.
3 - After clicking on the above button, your directory should be as shown. If you web files are in a different directory, then you must specify that here.
4 - The names for the .gif & .jpg should automatically be set as shown. You can change this if you like at a later time, but remember what they are. Then click the “Set” button to the right.
5 - Here you can set the frequency of the file save.

Next (very important), click the “Save” button, then do not close this window - click on the little down arrow at the top right of the screen to minimize the application to your system tray again.

Now, depending on the file save interval you selected, after it has been created and saved, you should find your images in your web files folder in WD. You might have to wait for the next file save interval until you see it there. Make sure the images are there before you go on to the next step.

Almost done - now you should see your images in your web files folder. Now we have to get them to upload to your site.

Click on Setup > Control Panel > FTP Setup.
Then choose the “Web Cam Upload” tab.

1 - Turn the switch on. Also make sure your main FTP switch is on in the “Connections” tab.
2 - Click on “Choose a web cam file”. Select you image from your web files folder in WD. You can choose either or both of you images if you like.
3 - After you select your image file, it will show in this box. Click on the “Add” button to the right of the box to add it to the list of files to upload.
4 - Your selected files should now show in this box. Make sure you check the box for “upload these files”.
5 - Now set the times to upload.
6 - Drum roll please…click the “Test An Upload” button…Then close the window by clicking on the “OK” button.


That should get you going with the basic web cam setup. There are many more features within WD for customizing things - want to try one now? OK - most folks like to have a time stamp on their image - shows people viewing your site that indeed your image is live (or almost).
Double click on your camera icon in your system tray to bring up the program screen. Then select the "Overlay" tab.

1 - Check the box for “Show a Time Stamp”.
2 - Set “Align” to either left, center, or right. Use the position boxes to position your time stamp. Now click the button “Set the Color/Font” - choose what looks good on your image. If you want your background to be transparent, check the box for “transparent”.
3 - Sometimes the text you enter may not show on your image. To get the text to show, put a couple spaces (hit your space bar) in front of your text.

If you got your time stamp to work, that’s great. You’re now on your way to explore the many other features of the Web Cam in Weather Display!


Important Update

With the newer versions of Weather Display, the web cam is now handled by a separate program.

There are only a couple differences from the screens show above.

First, in the main screen, there is no “Close” button. Instead, you will now want to click the small down arrow at the top right of the screen.

After clicking that arrow, the web cam utility will show in your task bar next to your clock.

If you click on the “red X” in the web cam screen, it will shut down the utility.

Also, when the web cam utility is running, the button in the first web cam screen (first image in this faq) “Setup/View direct live web cam capture” will not do anything. This is to ensure that you do not start a second utility while one is already running. To open the web cam configuration screens, just double click on the web cam icon in your task bar.