All Day Video Setup

This FAQ will help you get started with the all day video feature in Weather Display.

What the all day video does, is compiles your web cam images into an almost seamless video display for the whole day.

For a nice example, thanks to Krucky, click here

First, before we start, please be sure you have your web cam working properly, and your files are being saved
correctly. This uses the jpgwebcam.jpg images, so make sure these are being created and saved properly before you start.

This feature will create over 1000 images to make the video being that you will be creating a different image every
minute. I had originally had my web cam files being created in my webfiles folder (which is the default location)
which was OK when doing the standard image capture. But, after starting with the all day video, all those images were
created in my webfiles folder, and I found it a nuisance to work on my other files. So, I opted to create a new
folder in my WD folder called “webcam”, and changed my regular web cam settings so my images were saved there. If you
are going to do this, make those changes first, and make sure your jpgwebcam.jpg image is being saved where you want it.

Here is a view of the settings for saving the files the way I have it. You access this screen by double clicking on the little camera icon in your system tray (bottom right near your clock)
Also, note that the button is ticked for “Every Minute”.

OK - lets get started.
The first thing you need to do is download the Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9 Series.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx

Once you download that file, simply execute it - location is not important (download to wherever you want, then just double click on it)

Now, the WD configuration -
First, you need to make time stamped files.

Go to “Control Panel” > Web Cam Setup > then click the “Time Stamped Files Setup” tab.

Check the box for “Produce Every Minute”.

[Hidden Feature] If you check the next two lower boxes as shown - after your video has been produced, when you are
viewing your main screen in WD - while your mouse is over the upper right graph (baro/wind), then hold down your
left mouse button, and move the mouse back and forth over the graph, your video will appear in a pop-up window and
show the video move in time as you move your mouse back and forth.

OK - back to the subject at hand…

Now, in the same screen, click the tab for “All Day Video” (shown below).

If you check the boxes shown above, you will be creating the video for all day, plus it will be created and uploaded
every hour. Doing it like this, you can view the video during the day up until the last hour. This is nice in that
your website viewers can see what has been happening during the current day. Then, after sunset, the entire days
video will show. You can check the other boxes to do the things you want with it.
Also take note of the text at the bottom of the screen shot above. This tells you the directory used, and the image
used, etc. Make sure this corresponds with your setup.

One more step -
After completing the last section, click on the tab “Current Web Cam Image/Main Settings”.

Click the upper right button “Load/Set The Web Cam Image File”. You should now see your web cam image on the left, and the file name should appear under the button.

OK - now all you have to do is wait - don’t you just hate that part?

Usually around 7 minutes after the top of the hour, your video will be created (each hour). Look in your WD folder
for the “alldayvideo” folder. You should start to see a bunch of images in there - that is a good thing. Then scroll
down toward the bottom of the folder, and you should see a couple Windows Media Files. One will be
videolastday.mpeg. That is your original large file video. Also, you will see videolastday.wmv. This is the
compressed file that will be uploaded to your website. The video is uploaded automatically after it is created each hour.

That should be it. Hopefully you are now creating and uploading your All Day Video.

If you have questions about this, please post in the “Questions” forum here: http://discourse.weather-watch.com/c/10

FAQ Addition: HobbyTalk has shared his findings on how to tweak the quality of the .wmv file that is created by the all day video.
The post can be found here: http://discourse.weather-watch.com.msg93393.html#new
Thanks for sharing HobbyTalk!

FAQ Addition II: After you have successfully been running the all day video, then all of a sudden one day it movie maker either hangs, or crashes, here is the usual fix.
If you happen to get just one corrupt image file in your alldayvideo folder, it will cause this to happen. You could search through all the images to see if you can find it, but with thousands of images, that might be difficult.
Another thing to try, is to delete all the images in the alldayvideo folder, then wait until the next day when the images start being created in the folder, and see if the movie maker runs correctly then.

Just some new notes:
You may need to copy the file WMcmd.vbs to your c:\documents and settings(username)\ folder
also, with the latest version of WD, if not using WD’s direct web cam capture to create the web cam image
(i.e using HTTP download from a IP camera or using wd’s 3rd party web cam setup), now you can set up WD to control moviemaker for the creation of the all day video images :slight_smile: