Webcam or no webcam?

Looks like that version 10.36k is now the current version. Brian sure works fast to remedy some issues. Tremendous work, Brian. Thanks.

–Stan Y.
Maui, Hawaii

I tried making sunrise earlier today, but it didn’t work for some reason. Perhaps there’s a bug in sunrise control?

:laughing6:

That’s just next to the

Publish weather 3 weeks ahead in time option?

Still - the same extended privileges are needed! :wink:

I think you’re confusing that with the ‘Set weather 3 weeks ahead in time’ option. That needs higher privileges. Publishing weather three weeks ahead in time is easy to achieve…just set your PC clock 3 weeks ahead :wink:

I have another question regarding the quality of the streaming video…

In the wdwebcamcapture.exe program, the streaming video is amazing quality, but on my website, the streaming video quality is about half as good. Any way I can get the streaming video on my website to look any better?

Thanks.

–Tim

I havent used that utility, but i think you are seeing two different things.

  1. The video you see in the program is live data from the webcam.

  2. The video you see on the website, is processed video saved to a video format.

Most of the time when you are saving video, you are saving what changed and the resolution is no where near the resolution that you actually see live. Depending on the software, you can change that, but it is very hard to get the live look into the file due to what the actual size would be.

In the program that I use, in order to make the downloadable video reasonable, I am using about 82% (about 22% compressed) and I am using a setting that says only send a new frame once every 10 frames, and only when 10% or more of the picture has changed. Both greatly reduce the images sent and keep bandwidth and CPU usage down.

I plan on moving my webcam back outside today.


active-cam-settings-compression.gif

Kevin,

I realize that the video does have to go through a process, but there has got to be a way to make the video quality on my website better.

Are there certain settings in WD that I should change?

Thanks.

–Tim

Well maybe someone else reading this topic will know… :roll:

–Tim

You could buy infinite bandwidth from your ISP, and provide free T1 connections and fast PC’s to anyone who wants to look at your trees blowin’ in the wind :roll:

The reason why I have not bothered trying the WD solution is because my WD is running in a dedicated PC located inside my Computer Rack way against the far wall of my office.

The webcam is connected to my workstation (not where WD is) which is next to the window where the webcam is located. Its about 3ft away from the box.

I also already owned a copy of several webcam packages, PySoft Active Webcam, ConquerCam and a few others so I really didn’t need a WD solution.

Tim,

Actually, your video is fine the way it is. You are not using a $3k camera, nor do you have the bandwidth to broadcast DVD quality images. But you are doing what the goal is… showing what your weather looks like.

The clouds whipping by and the movement of the trees give a good impression of what it is like outside.

It would be nice, if you could display the webcam without the big black border around it and the controls which are not really necessary to see the image, but I don’t know if you can do that.

At least you have some weather to look at… all we have here today is plain blue skys… I do have the WD-Car generator working though… you can see cars drive by occassionally to give it that real look.

Thanks, Kevin.

When you say “display the webcam without the big black border around it and the controls”, do you mean the area beneath the streaming video? If so, I think you can remove that.

Do you think there is anything I should change about the image quality? Brightness? Hue? Sharpness?

Thanks.

–Tim

OK.

I don’t know if this is what you are referring to, but here goes anyway.

When the moviemaker generates the movie, it runs through all the jpg’s as if they were a movie. It’s actually just showing them as it takes them in to be processed to MPG and then to WMV. The jpg’s in fast succession will obviously always look MUCH better than the resulting MPG file.

Maybe this is what you are referring to - maybe it’s something similar in wdwebcamcapture, that I don’t use (I use a netcam).

Only you can make that decision Tim.

You need to play around with the settings to see if to you, it makes a difference.

That is how you learn, by experimentation… there are few things you can break outright… so experiment until you understand what does and does not work.

This is a hobby…

Without trying it yourself, you will forever need to ask someone else for the answer. And many won’t have time to answer because they are doing their own experimentation and learning how things work.

Kevin,

I experimented (:wink:) with the fps in the wdwebcamcapture.exe program and set it to the default (which is 5.00 fps). Noticed that it does consistently use a bit more CPU, but I will see how that goes.

Looks much better now…http://www.newtownweather.com/wx21.html

–Tim

thats very good now Tim
is that using the network streaming ability built into wd’s direct web cam program?

Brian,

Yes, that’s using the direct network streaming in WD.

–Tim

good stuff :slight_smile:
what a powerfull and neat program weather display is :wink:

I agree. The WD-Cloud Generator is working great today

http://www.tnetweather.com/webcams.php

We had only clear blue skys until I turned it on this morning. Now we have a real weather look. Its amazing how it effects the lighting just like when real clouds go by.