Because it's more interesting than a coffee pot.I suppose that requires a bit of explanation. (When I first wrote that, it didn't...) The very first webcam showed a picture of a coffee pot in Cambridge, England. It allowed students to see remotely if there was coffee in the pot. No, really!
Subsequently, a few scattered office-cams popped-up in University laboratories and computer companies. The San Diego Baycam was one of the first (and perhaps the first) webcam to show an outdoor vista. In the years that have passed, thousands of webcams have sprung into existence, all over the globe.
People seem fascinated with the ability to instantly look in on some remote part of the globe. I call this "tele vision" - literally "seeing at a distance".
Ironically, after 50 years of broadcast television, the Internet is currently the only practical technology for delivering tele vision.
Jon Tara is a software engineer and the originator of the San Diego BayCam.
You must use Netscape version 1.1 or higher to see the inline video clips. If you ARE using Netscape 1.1+ and still don't see moving pictures, please let me know! We do NOT currently support video images using Microsoft Internet Explorer.We use a technique called "server push" to do this, and currently only Netscape supports this. When other web browsers support this, so will we.
If you have an older computer, or video display board, your frame rate may be limited by your computer, rather than the speed of your Internet connection. See our notes on video performance for more details.
Microsoft Internet Explorer versions through version 3.0 do NOT support server-push animation, and so you cannot view the live or recorded videos.
Primarly to minimize the load on the server. A process is tied-up for the entire time that the clip is being sent. What might normally be a 1-second connection to the server is now 30 seconds. We'd prefer that connections not last 30 minutes. ;) If you want to re-play a pre-recorded video, or see more live video, simply press your browser's "reload" button.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. When live video is available, you will see it by default (if you are using a Netscape browser), and you will also be able to choose from the latest or several saved pre-recorded sequences. Generally, live video is available on weekdays from mid-morning local time until evening local time. We do plan to eventually go to 24-hour live video.
We don't feel that these techniques provides an appropriate picture quality for our images, because of the intra-frame compression that they perform. Also, we want our service to be available to the widest possible Internet audience, and to be usable without the need for special plugins.We will continue to investigate and advocate alternatives that will provide higher quality images at higher frame rates combined with the convenience of in-place web browser viewing.
Well, it isn't really, it just seems that way sometime. ;)The camera is currently manually-aimed. The scene is changed no more often than on a daily basis, usually less often.
I try to keep the camera aimed where there is some motion, so some scenes that are otherwise enjoyable may not be seen as often as they might have been in the past.
We will always consider requests, and have often fulfilled requests (usually for family members) to view a particular naval vessel or cruise ship.
We plan on motorizing the camera mount eventually. We probably will NOT be making the controls available to users, as it would likely make the other users seasick. However, the motorized mount will allow us to keep the camera always pointed at something interesting going on in the bay.
There are currently no plans for other sites.
Yes. We are always interested in sponsors or banner advertising.Contact Jon Tara, jtara@live.net.
If you maintain a non-profit site that is somehow related to our subject matter, we will be glad to provide a free link to your site. We ask that you do the same thing in return. Contact Jon Tara, jtara@live.net to make arrangements.
I currently have no plans to offer this service.
The LiveNet technology that is currently under development will be proprietary, and may or may not be available to others to license.In response to the many e-mailed questions that I get about this, I will shortly be making available a "how to" showing how to put up your own site showing periodic still images using only readily-available MS-Windows programs and dial-up access to a web server.
Unfortunately, I do not have the available time for consulting work.
Plans for this are on hold at this time.
Not at this time. Commercial systems may become available at some point in the future.
(LiveNet components are currently not available for sale. A description is included here for the curious.)
A LiveNet installation consists of:
Cameras, enclosures, and pan/tilt drives (if desired) are available in various models. Cameras range from high-quality but budget-minded surveilance units with special zone-compensation features that help deal with varying lighting conditions to professional broadcast-quality models.
LiveCap, Livenet's streaming capture software, is available in three configurations:
This version is sold only as a complete hardware/software package. It includes a Pentium computer and high-quality video capture board. A minimum 56K connection to your web server is recommended. (The bandwidth required is independant of the number of users accessing your web server.)
This software is available to use with your own hardware. It requires a Sparc 5 processor and SunVideo card.
This version runs on the same computer as your web server. It requires a Sparc 5 processor and a SunVideo card. LiveCap provides these capabilities:
* coming soon
** coming soon, user must have Java-capable web
browser LiveServer is required only for remote
configurations. It runs on the same computer as your web server, and receives
images from LiveCap. It uses non-priviledged IP ports and does not need to run
as root. LiveServer is currently available for Sparc/Solaris. LiveServer
requires Perl 5.1 installed on your system.
LiveAPI is a set of NSAPI (Netscape API) functions or Apache modules that you install into your web server. It currently is available for Sparc/Solaris/Netscape, X86/Solaris/Apache and Sparc/Solaris/Apache.
LiveAPI provides an efficient means of streaming both stored and live JPEG sequences to viewers using standard Netscape HTML (server push - no plug-ins) with minimal load on the web server. LiveAPI is many times more efficient than traditional CGI approaches, and performs no disk accesses when operating in live streaming mode.
In addition to JPEG server push capability, LiveAPI adds a number of handy utility functions, including the ability to serve different pages to specific web browsers with no more effort than dropping files with different extensions onto your server. (For example, the file "faq.n20html" will be served to users with Netscape 2.0 or higher when they request "faq.html".)
LiveAPI is written in C, and is supplied as a compiled Solaris .so file.
E-mail me, Jon Tara, jtara@live.net and I will either add your question to the FAQ or answer it personally.
