Livelook.tv Blog

I’d love something like Winscape for live webcams.   The high def video must look great but this would be so neat to have a live look at anywhere.  Very interesting product.  One downside is the energy use of the displays, it’s a lot more energy efficient to just go look out the window.

Ever thought of setting up a webcam but been put off by the high cost of megapixel IP cams from Stardot, Axis or Mobotix?  All of these manufacturers make high quality products with megapixel images, motion detection, stand alone units and much more.  They’re great options for outdoor applications or other spots where you need a self contained secure unit.   But if you have a view where a PC or laptop could be safely left running you might consider a lower cost digital camera webcam.

Low cost digital cameras have terrific image quality compared to the very small CCTV lenses on the standard IP network cams.  A used Olympus digital camera can be found on eBay for under $50.   Combined with a low end used PC and some webcam software the Canon or Olympus digital cameras can produce outstanding webcam images.

Some examples of excellent quality digital camera webcams:

Teton Cam -  Driggs, Idaho

Kat Cam – Vancouver, British Columbia

Take a Break – New Zealand

What you need:

1. Olympus or Canon digital camera.  See the list of supported cameras first.

2. Webcam Software for a Windows PC.  Cam2Com and a newer company called SebecTec both offer software to control a standard digital camera.

3. Misc. – USB cable to connect the camera to a computer, power supply for the digital cam, a small memory card for the camera, maybe a small tripod or waterproof case for the camera, a PC and most important – a good view.

Both software companies offer good instructions about how to set up the webcam.  In my next webcam hardware post I’ll go into the details of how I set up an Olympus camera and the total cost of the project.

It’s been about a year since the boulderflatironcam went live.    One interesting thing was the huge interest from Mac dashboard users.  The latest Mac OS 10.5 has the ability to grab any image on the web and automatically create a dashboard widget.  It’s a nice feature and makes the image accessible but put a lot of load on the hosting server.  The original image was 120k and with thousands of requests per second my hosting account was shut down.  To alleviate this I created a small php generated thumbnail of the original large 120k image.  This thumbnail is available to all at http://boulderflatironcam.com/camera0.jpg    The large image is now blocked for direct access but can still be viewed online at http://boulderflatironcam.com/boulderflatironlarge.html  This change has stabilized the hosting account and allows me to keep the costs low enough to continue providing the site.  The StarDot NetcamXL has worked very well in all sorts of weather conditions.   The support team from Stardot even helped tune up the color balance in the image.   I’d recommend the StarDot webcam as a good solid network cam that hasn’t needed any maintenance over the last year.  If there was just a way to keep the enclosure lens clean it would be maintenance free!  View of the camera installation.  From this shot you can see the webcam captures only a slice of the great view.      

Another live cam favorite in the San Diego area is Camzone Networks. Camzone specializes in live streaming views of Del Mar Beach, Imperial Beach, Scripps Pier, SeaWorld Shamu cam, San Diego Zoo Cam and others.

The Del Mar Beachcam has been around more than ten years. It’s still nice to watch the breaking waves and people walking on the beach.

Help raise money for a new webcam near Creede, Colorado at Ptarmigan Meadows webcam. I’ve seen websites in New England using the donation approach to fund a new live cam. A new company in Boulder has a nice idea for raising money so I thought I’d try it out.View the new Crowdfunder listing to contribute to see this view live!

Some webmasters attempt to stop direct linking with a hosting setting that displays an alternative image instead of the requested live image. The technique is described in this article.  This technique works but has the downside of blocking previews of the image for legitimate webcam search sites.  Imagine how much less useful Google would be if there was no summary text from a webpage in the search results.  A webcam listing with only a text search result doesn’t provide nearly as much information as a thumbnail preview image.An alternative idea that reduces bandwidth and still provides an image preview has been adopted by several leading sites. twopalms.com and mauiwindcam.com are great examples of sites who only allow access to the large size live image through their websites. They provide an alternative linking image URL that can be used by webcam search sites and others who wish to view a preview in some other type of device. A description of the linking technique is here from Maui Wind Cam. The provided image is below. It provides a semi-updated preview of the live conditions, identifies who owns the image and gives an incentive to visit the main site. This is a great way to insure your copyright and draw visitors to your main site while still providing a preview of your content.

We recently launched the Boulder Flatiron cam. http://boulderflatironcam.com Setting up the cam was a fun project. The cam is located on a ridge in Louisville, Colorado with a nice view to the west. The first step was finding someone who would agree to host the webcam. Once that was accomplished we set about getting all the pieces together.The webcam is a Stardot Netcam XL 3mp. It’s housed in an outdoor enclosure attached to the side of the house. It relays the image to the internet via an Apple Airport Express.The cam recently got picked up by CBS New4 in Denver on their webcam page.