Easy (and FREE) way to capture webcam VIDEO

[Darren Addy]

Apologies if this is inappropriate to the discussion, but I wish that some would have known about this YESTERDAY and I assume that this thread will be read by many. As it relates, I'm posting it here. If mods want to move it to a more appropriate venue, I leave it to their judgment.

There is a piece of free software you can install called Jing Project. There are versions for Windows and Mac and it is EXCELLENT and super simple to use.

When installed, it looks like a portion of the sun, glowing on the edge of your screen. Rolling over it pops out the controls. Select the "+" and you will get a set of crosshairs with which you can select (by dragging) any portion of your screen that you wish to capture. You can save a "still" Image or a video as a Flash movie. If someone had been watching the university webcam last night, it would have taken literally three seconds to be capturing the video for yourself with this free tool.

http://www.jingproject.com

PS... you can save files locally, automatically FTP them to another server, or use the Jing Project's provided server space to host your captures.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Interesting piece of software. I've seen numerous Firefox extensions that let you save Flash video (a popular format for many news sites), but not many for streams. I do just need to note that distributing copyrighted content may be illegal in your area, so please use your discretion.

 

[Darren Addy]

By the way, as an administrator of university webcams, I can tell you that it is highly doubtful that there are any university copies of the webcam-captured scene. If a camera is being used for actual surveillance, it is common to have a server that receives uploads of the images that the camera takes (so many stills per minute as jpeg). But normally, webcams set up for people to simply "look in" on are not going to be set up to permanently capture scenes. This camera's location makes me think it is of the latter variety.

If someone is interested in asking, I'd search the university's web site for "I.T." office and email someone there. They could probably tell you who administers that particular camera. It might not be the I.T. department (could be ResLife or Facilities, for example) but the I.T. people could probably find out.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

You might be lucky if the power went out just as or before the tornado hit the building and the server that the camera was on was not on a power backup. Otherwise even in the unlikely event that the server kept some frames it would have been overwrote by the blackness of the disabled camera until and if the server itself was hit or lost power.

 

[Eric Carlson]

If you use VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/) you can pretty much just plug in a stream URL, and use the transcoding wizard to save an uncompressed copy of whatever it is you're streaming. Might not be as fast as using this tool but certainly a little less messy.

 

[Johnathan Brouwer]

here is my first attempt at jing...

http://screencast.com/t/vaUcoBnU

well the link errors for me, so maybe I'll try again...