live cam settings for chasing

[Mark Sefried]

A few years ago I was against getting a live cam while chasing because I thought it just was not needed and was just a waste of time. I have decided otherwise because when used properly as I have noticed it can be an important tool if the local NWS is watching it for issuing tornado warnings. I was wondering what settings as far as the frame rate (fps) and bit rate (kbps) works best on 3g networks and also on 1xrtt cdma networks? For my setup I am running a Verizon usb 3g modem card with an external antenna. For my webcam I have a Logitech HD C510. I am also usually running grlevel3 and spotter network while chasing. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Adam Lucio]

I dont ever tinker with frame rate settings but as far as bit rates go I think 50 is the max setting recommended and thats for areas with good cell coverage. It is usually advised to drop it down to 30 in areas of lower coverage.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Yeah I typically run 25kbps at 4fps if im in low coverage areas or just driving to the target area, and will bump up to 45kbps/5-6fps or even up to 65kbps at about 6-8fps if I'm in good coverage areas. If I can find real good data and am doing a TV 'hit' I will try and up to around 90-100 kbps at 8fps.

In the Adobe Encoder there's an option for 'Degrade Quality' under Auto Adjust. I'd suggest using that option, as it'll drop your bitrate if you are streaming at a higher bitrate than your connection can handle.

 

[Paul Knightley]

Does anyone have any clue how much bandwidth this uses on a 'typical' day, please? I ask this because we get a rental datacard with a 5GB limit on bandwidth - I imagine streaming uses quite a bit during the course of a day. Of course, I would limit it to storm 'mode' rather than just the drive to the storms.

 

[Paul Sherman]

Paul
We used 9 gb last year and we chased for 44 days and that was with continous Streaming as well

Hope this helps

 

[AaronPippin]

You can do a little rough math and figure out how much usage you would be using. There are 8bits in 1byte of data, thus streaming at 50kbps = appox 6.25 KB per second. So if you streamed a solid 5 hours in one day that equals 112,500KB or 112.5MB. At a 5 GB cap you could use 166.6 MB per day for all 30 days and thats where your cap would be. Granted you probably won't be streaming every single day, but also may be using the data card for more than just streaming. But I wouldn't be worried about going over the 5GB cap. Its more than you think.

Aaron

 

[Matt Tottle]

You can do a little rough math and figure out how much usage you would be using. There are 8bits in 1byte of data, thus streaming at 50kbps = appox 6.25 KB per second. So if you streamed a solid 5 hours in one day that equals 112,500KB or 112.5MB. At a 5 GB cap you could use 166.6 MB per day for all 30 days and thats where your cap would be. Granted you probably won't be streaming every single day, but also may be using the data card for more than just streaming. But I wouldn't be worried about going over the 5GB cap. Its more than you think.

Aaron

You're figuring upload only. The cap is your combined upload/download. However, that being said, I have yet to hit 5GB in a month. I've come close though. If you're on AT&T with their 2GB cap, forget it you're going over. Most providers will have a meter in your online account so you can keep track of how much you're using. Just don't be sitting there watching Youtube in HD while you're waiting for a storm to get going!

 

[Ben Holcomb]

The most i've done in a month is 4GB and I was liberally using my datacard and chasing almost every day. With that said, a typical day of streaming will eat 50-200mb worth of data.

 

[Paul Knightley]

Thanks for the replies - we've never got that close in the last few years to 5GB, although we weren't streaming. From what I can gather if I were to just stream once a storm had been found, we'd probably be OK.
I'll give it some further thought!