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Adam Cartwright
Those with the Microsoft HD Cinema web cam, how are they performing so far with the varying light conditions and dealing with the vehicle in motion?
I'm using a JVC MiniDV video camera myself, but would love to have a lower profile camera on my dash. I'm just worried that the performance of the webcam can't match the performance of a video camera.David Goines
My laptop doesn't have a firewire connection so would the only way to wire up a camera be by USB? If so, will almost all video cameras work that way or just digital?
I have a mini-DV camera (not sure the model) so I'm wondering if it would work or not.
I've also thought about just getting a web cam like the Microsoft one mentioned above but the quality of moving objects and the auto-adjustments to different light conditions has me thinking twice.
Thanks for any input.
Chris Wilburn
EF4
The best way to goes is to use a mini-DV camcorder. I know firewire is best, but if you only have USB that will work too just not as good. I am ready to stream, but haven't signed up for a service yet. I am going to use a mini-DV camcorder to stream and record to tape at the same time which is an added bonus. Also, the ability to zoom in with the mini-DV gives it advantages over a web cam.D. Hayes
Mine seems to be doing fairly good in low light. I'll try to remember to grab some clips when I'm off to work in the early morning.D. Hayes
Well after some more playing around with the HD Cinema I don't really like it's performance. I have to run it at a lower resolution for recording since it seems to need more processing power than my XPS M1530 can deliver. I'm going to wipe my laptop and try again later this week.
For live streaming it seems to work pretty good since it's resolution is about 320x240.
So now I'm looking for a webcam that can record with out skipping frames at higher resolutions and also performs great in low light. Is it made? Probably not.
Bill Tabor
EF5
Tested my new flash SMX-10 USB streaming and it works very well..no problems. This is a direct USB connect not through the composite RCA jack so likely higher quality IMO. Camera will do 720x480 progressive or interlaced. Didn't think it was necessary to go HD since usually not enough bandwidth for it anywayBob Gould
After replacing the Easycap device with a KWorld USB device (CompUsa $35) I was able to get my video camera streaming. My question is what setting are others using on their encoder. I have the FLV and Windows Media 9 encoder. Clearly the choice is driven by the streaming site but what quality (resolutions and FPS) setting are others using?
For Flash, we recommend VP6 at 45kbps or so on 3g, input of 320x240 (or near this resolution). Frame rate is variable on firewire in flash, according to the connection speed and with USB webcam, anywhere from 10-20fps. Again, capacity depends on data speed.
To address earlier questions regarding bandwidth here in this thread; I tested BW usage on the 3/10 chase and at 45kbps and variable fps in Flash, I streamed for 5 hours and used 171mb total during the period. 5gb datacard packages are plenty for streaming for those who are concerned. Even with other apps grabbing data, total for the day was under 200mb.chadvia
WREN camera dome
I actually got it from work. There was a security camera that we didn't use anymore. I have seen them online pretty cheap though. (as long as you find one that is just the dome and not including the camera) It is a 4" Wren camera dome. I'll keep looking for the web site and let you know what I find.Similar threads
