The Donkey Camera is often in operation from 9:00 AM to
4:00 PM..
During inclement weather, the donkeys usually stay inside
the barn, so I
don't start the picture capturing. The barn is the large
building in the
background. Its size is 160 by 65 foot, with exits on
both sides, that allow
the donkeys to wander to one of five paddock areas surrounding
it..
The barn is located approximately 500 feet from the house.
The camera
is mounted inside my tool room and is protected
from the elements
behind a glass window. At times, the window "steams up"
and covers
the image until the sun evaporates the moisture. To the
left of the paddock,
the driveway runs in a east/west direction.. Early in
the day, the sun can
produce strange halos on the window glass.. This is only
temporary, for
an hour or so, until its angle is higher in the sky.
I hope, that you enjoy
watching the donkeys.. However, I can not guarantee,
they will always be
in the camera's view. Sometimes, I place some hay at
the lower end, near
the fence to entice them to spend a little time there..
Ten o'clock to noon
is often the best time to view them.. I feed the donks
at 8:00 AM and at
4:00 PM, thus the reason for the camera hours.. If you
have any comments
about the donkeys or the WebCam setup, please Email Throcky@throcky.com
..
Enjoy the donkeys...
Snappy by Play, is a small piece of hardware, about
the size of a king sized package of cigarettes.
It has provisions on one end of it to plug into a LPT ( printer ) port
on the back of your computer.
A camera, VCR, or any video source in connected to the Snappy.. Software
is provided to make
still pictures, or AVI movies - complete with sound. It isn't a true
"video capture device". It processes
an individual frame completely before proceeding to make a new one.
This way no partial or "smeared"
pictures are produced.. A very nifty piece of engineering.. For more
information, contact http://play.com .
SnapCAP is a client that "takes" a picture, stores
it on your hard drive, then at an user specified time, dials the
modem and uploads the "captured" picture to your web site, then disconnects
itself and waits to repeat the
process. When I wanted to develop a web camera, I investigated the
software available.. Of course, I began
my quest with the least expensive programs, I could find. I never will
learn.. The freebies either didn't work or
produced poor quality images that were not adjustable from within the
client.. The other popular shareware program
seemed to work, but was "crippled" so that all of the features didn't
function. Then, I tried SnapCAP.. It worked
perfectly, after I repaired Win95. This was necessary, no doubt, from
some wayward .dll, left over from the other
web camera programs, that I tried.. SnapCAP Ver. 3.02 has lots of neat
little "whistles and bells" hidden in its
innards.. I like the automatic time update with an "atomic clock",
time stamping on the photograph, absolute
adjustable sequence capturing. This means, I can open two windows and
programs, and with my video sequencer
have two or more cameras take multi - pictures for multi - web pages..
At the moment, managing one is enough,
thank you.. SnapCap was designed with Snappy in mind, BUT will also
work with your Connectix ball, or
even with a VCR cam and a TV capture board, if you are really determined
to become involved with a web
camera. Probably, it will work with any video source that uses "TWAIN"
drivers... Don't let the price of
the program, influence your decision to try this program.. I think
the "trial" part of the usage is four months.
You'll find out, this is the software, you wish to drive your web camera.
Well worth your time and money.
For more information, contact http://snapcap.com
The camera is an old VCR add on... Vintage is about
1985.. A homemade 12 Volt DC powers the
camera that is mounted in my tool room.. I have RG-59 running from
the tool room to the computer
room and control wires to the zoom switch.. While I can't move the
camera on its axis, I do have
control over the lens zoom at the monitor site.. I was considering
a color CCD camera, for they
are very reasonable these days.. But, until this one fails, I can't
rationalize a new one.. Someday...
The computer is an elderly 486 - 120 Mz.. with
16 Meg of ram, and a 480 Meg ide hard drive..
Two parallel ports, 28.8 modem, 2 Meg video card, a couple of serial
ports, and a mouse etc..
If I didn't have all the parts, pieces were scrounged from friend's
"junk bins".. The speed of the
computer isn't a factor.. To capture a picture, process it, dial the
web site, post the picture,
then disconnect, requires almost 30 seconds.. Almost any speed 486
can handle it, running Win95.
I wanted to use a separate computer, so I didn't have to tie up "old
faithful" that I use for surfing.
One last hint, after a day or so of the modem dialing, I add " ATM0
" to the modem string to
"kill" the modem speaker. Enough is enough of that noise.. Ah, the
silence is golden..