Information about the Webcam



On the technical side of the webcam system, there are 3 main components, Firstly the camera.

The camera itself is a Dennard dome camera that was donated by www.soundandsafe.com, these type of cameras are mainly used for CCTV applications, but the camera is also very well suited to being used as a robotic webcam due to their high quality design.

Some of the high points about the camera are:

  • Fully weatherproof.

  • Remotely controllable, 360 degree continuous panning (left/right) range and a 90 degree tilting (up/down) range.

  • 18x optical zoom for viewing distant scenes.

  • Latest digital technology to ensure visibility during low-light conditions. 

Photo of the camera:

 

Secondly there is a computer needed to serve up the video feed and process requests to change the cameras position, in this case, we have re-cycled a fairly old, by today's standards, Pentium 4 based computer with 512mb RAM and a small 20gb hard disk drive. It's the perfect machine for the job, an ultra fast computer is not needed for this type of application.

Thirdly, the computer is linked to the internet using an ADSL (or "Broadband" as it's otherwise known) internet connection, generously donated by  www.acs-solutions.co.uk. Images are captured from the camera, processed on the computer, delivered to the ElectroCam central server, and then delivered to your computer over the internet. The image feeds are currently live video via a flash stream, or a still image feed via a javascript method. We do host live video feeds from special events from time to time, like the Christmas day swimming in the estuary, where the camera control will be disabled while we keep the camera aimed at the event action.   We will try to notify you of these events on site forums before we broadcast them.

The Webcam went officially Live on the 21st December 2003, Right before Christmas, so in a way, it was like the Town's Christmas present!


Here are a couple of photos that were taken when the camera hardware was being installed the day before:

Jamie from www.soundandsafe.com installing the camera.

 

 

Paul from Sky Platform Hire who assisted us with a platform lift for the installation, many thanks for him and his services!

 

Paul clearing out a blocked gutter while up in the air, again another huge thanks to him for his excellent quality service!