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Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Fri 21 May 2010 7:48 am
by geoffw
I seem to be hogging the question in this new thread, but I suppose that is because I have just set my first decent camera that gives a good picture of the sky.

I've started out with Yawcam as Phil and Gina are using it, but ImageSalsa has also been mentioned. Any other shareware or freeware applications worth a look?

If not what about a shoot-out between ImageSalsa and Yawcam?

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Fri 21 May 2010 8:22 am
by hills
I haven't used anything other that Yawcam so I can't really be too objective.

I think the functionality of Yawcam is great and does 99% of what I want it to. The only improvement I would like to see is the ability to monitor 2 cameras in the single instance of Yawcam concurrently rather than having to install a second instance of Yawcam.

I suspect the ftp side could be more robust too as mine seems to have issues ftping alot more than Cumulus, although that said it does rename 150 images each time it updates.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Fri 21 May 2010 12:46 pm
by Synewave
geoffw wrote: Any other shareware or freeware applications worth a look?
Try Fwink, it's free and the FTP seems very reliable for me

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Fri 21 May 2010 11:40 pm
by gemini06720
hills wrote:The only improvement I would like to see is the ability to monitor 2 cameras in the single instance of Yawcam concurrently rather than having to install a second instance of Yawcam.

I suspect the ftp side could be more robust too as mine seems to have issues ftping alot more than Cumulus, although that said it does rename 150 images each time it updates.
Phil, I have tried Yawcam but did not like its reliability - similar problems to what you and other users have encountered.

As it is for you, I cannot be too objective when I write about ImageSalsa weather edition...

ImageSalsa has been running flawlessly for almost two years, grabbing the images from the wireless camera, adding/watermarking the weather information onto the image and then uploading the image to the Internet server.

Although I have not tried that possibility, I feel/think that ImageSalsa could/should handle more than one camera - ImageSalsa uses what it calls a 'portfolio' and inside each 'portfolio' are created what it calls 'canvases' - each 'canvas' can contain up to 100 lines of text and 20 graphics - a 'canvas' contains information about the video feed, the video device, the frame rate, the canvas size, the canvas background colour (a canvas is composed of four different layers), the graphic to appear on the canvas (other than the Webcam image), the text/watermark to appear on the canvas (image), the scheduler for saving the image (and creating appropriate sequential names), the scheduler for saving the image as a wallpaper, the scheduler for uploading FTP the image to an Internet server, etc.

ImageSalsa can also be setup as Web server with “near” real-time image streaming.

Here is a link to the ImageSalsa Web page as well as to the PDF documentation.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 10:06 am
by mcrossley
Any more suggestions? Yawcam has driven me up the wall so far, very unstable, and arbitarily 'flips' the image - even mid-stream, and the settings will not 'stick' no matter what I do. Now it will not set to 640x480 at all, set the cam to 640 and the format flips to 320, set the format to 640 and the cam flips to 320 - this worked yesterday :x

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 10:54 am
by hills
Are you using version 0.3.3? I used to have similar problems with the previous version, but after upgrading and setting the format in the "settings" - "Device" - "Change to device" screen mine hasn't changed since.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 11:24 am
by Gina
So far, Yawcam is working pretty much perfectly for me. Again the scheduling correctly stopped file and FTP for the period set last night and sent the "Offline" image to the web server. I've just changed some Windows settings which required a restart and Yawcam dutifully sent the "Offline" image as set. On restarting it, it had kept all its settings and is running fine.

Equipment is HP, Pentium 4 HT, 512MB RAM, 80GB HD with Microsoft LifeCam 720 HD Cinema. OS is Windows XP Pro updated to SP3. Yawcam 0.3.3 (the latest version). Auto-focus turned off. Resolution set to 800 x 448. File & FTP period set to 120secs.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 11:44 am
by keithatrochdale
Hi

I am looking for some free software that can display 6 cams and upload to a web page every min but only if there is activity, any ideas?

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 1:03 pm
by hills
If you have a linux box you could try zoneminder, but its a bit tricky to get USB cameras to work correctly. I gave up and went back to Yawcam on windows. The only way you could do this with Yawcam is by installing it 6 times. I imagine that would get a bit messy and resource hungry.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 1:24 pm
by Gina
One problem with using USB webcams with Linux is that many have extra functions (eg. auto-focus in the Microsoft ones) that rely on the driver. Unsurprisingly, MS don't supply a Linux driver - the USB control codes would need to be obtained by reverse engineering. The standard image at the default settings is all that's available.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 22 May 2010 10:21 pm
by mcrossley
Well I take most of it back, I had made some non-standard firmware changes in my webcam that I had forgotten about (for asto imaging use) I restored it back to the factory settings and now Yawcam is behaving. :oops:

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Mon 24 May 2010 6:44 am
by wellweather
Try using Easy Free Webcam . http://www.msagentsoftware.com/easyfreewebcam/ Been using it for more than a year and has got multi web settings as well.


Uploads are regular


See http://www.wellingtonweather.co.za/webc ... ebcam.html

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sat 05 Nov 2016 11:12 pm
by Phil23
Any updates for Camera software in 2016.

Recently bought a cheap Buyee weatherproof IP camera & it took a while to find software to support it,
turns out it doesn't have a jpeg URL & needed FFMPEG(H264), ONVIF or RSTP protocols to support it.
Capture.JPG
Currently have it running thru iSpyConnect, https://www.ispyconnect.com/ & uploading with it's FTP.
Camera's FTP didn't suit me as it time stamps each image & I'm not sure how to deal with that.

Open to other suggestions, they just probably need to support these Chinese cameras.

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sun 06 Nov 2016 1:07 am
by PaulMy
Camera's FTP didn't suit me as it time stamps each image & I'm not sure how to deal with that.
Unless I misunderstand, your images are saved as a file with date stamp. If that is the case and you want to rename the file here is some discussion http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic= ... #msg275076

Paul

Re: Best Camera Control Software?

Posted: Sun 06 Nov 2016 12:02 pm
by ronwright418
Yawcam worked well for me for a couple of years, then I upgraded to Windows 10 and Yawcam became very unreliable. I now use ContaCam with very good results.