Webcam block

[Steve Harpin]

I am puzzling my head over how this block can function at it's best. On the face of it the basic instructions look very simple - put in a list of URLs and then a description of each. Then, in the theory, you get a drop down menu with various locations. This does not happen for me. I have been studying others webcam blocks and can see that a jpg file ending gives a result. Is that the key to getting the block working? If so, can someone give me a concrete example of how this works that I can use as a model. I have been searching out some really unusual webcam locations(with the weather in mind)and now have a short list that I want to put into this block. Help.....!!

[Jachym]

Hi Steve,
it does not matter if you use your or others´ webcam (although make sure it is ok regarding copyright, most webcams cannot just be used like that and people often ignore that). Then what you need is to get the URL of that webcam image (not the HTML page where you see it). This is the URL you insert in the block setup.

[Steve Harpin]

Is there a way of obtaining the URL that does not overtax my poor brain too much? I have spent quite a bit of time over the last 3 days investigating how you go about this but so far I have bounced off a few brick walls

Steve

[Jachym]

Hi,
Im not quite sure what you mean. If you have some webcam it has to be an image. If this is not your webcam then you need to right-click on the image and get the URL. However if it is a video or a dynamic URL it will not work in the way the block is set up.

[Steve Harpin]

Gotcha!! Thanks Jachym. No more video webcams for me. I can put that one to bed and move on to other things. Any chance of the potential changing in the future?

[Jachym]

Videos work totally differently from images and it is highly dependent on the browser, the video format/codec etc. so making a generalized block is very problematic and most likely would only work for a small proportion of users, this has to be made particularly for a specific video and as I mentioned previsouly, most people have images from webcam as images. The pro webcams that have video output are usually too data-demanding and copyrighted

[Dehatter]

Your camera should have a feature called snapshot (or something like that) as well as an ftp feature that will upload the snapshot to your server.

There are several problems that can occur, the primary one being that your camera adds a timestamp to the name of the file. Most webcam applications require a static filename. If your camera adds this timestamp, I can assist you with running a script that will provide the correct filename.

There is an additional problem if you want your image to appear on WU as they limit the file size to 150kb.

Let me know your desired results, and I will provide you a step by step guide to accomplishing what you want.

More information on my particular setup is here:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=1185&p=5892#p5892

Tom