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I'm putting in a webcam (Panasonic BB-HCM735) at a local
windsurfing shop.

The idea is that people can check sailing conditions without
calling the shop owner.

Right now, the cam is directly accessible over the internet and
it works.... sort of....

But all the cameras I've looked at have a limit on concurrent
users. Also, I'm guessing that Verizon will have something to
say if/when traffic to a residential customer gets over a certain
limit.

With that in mind, I'm thinking there could be a middleman
between the users and that camera: an application/PC that is
logged into the camera remotely and receiving the camera's
picture - but which then re-packages the picture and makes it
available to whoever logs into that PC/application. The PC
would be in another location where bandwidth is not an issue.

Services like "StreamBy" seem to do this, but the windsurfing
shop runs on a slim margin and their fees would be too high.

There have got to be many such applications available for private
use, but I don't know where to start looking.

Does anybody know the term-of-art for such an application - so I
have something to Google against?
--
PeteCresswell

On Sep 8, 12:10*pm, "(PeteCresswell)" <x...@y.Invalid> wrote:
> I'm putting in a webcam (Panasonic BB-HCM735) at a local
> windsurfing shop.
>
> The idea is that people can check sailing conditions without
> calling the shop owner.
>
> Right now, the cam is directly accessible over the internet and
> it works.... sort of....
>
> But all the cameras I've looked at have a limit on concurrent
> users. * Also, I'm guessing that Verizon will have something to
> say if/when traffic to a residential customer gets over a certain
> limit.
>
> With that in mind, I'm thinking there could be a middleman
> between the users and that camera: an application/PC that is
> logged into the camera remotely and receiving the camera's
> picture - but which then re-packages the picture and makes it
> available to whoever logs into that PC/application. * The PC
> would be in another location where bandwidth is not an issue.
>
> Services like "StreamBy" seem to do this, but the windsurfing
> shop runs on a slim margin and their fees would be too high.
>
> There have got to be many such applications available for private
> use, but I don't know where to start looking.
>
> Does anybody know the term-of-art for such an application - so I
> have something to Google against?

"Proxy" and "cache" are the concepts you need. I haven't
done this exact setup, but I think one of the caching modules
for Apache on some server in a well-connected location could
reduce the web camera hits to a maximum of one every 5 minutes
or some such (whatever you choose to configure).

And you could also probably do it with the Squid proxy
program.

Per David Dyer-Bennet:
>"Proxy" and "cache" are the concepts you need. I haven't
>done this exact setup, but I think one of the caching modules
>for Apache on some server in a well-connected location could
>reduce the web camera hits to a maximum of one every 5 minutes
>or some such (whatever you choose to configure).
>
>And you could also probably do it with the Squid proxy
>program.

Just to be sure: we're talking full-motion video, not
snapshots... right?
--
PeteCresswell

On Sep 9, 9:13*am, "(PeteCresswell)" <x...@y.Invalid> wrote:
> Per David Dyer-Bennet:
>
> >"Proxy" and "cache" are the concepts you need. *I haven't
> >done this exact setup, but I think one of the caching modules
> >for Apache on some server in a well-connected location could
> >reduce the web camera hits to a maximum of one every 5 minutes
> >or some such (whatever you choose to configure).
>
> >And you could also probably do it with the Squid proxy
> >program.
>
> Just to be sure: we're talking full-motion video, not
> snapshots... right?

Ah; if he's talking streaming, I'm not sure
my suggestions are relevant. "Webcams" in
my experience present a series of still images.

Per www.Queensbridge.us:
>If wind speed is what you want,
>why not just go yo Yahoo weather and see wind speed.
>I go to
>http://weather.yahoo.com/united-stat...-york-2459115/
>when I want to fly kites.

I subscribe to a service for that - plus forecasts.

What the shop owner wants is an easily-available online steam so
customers can check the video instead of calling him.

Also, he thinks that it will bring more people down there... thus
increasing business.
--
PeteCresswell

Per (PeteCresswell):
>Does anybody know the term-of-art for such an application - so I
>have something to Google against?

The magic word is "Streaming".

Thanks David Dyer-Bennet.

FWIW, I'm fooling around with an application called "WebCamXP"
that seems to have promise.

It runs on my 24-7 box, reads the camera, and makes the camera's
stream available to the world as in:
http://petecress.dyndns.org:8080/

Now I've got to move the camera to the remote site/Dynamic
Address and see if WebCamXP can still connect to it.

Stay tuned.
--
PeteCresswell