I'm going to experiment with a new camera setup

[Steve]

As some of you know, I have a medium quality wireless outdoor IP camera, and a Logitec 900 webcam pointing outside for my web page (click banner below for link.) Over the winter I tried an old video camera to zoom in and watch the snow depth in my yard. What was once a very expensive video camera is now worse quality than a $40 webcam!

Anyway, over on the WXForum, a few folks have been using nice point-n-shoot cameras as webcams, and in particular, I've been fascinated by Greg's timelapse at his Skunk Bay Weather site http://www.skunkbayweather.com See the videos at the top as well as more about halfway down the right side. Now a lot of the appeal is his location on Puget Sound. But he's getting a great image from an obsolete camera. I'd asked Greg for details on what his setup is, and here's a post with what he's using. http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=19128.msg184844

This morning I bid on and won an Olympus SP-500-UZ camera for $92.30, and I'm going to run it through the same software as Greg uses; SebecTec webcam software http://sebectec.com/download/index.htm AND I'm going to run it on Windows on my Mac using Parallels and Windows XP Pro. I hadn't run Windows for about six months, so I had a gob of updates and restarts to go through. I've installed the software, but I need the camera to go any further.

I've also contacted the developer of SebecTec software to see if he has had any customers running his software on Windows on a Mac. Both he and Greg have been very helpful getting me started on this project!

I'll keep this thread updated with my progress.
Steve

[wurzelmac]

Hi Steve,
may its worth take a look at this thread: http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=658.0
I experimented like you and come to this end, no windows machine needed. 

[Steve]

Hi Reinhard,

I remembered your thread, and looked at the utility box you used. I really like that idea, but I don't think one like that would be large enough once I add a pan/tilt head to the setup. I'll have to allow room for the cables to freely move with the camera, too. Plus I don't know much at all about using Terminal unless I'm given step by step instructions.

I'll start out fiddling with SebecTec, and also see if EvoCam will recognize the camera and allow control of its exposure, zoom, shutter, focus, etc like SebecTec can.

Steve

[Steve]

I got the eBay camera yesterday, and one of my old Sony power supplies seems to work. I updated the firmware, then launched Windows on the Mac via Parallels, launched SebecTec Webcam, and everything seems to work! I've got it taking photos, creating a time lapse movie, uploading every fifth image, and creating and it should upload the first hourly movie in a few minutes.

Right now the camera is just sitting in my dining room window looking out at a garden. Here's a link for the current image, if you're interested.
http://avon-weather.com/sebectec.jpg

This camera won't work with EvoCam, because it needs the software to run the shutter. It doesn't just stay open like a USB camera, so I'll use it on the Windows partition, add a pan/tilt base, build an enclosure and find a better place to point it.