I haven’t really thought about uses for this yet, but it strikes me that if a time-lapse can be made from static web-cam images, then collating and merging pieces of live footage has the same benefits to show change over time in an environment. Sadly, the majority of good web-cams tend to be in urban environments. Also this technique would benefit individuals who have networks that ban the use of web-cams, but wanted to show a place ‘live’ at a given time, it would also get around the problem of friction of distance.

If you have a SMART board and associated software you can record any webcam on the board, if you also have a decent sound card, you will also get audio as well. (I’m sure I tried this, but I’ll get back to you….)

If you find a web-cam with embedded Windows Media Player, QuickTime and Real Player, you can record live feed using High Download, one of my favourite tools and cheap at the price. I’m not sure about the legality of recording live streams, but it’s all for education!

Firstly, find the webcam you want to record live feed from. I’m going to use the New York cam again.

Right click on the image and choose properties,

copy the location URL.

Open HiDownload and paste in your URL, press ok and let it do it’s evil work. Remember because the feed is live, you will have to end the recording process. Click on the downloading feed and click stop.

Job complete. Here is a brief amount of feed that I recorded this morning. If using this raw, you need to make sure that your media player and the network has the correct codec to play the asf extension.

If needed Zamar is a useful website to quickly convert your files to a suitable format to edit.

Obviously once recorded and converted, you can use your recorded feed in a number of ways, perhaps editing with Windows Movie Maker.

No comments
Posted in General
Written on Mon, 02 April 2007 at 9:54 am

If you liked this post, then consider subscribing to our full RSS feed.