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.

Alan has just started People as Consumers on the Pilot course, he has talked about Consumer Landscapes, the Earthcam Webcam Network has a range of good live webcams that could provide a simple introduction to this topic. How about viewing two separate locations and getting students to discuss the advertisements and landscape features that are similar or dissimilar in both locations?

A quick viewing of the New York cams provided these examples

TGI Fridays, Kodak, Coca-Cola, HSBC, Swatch, Mc Donalds

Obviously all these companies are Multi-Nationals/Trans-National Corporations, but we can also discuss the use of advertisements and how they dominant space, and the reason for this, the traffic volume, the flow/number of people and the environmental quality of the area.

There is also an opportunity to show the globalisation of shopping here, by comparing the landscape with one in another country, it could also be used to tackle stereotypes, by comparing a Consumer Landscape in an LEDC country.

One of my favourite live-streaming webcams is this High Street in Amsterdam, this is great because you can control the cam, effectively you can follow people, very Big Brother .  But a great discussion of Consumer Landscapes can be had here, pedestrianisation, use of heritage, shop frontages, trams, types of companies represented, which online thinking has sorted a Year 8 lesson as well.

Thanks to Mark for pointing me towards his website, where is he has already been making good use of Google Gadgets. He point out on Pilot Geography, that sometimes the webcam gadget lacks reliability.

As discussed in the previous post, some embedded web-cams can be enlarged to full-screen with the click of the image.

There are a number of brilliant live-streaming web-cams for surfers, Coastal Watch is a great source.

This webcam showing an image of Bondi can be enlarged. It is an embedded Windows Media player, if you right click on the image and choose zoom, a full screen version can be chosen.

Another little hint, is to right click on the video and choose properties

Copy the location and past into a new browser

If your browser is set-up appropriately (and on some networks it wont be!), this will in turn open Windows Media player, which is very helpful… more later

Some live-streaming embedded web-cams you can enlarge by clicking the image, this has the advantage of producing a larger image, which can be used in the classroom; quality though is often lost.

This is one of my favourite webcams of New York.

By clicking on the image, a full screen version appears, some networks may block this feature.

Some live-streaming web-cams appear in pops-up (Another disadvantage if your network blocks these.), even using a projector the image is too small to effectively use, SMART software helps with an IWB, the image can be enlarged, alternatively if you have IE7( I love it ) you can enlarge the image without losing too much quality. Sadly we haven’t upgraded yet.

You need to copy the address from the pop-up browser

and past into a new browser.

You can then use the enlarge button on the bottom right of the browser to enlarge the image. Sadly, whilst writing this, the Niagara Falls live-streaming web-cam is not working.

The same technique can be used with static images which are periodically updated, if you wish to avoid any potentially embarrassing adverts around the sidebars. Right click on the image, and choose properties, copy the address, it will end in jpg.

This can then be pasted into a new browser to leave the image, without the adverts.

Some of you may have come across this before, this Google Gadget allows you to embed webcams in your blog or website, sadly it doesn’t allow for live video streaming webcams, but it updates nicely. This is the Geographers favourite webcam from South Georgia, watch out for penguins.

I imagine though, that if you are devising a task based around certain webcams, this gadget may come in useful when devising a simple Intranet or Internet page, hence avoiding the need to access various links.

Hugh has added two new useful pages of webcams on the Wycombe High School site.

The first mirrors a task that I produced, and is hosted on the SLN site ( scroll down the page.), a couple of years ago, Live Weather Links .

Also on the SLN site is another task I produced, asking students to find live cam pictures of places they would like to visit in the world, map them and write explanations. Looks a bit old hat now, but could do with a revisiting.

The second is a page relating to Time zones, it links nicely with a study of Longitude and Latitude.

Great work.

I like this idea, involving webcams and Google Earth by Noel Jenkins.

This web based camera seems to be popular with Geography teachers, mostly because you might get a chance to see penguins. :) Based in South Georgia, the webcam updates every three minutes. I think this is ripe for a bit of time-lapsing! Internet access is poor or often intermittent in the more remote areas of the Planet, therefore live images are more difficult to broadcast.

Let me know if you see anything good? View above is the scene at time of posting.

Updated - this is the best webcam that I’ve come across in Antarctica, not live, but has a nice time-lapse facility. Notice the daylight!

Check out Honolulu live! Love the music, there’s a nice little quality of life survey using these I think…