08 May 2008

Webcam Recommendations

I'm back to needing recommendations for a webcam. On the site (Basecamp Silverton), we will only show images/stills taken from the camera, probably at some interval in the "minutes" range. The camera will be pointed at the local mountain from a house in town (the mountain is pretty darn close, but still, it's a mountain/in the distance, as compared to say a security or other similar application). We're looking for a camera that can automatically upload images to a server via FTP/SSH/SCP at regular intervals.

Our criteria are the following, and I was hoping folks could make some recommendations:

Requirements:


  • video doesn't matter, must be able to produce still images of "reasonable" quality

  • lens and such must be sufficient to shoot a pretty high depth of field to maximize focus across long-ish range (I will explain that it'll be pointing at a nearby mountain from house in town, etc.)

  • Must do automated image upload via FTP and/or SSH/SCP.

  • Controllable interval on automated upload (nothing too fancy, but we may want as fine as say every 2 minutes or every 5 minutes?)

  • Wireless/WiFi (in case we want to mount it outside, or just to make it easier inside)

  • web/browser based configuration, or configurable via a Mac (we do not have a Windows machine)

  • $500 or less. We may have some flexibility here, if for example it includes the outdoor enclosure/is weatherproof.

  • Really prefer not to have any separate software solution, other than what's in the camera, but if that is the best way to get the FTP/SCP upload, because we won't have a machine to dedicate to running it.



Nice to haves:

  • Ability to be mounted in an outdoor enclosure, or weatherproof itself. This will be in Silverton, Colorado where they routinely see temperatures below zero, and have snow, etc.

  • user adjustable zoom



We already had one camera, a TrendNet TV-IP201W, which was nice and cheap, but the thing appears to just have up and stopped working. Plus, we had a lot of problems with it's FTP upload (and weird limitations on length of user login names and so on). Also, this camera seemed to just "crash"/need reboot every so often (often enough that it was annoying).

1 comments:

Consultiq said...

Hi - I wonder if you would participate in a 5 minute blogger/paid-blogger survey?
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=1hqPK7C5o2nIDNAz4DSvOg_3d_3d

Thanks!

David Howard
Consulitq