Topic: Digital video cam as weather webcam?

[Cienega32]

How would I go about utilizing my vidcam as a skycam for weather? I imagine it's a software thing? All I've ever done with it is the usual editing and TV captures to disk.

This would be a temp situation until I can decide how deep into the pocket to go for a "real one".

[NoQuitters]

Do you want to actually stream video or just use it as a web cam? Also, can you connect it to your computer? I have a Panasonic Palmcorder that I have done this with and it is actually very easy provided you have a "PC Out" port or "A/V Out" port on the camera and a capture card or device.

[tbweather]

I also use an old Panasonic Palmcorder for my webcam. Originally, I used it with an ATI capture card, but switched to a Dazzle DVC-90 capture device when I switched computers. THe software it is currently running on is ImageSalsa. It took a little bit of fiddling around to get the Dazzle device to work with ImageSalsa and Windows Vista, but everything seems to be running smoothly now.

[Cienega32]

Yes, it does have A/V out. That was how I would record off the TV/Cable - using the cam as a pass-thru device on a firewire port and the software (Ulead or Pinnacle) would perform the record process directly to the hard drive (on a dedicated video/audio edit computer); bypassing the vidcam media and without any capture card. It's been a while since I've used it all so I can't remember what device driver they use - whether it's proprietary or a Windows XP Pro device.

I think there would be times when I would like to be able to stream the video but, for right now, only during certain events - lightning storms, etc.

After acquiring a "real" skycam, the stream would be full-time.

Thanks for that ImageSalsa link - I keep forgetting about that software. I only glanced at their site once before. That 'Salsa Suite' looks perfect and covers other bases for me as well.

Sometimes when the storms develop, I'll record the cloud activity over the mountains, then speed up the playback with the other vid software I use - I love that effect. This makes it look a whole lot easier. And it looks perfect, as I can overlay the weather data on it!

After looking thru Salsa's docs, am I reading that it only accepts VWS data?

[talbert1952]

After looking thru Salsa's docs, am I reading that it only accepts VWS data?

Image Salsa has a scripting engine. Scripts can be written to ingest data from any program that generates delimited text files. I use a custom IS script to read a data file created by Weatherlink from a template. The setup allows me to display any Weatherlink template variable on an Image Salsa canvas.

[NoQuitters]

If you have a capture card or device for your pc you can use FreeWCAM to simply capture the still image to your pc and then upload it with your other weather pages. It also has a built in FTP funtion so you can use it as a stand alone program to FTP with as well.

[windy]

HI
i use an old JVC videocam connected to a TV capture card
and use weather display software, which has its own webcam capture program bundled with it
see:
http://www.weather-display.com/windy/gb/webcamimagejpeg.jpg
and video:
http://www.weather-display.com/windy/gb/lasthourvideo.htm
or
http://www.weather-display.com/windy/gb/tensecondvideo.htm

it allows you to use any of the custom tags available in WD as an overlay on the webcam image

just if you are interested

[Cienega32]

Yes, thank you for all the links.

In fact, the cam I was thinking of using is an old (5 year) JVC that sees little use, other than as a pass-thru for on-air recording.

Suddenly, I have a ton of stuff on my plate so I'll have to put off playing with this idea.

Thanks for all the helpful responses!