While I hate being on the pointy end of a camera it was great to catch up with the Delicate Genius from down-under at MIX09, and he even managed to get a good shot of my wrist on film.

Luckily I much prefer being behind the scenes rather than hogging the limelight so you won’t have to put up with too much of me talking ;)

Oh, and I’m no better posing for photographs – though it was late and the launch for PlayboyArchive (depending on where you work, probably NSFW) came at the end of a very long day and thanks to Bondi and Vertigo I’d been reading a lot of articles over the previous few days!

After my initial playing with a webcam and weather related time lapse I got a second hand wireless webcam (a Linksys WVC54GC) to play with. As a package it's really easy to set up and connect to the camera and stream video either using their supplied app or Windows Media player. But no use for getting snapshots as user controlled intervals and putting timestamp overlays on them etc.

That left me with a couple of choices:

• Buy an application to do it (but frankly after looking at some of the options I decided they didn't offer much value - when the software costs more than the camera I expect more from them!)
• Build my own.

Now, a few years ago when I was developing code on a daily basis that would possibly have been the easiest.... whip up something to connect to the stream, grab a frame, overlay the timestamp and FTP it to the destination.

Today I'm lazier, and anyway the bits I need to do this are all available for free - I just need to tie them together with the command line and they set up a scheduled task to make them run.

Grabbing the stream

The first challenge was connecting to the stream and grabbing a jpg snapshot that I could work with.

Using MPlayer grabbing the frame didn't turn out to be too much of a challenge. It allows you to attach to a streaming video and pull a number of frame to save as a JPEG

mplayer.exe http://{userid}:{password}@{camera_ip}/img/video.asf -frames 1 -vo jpeg:quality=100:maxfiles=1

Every time this runs it connects to the WiFi Camera video stream and grabs a single, high quality, jpg image (by default saved as 00000001.jpg each time - thanks to the maxfiles parameter)

I used this version of MPlayer built for Windows as it installs and updates easily.

Annotating the image

The next challenge was adding the timestamp to the image to give it some context. This actually gave me two challenges - adding the timestamp and formatting the date correctly from a command line script.

The first was solved with the RunNow.vbs script which allows you to define a number of environment variables for a command line script. I needed to add my own additional environment variable so don't forget to add this to the script

'MonthName
objEnv("MN") = MonthName(Month(dNow))

Next of course was the challenge of actually updating the image itself. For that I turned to ImageMagick a tool I've used before to add text and effects to images. This gives you a number of options for adding a caption to an image.

convert -background "#00000080" -fill white label:"%DOWN% %MN% %Day%, %Year% @ %Hour%:%Minute%:%Second%" miff:- | composite -gravity south -geometry +0+3 - 00000001.jpg image.jpg

This rather scary line takes the source image 00000001.jpg (created from Mplayer) and adds a label using the parameters to position where I want it. The variables %DOWN% etc are all supplied by running this via the RunNow script.

Uploading the image

When the image was composited I wanted to upload it to the Weather Underground site.

Windows comes with a built in command line FTP client, but the Weather Underground server wanted a passive connection which the supplied client doesn't support so I used the free version of MoveIt from Ipswitch - a secure FTP command line client that is a 'drop in' replacement for the existing client.

All I needed to do was create a parameter file to control the FTP script (I saved the script as wificam.ftp)

open webcam.wunderground.com
{username}
{password}
passive
type binary
put image.jpg image.jpg
bye

and call that from the command line

ftps -s:wificam.ftp

Automating execution

Now I had the pieces it was simple enough to create a Scheduled Task that runs every 10 minutes and executes

RunNow.vbs wificam.cmd

the wificam.cmd script contains the call to Mplayer to grab the frame, the call to ImageMagick to add the caption and the call to MoveIt to use FTP to upload the new image.

The results

Every ten minutes the webcam should upload a new image to Weather Underground here, and they create a stop motion view (last 24 hours below).

A quick note on the WVC54GC: While it's an okay camera for the job I can't recommend it. The Linksys software is pretty horrible and the specs on the camera are at the lower end of the spectrum - small image size/resolution and really bad low light performance. I know they have better cameras now so look to spend a few extra bucks.

20 years ago when I started working a snow day would have meant the world grinds to a halt.

Today thanks to the wonders of the electronic office I still have access to most of the corporate resources I need to be productive and I don't have to leave home... which is a good thing given the weather!

Thanks to the weather over the last few days a bunch of meetings got canceled I had a chance to catch up on some reading and play with some things...

It's times like this that remind me just what the reach of the Microsoft eco-system is. I'm not talking about the fact I can work from home but the range of tools and technologies that enable pretty much anything you want.

The video above was created in the following way

• I have a Microsoft VX7000 Webcam connected to my Windows Home Server.
• I'm running Fwink webcam software that takes a photo every minute.
• I rename and archive the images using Limagito
• I used PhotoLapse to convert 400 or so images to a video file.
• I uploaded the video to the Live Streaming Service and that gives me the Silverlight player above.

Apart from the webcam and the Home Server everything is free software. It might not be the most elegant solution but I found all the bits and got it up and running (thanks to Live Search) in about half an hour.

I think folks too often just see Microsoft as a big monolith (even some people who work there!) but it's moments like this, and sites like Microspotting and View<myWorld> and of course some of the more pragmatic 'softees that remind us there's a lot more hidden away both internally and from folks building cool stuff in the community.

I've been really pleased with the Zune integration in the Mustang so far. The sound quality is great and it's really reliable (being able to sync wirelessly when the car is on the drive is a bonus as well) but I wanted to see how hard it would be to do a full head unit integration...

Well, SoundGate, the folks who made the original ZuneCORE module I was using have just released their head unit integration for a long list of manufacturers - and my Mustang just happened to be on the list! So I had a small challenge of getting the FDZN4 unit installed in my Pony over the weekend.

Installation was remarkably straight-forward. I'm not the most technical of folks but managed it with no more tools than a cross head screwdriver, one socket and some electrical tape to hold things in place. In less than an hour I was able to use the controls on the factory original stereo to control the Zune as though it was an integral part of the car.

They say a picture tells a thousand words, so here's some pictures of my little installation:

If you're not a Zune user yet you should check it one out. If you have a Zune and wonder how you can integrate it with your car or boat check out SoundGate or the Zune Accessories site for other ways to enhance your listening and viewing experience. I'm wondering if I can feed the video out to a rear seat monitor now for Rhiannon...

I’m a big fan of the 3.0 release of the Zune software, and the new 120 GB device. But the best thing about them is that today I can use them in public without having to make sure no-one is watching ;)

For the last couple of months I’ve been dogfooding both the new Zune 120 (great screen, great battery life and, in case you missed it, 120GB of storage!) and various iterations of the new new desktop app and device firmware.

Rather than list all the features head over to Zune.Net and check out the update – it’s free for any Zune device. The official feature list is here.

My personal favorites though are over-the-air access to the Marketplace at Macdonald's (it even works in the drive-through queue!), Purchase from FM (hear a song you like… don’t need to remember it, just add it to your cart) and the games :) The feature that’s been there since day #1 that I still love – WiFi sync… let’s me plug the Zune into my car and update music from the driveway.

It’ll be interesting to look back on this post when the elections are over to see who the winner is but right now I’m watching the Democratic National Convention in all it’s HD glory.

The video gallery for the official Democratic Convention site has been developed using Silverlight by the folks at Vertio (who also developed the Hard Rock Memorabilia site and released the open source Slide.Show project).

Working with Level3 and Move Networks they are delivering a live HD video experience (not just maxing out your bandwidth – they use adaptive streaming to balance the quality to your connection and PCs capabilities) and within minutes of a speaker finishing at the podium the clip is available for on-demand viewing as well.

The quality is pretty amazing. I look at projects like this with 6 years of experience live streaming Big Brother as a filter and a minimum bar for quality and I wish I had access to these tools back then! They take Windows Media to a whole new level (and with Silverlight they bring in back to the Intel powered Macs with the same level of fidelity). Right now Silverlight doesn’t offer a Linux solution, but with the Moonlight player we can hope the same experience isn’t that far off.

I thought I was impressed, but the folks from Online Video Watch and paidContent.org seem to back my opinion up ;)

Lifecasting is a big thing at the moment. One step beyond blogging and tweeting is the ability to record and broadcast live video from a cellphone to share what you’re doing – and engage with your audience.

Qik is probably the best known of these, and is slowly rolling out an early beta service for Windows Mobile users. But Qik are not the only game in town – there are a couple of existing solutions that have great support for Windows Mobile users.

LiveCast provide a live video streaming platform for Windows Mobile and laptop or UMPC users. The video is synchronized with GPS position data so your viewers can see where you are when you’re broadcasting (or when they review archived footage where you were).

While the video quality on LiveCast is pretty good for high end phones the client is not the most intuitive (so expect to spend some time figuring it it), and the web site is a bit clunky.

LiveMedia from IncaX provides very similar capabilities – private or public broadcasting from either PC or Mobile device, though as well as streaming video it allows you to insert other media from your device to enhance the presentation.

The LiveMedia GPS mobile client (currently in beta) adds GPS location data to the broadcast from your phone, and also allows you to record a broadcast to local storage for later upload. This feature is particularly useful as it allows you to keep a record of a trip without having to worry about connectivity.

Although feature-for-feature these two solutions are fairly similar my preference is for LiveMedia. The video quality is slightly less fluid and there is no audio in the current beta version but the interface is significantly easier to work with and there are more options to share your broadcasts.

The great thing is that both of these products are at fairly early stages and are evolving quite quickly, as are the capabilities of the phones they run on. Missing features and complicated user interfaces will quickly give way to slick controls and, especially as bandwith increases, high quality video and audio.

I recently bought a Zune and I’m surprised how pleased I am with it. I guess I shouldn’t be, but after being an iPod user for some years and listening to the haters it was easy to pick on the flaws.

Then I got one and now I don’t think I’ll go back. It works really well, the audio quality is great and I prefer the Zune Marketplace and ZunePass to the alternatives.

I found this advert for the Zune (the original from Digital Kitchen is here, but requires QuickTime)… Most of the Microsoft adverts on TV don’t move me (and don’t get me started on the “I’m a Mac/I’m a PC” ads) but if we could get Digital Kitchen to cook up some more like this I’d be a fan!

I'd not bought into the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray war. Not because I thought one standard was better than the other, but because over the last couple of years I've become more and more convinced that over the wire and over the air distribution are going to dominate.

In the US with Comcast and Verizon pushing speeds (12Mbps and 50Mbps are fairly common for Cable and Fiber respectively) and despite the grandstanding about net neutrality and p2p on-demand video is growing - you only have to look at Netflix, AppleTV and the Xbox Marketplace to see that.

Rather than jump on the Blu-Ray bandwagon with the demise of HD-DVD Microsoft are betting on downloads as the way forward. As long as the infrastructure continues to advance and the ISPs and record/music business don't spoil it for everyone I think it bodes for a great future...

I was pretty excited with the December update to the Xbox360 Dashboard that provided some additional codec support but after using it for a while I'm less sure that it's solved my problems.

For a start the big downer is that, unlike with a Media Center, I still can't use the system to view archived DVDs - that means we still have to expose the physical media to scratches if our daughter wants to watch Barbie rather than have her able to stream it from a remote location (or she has to use the Media Center in the living room which does support DVD Library mode).

The other frustrating thing is that some archived content still refuses to play back - though it's encoded with the same codec as content that's fine. It also appears that I need to be logged in to play back content (though this may be a limitation brought on my my current Gamertag not being US) - which means if my daughter is watching something she still gets messages popping up from folks who think it's me logged in.

Here's hoping the next Dashboard update brings some more Media goodness (though I am questioning the value of a noisy and power hungry Xbox360 as a component in our home entertainment setup.... maybe a dedicated Media Center extender would be better).

In the meantime we're supplementing support with TVersity. This transcodes on the fly the content we're having codec issues with (it runs on the Windows Home Server where the content is archived) and is pretty reliable. Again, it currently doesn't support archived DVDs and it's not a native WHS add-in (but there are enhancement requests being considered for both). For Wii users TVersity (like Orb) provide a very good Media Experience using the built in Opera browser to render a Flash user interface - on the Xbox360 TVersity etc are limited to the simple folder hierarchy and text listing.