live chick cam

[Darlagips]

Hey. Thanks for sharing. Wish I had the technical savvy to put together something like that. Thought about trying to put a wireless webcam in the pen just to see which of my hens are laying. All that set up though - I think it's beyond me. Love seeing your chickies. Will tune back in when you set it up for a live hatch. How neat

 

[mattblackburn]

hatch will go live next friday morning or thursday night if they are pipping thursday.

an ip camera over the counter has a better streaming server but i did this basically free.

if you have a usb cam and an old junk pc (anything less than 8 years old probably would run it)

and know how to burn a cd

i could get you set up pm me and id be glad to help you
need one with a built in wifi card or would need to run cat 5 to your pen ( i ran cat 5)

 

[Gargoyle]

It's much easier and more reliable if you can run cable (cat 5) from the cam to your computer; I have two wireless IP cams, the setup is tricky. It's too far from the router, so I needed a range extender, and the fencing around the run was interfering with the antenna signal, so I needed extension cables from the cameras to the antennas, put the antennas up high over everything. Every once in a while things go out and I need to reboot the cameras or router (unplug for 15 seconds, then plug back in). The signals are still flaky, and I often lose signal for brief periods.

Also you need to set up port forwarding with your router (and it's done differently with every brand of router) to be able to see it remotely. But the end result is worth it. I was in Italy a few months ago, at a cafe with wifi, fired up my laptop and watched my chooks running around. I do have it set up private with security, so it's not a public cam. Sorry.






And this was when I had one of the cams set up inside the coop at night. It has infrared for night vision and I can focus the lens for different distances. (however, focusing is a major pain, you have to pretty much disassemble the camera to get at it, being careful not to damage the wires)

 

[mattblackburn]

YES CAT 5 TO STAND ALONE IP CAM WITH BUILT IN SERVER IS BEST AND USES LESS POWER
MY SET UP WORKS AND WAS FREE BECAUSE I HAD THE HARDWARE
SORRY CAPS

but i intend to install several ip cams eventually then i can port forward each from a different external port and access stream direct

although i will still run linux with zoneminder on it to monitor the streams. it records motion events and has a camera montage view that allows you to see multiple cameras in one view at the same time.

i have a 16 port switch and a box of cat5 so eventually i will home run cat 5 to everywhere i want a camera and have one in incubator/ one in coop/ front door/ back door /driveway etc so i can check on the home/chickens/kids all at the same time lol

not to mention the image quality of the ip network cams is better anyway and some allow pan/tilt/zoom

it was fun setting this one up though

 

[PoultryGirly]

How old are your chicks???

 

[mattblackburn]

born june 20 and 21 ironically the biggest one was born last.
so 13 days old

 

[mattblackburn]

update:
due to my coworkers logging into the camera on multiple pc's to make it slow down and leaving them inactive i have decided to enforce a timeout. It is at 5 minutes now it will just error out. if you reload the page it should let you back in.

What i will do in the future is timeout to a main page to click to enter again. as long as your actively watching it your fine but they are trying to drain my upstream bandwitdh

i will be moving the site and not telling them so that will help as well.

remember to keep an eye out starting possible thurs night or friday morning next week. once the first egg pips i will move the cam to live hatch mode in my incubator. Since it may have more views during live hatch im going to reduce the filesize to allow for smoother viewing on the fly as i see more traffic so if it resets im probably tweaking it just try again shortly and youll get back in.

thanks for watching!!

remember iphone/chrome/safari/firefox seam to work.

internet explorer will not ever work

matt

 

[Fur & Feathers]

^motion is awesome!
have used it as a motion detecting recorder in bedroom before because certain fellow residents were sneaking in and stealing stuff,plus had used it as a chick birth cam for local network streaming so anyone in this centre coud watch.
motion woud get a lot more well known if it had a gui frontend for it.



as for the chick cam,for a thrift shop webcam it does have a surprisingly good picture.
its working very well from this end,using firefox 13.0.1.

theyre beautiful,but cant wait for the live hatch-bookmarked.

gargoyle,
we have a wireless IP camera at our farm project;think the farm owner had to get an internet line just for it,plus they have a laptop hooked up with it as the server,its using an awful software though which relies on internet explorer or at the least IE rendering.

 

[mattblackburn]

thanks. i will post a new link here when hatch goes live.

 

[mattblackburn]

and i am hoping to update to a better cam tonight but i may have to tweak the config file to reduce quality if i have too many concurrent sessions. I will do that on the fly though to have the best picture i can stream for the current audience.