An Introduction Network Cameras (and this blog)

Geocamming

For awhile, I've been a "geocammer". Geocamming is a Internet hobby where you look for network camera streams. There are thousands of live camera streams from all over the world, some very high quality and some with sound!

About Network Cameras (or IP Cameras)

Netcams differ from webcams in that webcams are often associated with USB cameras attached to computers to do 1-on-1 chats, etc. In contrast, netcams are tiny computers, also called embedded devices, that you connect to directly and are usually streaming images 24x7. They are also commonly referred to as "IP cameras", and in this context they are often used in CCTV applications. In fact, most of the streaming netcams I have found on the Internet appear to be surveillance systems that have been left open to the WWW knowingly or unknowingly.

There are a couple of things that are interesting about viewing webcams:

• The ability to see how people live their lives in near and far away places, and what the seasons look like in, say, Japan
• The ability to view live streams from very remote locations. Some of the netcams I've found are solar powered wireless stations!
• The slightly voyeuristic nature of peeking into those places
• Just checking in to see what the weather is like, and maybe seeing somewhere you'd like to travel to!
• Seeing what a camera is being used for, and exploring the features of whatever camera you are currently viewing

That's all well and good, but...

One thing that is very frustrating to me about finding and viewing netcams is that they are too often littered by ads, or requiring Java or Flash plugins to view.

Here is an example of a crappy site, by Tourisme-Montréal of all people! Here the domain name is montrealcam.com, but there is not a single netcam visible here--it's full of static photos, some links to YouTube videos, and ads.

Thankfully, using some Google foo, and reputable cam sites, you can find the raw streams that are served up by the embedded devices themselves, and most of the time, due to the cost of these cameras (many are in the $500+ range as of 2014, and even more, back in 2006 when I started geocamming), the owners do a good job of positioning them well, and maintaining focus, cleaning the lenses, etc.

Here are some interesting sample images from some good cameras, direct from the source!

Germany, a marketplatz

A view of the sea, from Japan!

Basically

I wanted a place to put information I've learned along the way. This blog will be mostly technical in nature, I'll add the label "technical" to any article that is technical, but there will be some posts that are purely fun, like time-lapses from cameras I've found, and also to my own cameras. We'll see how long I can keep it up!