Introduction
The Pix WebCam consists of
several wireless video cameras (up to 4 total in current
configuration), a base base station unit, auto sensing video switch,
and a video server, video receivers. The wireless cameras are market
Camera 1, Camera 2,... Camera 4. Camera 1 is within 200 feet of the
base station and has electrical power to the site. Camera 2 through
4 run off of battery power, and are switch on via a PixController
motion controller when a subject is in front of the camera and
turned off when the subject leaves the site. Cameras 2 through 4
also have solar panels to charge up the batteries during daylight
hours, which virtually means you never have to visit these camera
sites.
Back as the base station, which is housed inside, we have the a
video receiver for each camera connected to the auto sensing video
switch. The video switch is a custom designed piece of hardware by
PixController, Inc. The output of the video switch connects to a
video server, which sends out the video feed to the internet.
The video switch will keep the video feed from Camera 1 on all the
time, however, when the switch senses a video signal from either
Camera 2 through 4 it will switch the feed over to this camera for
as long as the signal is present. The video switch also has a built
in LANC controller port to record the video signal from Camera 2
through 4 to a LANC VTR such as the Sony Video Watchman. The video
switch has built in I/O ports to trigger devices like DVR's or the
video server to capture and email JPEGS photos configured within the
video server.
We're using 1.2GHz video transmitter and receivers. We find we get
less reflection off of the trees than using 2.4GHz video
transmitters.
Recent Update:
There are two video servers running on this system now. One video
server will FTP a JPEG photo to our website once ever second. The
over video server will be triggered by the "Video Switch" when a
Remote Camera is turned on. This will grab the first frame from the
video signal, digitize it to a JPEG photo, and send it via email to
our PC, cell phone, and up to a
website to review later. The video signal is also saved to tape
when the remote cameras are turned on.
Camera
1
Camera 1 is a 1/3" 512 line Sony Super HAD video
camera with a wide angle 3.5mm lens along with 2 extra IR LED
arrays for a wide angle IR view at night. The video camera switches from full color during the day to IR at
night along with a
video transmitter. The video transmitter will transmit the
video and audio signals. There is A/C power which keeps all of
the electronics powered at all times.
This is the camera view you will see when none of our 3 remote
video cameras have action in front of them. There is a small
feeder above this camera that will spin out a small amount of
food in the morning and evening to keep action in front of our
webcam all day long.
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Camera 1
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Base
Station
The base station is the "Brain" of
the system. It consists of the video receivers for each
wireless camera, the auto sensing PixController video switch, the video
server, and the LANC VTR (optional).
Currently there are 3 video receivers marked Cam 1 Video Rx...
Cam 3 Video Rx. The antennas are outside for better signal
reception. The video outputs are connected to the input video
ports of the PixController video switch. The output of the
PixController video switch goes into a Video Splitter where this
is split into 3 outputs for the 2 video servers and the Sony
LANC tape deck recorder.
The video server is only needed if you wish to send the video
feed to an internet web camera and/or send JPEG photos to an email
address once motion is present in front of the wireless
cameras. A dedicated PC with a frame capture card and webcam
software could be used in place of the video server. The
Ethernet hub connects both video servers to the main Ethernet
switch, which is connected to the Internet via a DSL connection.
The LANC VTR is used to record the video feed from the remote
cameras, but is an optional item. It's also a nice feature
since it has a built in LCD monitor to watch the video signal. |
Base Station |
Video
Switch
The video switch is what controls what video
signal is sent to the video server. This switch was a custom
designed piece of hardware by PixController, Inc. The switch
consists of 4 audio/video inputs and 1 video output. It also
has a LANC port to trigger a Sony/Canon video recorder, and
digital I/O for triggering DVR's or the video server.
The video switch can be programmed to do multiple events, but
in the current configuration is works this way.
The
video switch will keep the video feed from Camera 1 on all the
time, however, when the switch senses a video signal from
either Camera 2 through 4 it will switch the feed over to this
camera for as long as the signal is present. The video switch
also has a built in LANC controller port to record the video
signal from Camera 2 through 4 to a LANC VTR such as the Sony
Video Watchman. The video switch has built in I/O ports to
trigger devices like DVR's or the video server to capture and
email JPEGS photos configured within the video server. |
Custom Designed PixController
Video Switch
The "Brains" of the system...
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Video
Server
The video server is what sends the video feed
out to the internet to our webcam page. This video server has
a built in MPEG4 capture electronics, which can output 30
frames per second. The video server has a built in web server,
but since this would kill the bandwidth of our internet
connection we configure the video server to FTP a JPEG image
to be displayed on our webcam page once ever second.
The digital I/O ports on the rear of the video server
are connected to our video switch, and are configured to send
a JPEG photo via email when one of the remote cameras are
turned on.
Note, the current system uses 2 video servers now. We have the
incoming video signal going through a video splitter to the Sony
LANC recording deck, and the two video servers. One video server
will FTP a JPEG photo to our website,
www.pixcontroller.com
once every second. The other video server is triggered via an
I/O port once the remote camera is turned on. The video switch
will send a pulse to the second video server to grab the first
frame from the video feed, capture it to a JPEG and email it to
us and our PhotoBucket account.
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Video Server Connections
What is
a Video Server?
A Video Server is an all-in-one box which will allow you
to connect a standard NTSC or PAL video signal and digitize
the video signal to be streamed over an Ethernet/Internet
connection. The same function can be done by using a PC,
frame capture card, and software. However, using a Video
Server has many more benefits with external control options
such as external triggering, smaller size, and a less
expensive.
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Video Server |
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