PixController products used to capture Space shuttle
Endeavour launch
March 11, 2008
Today’s space shuttle
launch, Space shuttle Endeavour, had a local Pittsburgh
Connection. PixController, Inc. of Murrysville, PA, a
company which develops and manufactures various camera
control systems sent (4) custom remote triggered camera
controllers to Dave Sirak, News Operations Manager for
WFTV Television News in
Orlando Florida.
David was granted special access to today’s launch by NASA
to setup his (4) remote triggered high end camcorder
systems, which were setup to capture (4) different angles of
the launch at the launch pad, which no one can have access
to. These (4) video camcorders would then be triggered
remotely from 4 ½ miles away at launch time to capture this
amazing footage.
Space shuttle Endeavour was launched from Pad 39A at Kennedy
Space Center (KSC) at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) Tuesday
morning. Commander Dominic Gorie will lead the STS-123 crew
on a record-breaking 16-day mission to the space station.
David said, “I will be taking a lot of behind the scenes
photos and video and you are welcome to all of it. You can
also use any of the photos I have posted on Flickr if you
want to do something before the launch.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirak/collections/72157603292742432/”
When asked how the remote camera triggers functioned at
launch time David said, “Very well, 3 of the 4 cameras
worked perfectly. The 4th started but stopped after a couple
of minutes. Despite the single failure I am very pleased. We
will be posting some clips on WFTV.com very soon if not
already”
Bald Eagle caught on video
near Pittsburgh, PA
March 2008
A rare site as a Bald Eagle was caught on an
unattended motion-activated video system in
Westmoreland County, PA. Bill Powers of
PixController, Inc. setup one of the companies
DVREye™ motion-activated video units to capture
wildlife near their company location just outside of
Pittsburgh. Capturing a 2 minute clip of a Bald
Eagle on it's migration path up to Canada for their
breading season was truly exciting. The extent of
wildlife in our area is just amazing.
Murrysville Web cam named one of world's best February 2008
Bill Powers finds himself in
the company of Vatican City and Times Square. His
PixController Wildlife Web cam was touted as one of the 25
Most Interesting Webcams for 2007 by EarthCam, a Web cam
network based in Hackensack, N.J. More than 5,000 web cams
were judged.
Powers, who says he has always loved wildlife, is
president/CEO of PixController Inc., a company that markets
motion-activated cameras. So the Murrysville man combined
the two to provide a window to wildlife for himself and
others. He placed two wireless cameras in the woods behind
their home. They capture the activities of deer, raccoons,
wild turkeys, foxes and whatever else might wander by.
EarthCam is pleased to announce that your webcam has been
chosen by our panel of VIP judges and producers as one of
EarthCam's 25 Most Interesting Webcams for 2007. EarthCam
producers search through more than 5,000 webcams throughout
the year to choose 125 semi-finalists that a VIP panel of
judges votes on to select the winners.
This 9th annual list includes the most unique and compelling
webcams in the world. Selected from thousands of nominees,
winners were judged on quality of image, uniqueness of
content and overall technical achievements in webcam
technology.
PixController Wildlife Webcam:
Whitetail Deer, raccoons, wild turkeys and gray foxes wander
through the western Pennsylvania woods in Murrysville and
two wireless cameras including one turned on by nearby
motion capture their activities all day. The site is an
excellent example of a place where technology meets the
environment.
PixController, Inc. will
discontinue OEM Board, Parts, and Kit Sales in 2008
December 2007
All of us at
PixController would like to thank each of you for another
great year. As you know, this has been an extraordinary year
with the release of many exciting new products. From our
DVREye and DVREye Wireless to our Remote VideoEye, we
continue to provide our customers the best in ground
breaking technology.
We are once again in the midst of exciting changes. With one
visit to our website you will
see
changes to our trail camera kits. While these kits are
undeniably some of the best on the market, they won't be
around for long. Revamping the kits is just one interim step
toward our ultimate goal of exclusively selling complete
camera systems. While this will undoubtedly disappoint some,
we feel that it is best to focus our time and talents in
this direction. Our strength as a company lies in our
ability to produce top-of-the-line, cutting edge products.
Focusing our attention in one direction will allows us to
continue with this mission to create and innovate.
Starting early 2008, we will discontinue all sales of our
boards, parts, and kits, focusing only on our complete
systems. We will send out a reminder a few weeks beforehand
so everyone can get their "last chance" items... and then we
will begin our new venture. Again, a big thank you to our
loyal customers. We hope to see you all for many years to
come!
PixController, Inc. Company Featured in
North American Hunter Magazine NOV, 2007 Issue
November 2007
David Mass (NAH Managing Editor)
-PixController, Inc. had it's popular DigitalEye IR model
digital trail camera featured in the "Picture Perfect"
article written by David Mass in the November, 2007 issue
North American Hunter Magazine. David and his wife put the
DigitalEye IR trail camera to perfection in scouting and
harvesting a larger Kansas 10-point in the 2006 archery
season.
Click here to read:
PAGE 1
Click here to read:
PAGE 2
PixController, Inc. Company Featured in
Gateway Publishing Oct. 17th Issue
October 2007
Tom McGee (Staff Writer October 17, 2007)
-When nature calls, Bill Powers of Murrysville always
answers ... by picking up the phone. It's not unusual for
Powers, the owner and president of PixController Inc., to
pick up his phone to discover pictures of deer, turkeys,
foxes and even black bears that have been sent from an
unmanned camera in the woods.
For Powers, these calls of the wild are research.
PixController sells motion-activated cameras that take
pictures or record video. Marketed to hunters and wildlife
groups, the devices are intended to document the animals
that visit a specific territory....
PixController, Inc.
awarded Government Grant for building Surveillance systems
for the Appalachian Trail
October 2007
PixController, Inc. was
recently awarded a Government Grant by the National Parks
System for construction it's new Groundhog surveillance
systems to catch illegal ATV use on the Appalachian Trail.
The 2,175-mile Appalachian National Scenic Trail, a
250,000-acre greenway extending from Maine to Georgia has
had extensive damage done by illegal ATV riding. The new
PixController UndercoverEye™, which is an remote unattended
video surveillance system only sold to Law Enforcement
Agencies, will be used for this task.
Large
black bear spotted in Murrysville PA
October 2007
Bill Powers,
founder of PixController, Inc., was testing one of their new
motion-activated wildlife video system products, the
DVREye™; which captured about ten minutes of this
impressive black bear. The bear is estimated to weigh around
300 pounds. The video was captured on October 5 at 3:30 AM
about 50 yards from houses in the Marlee Acres housing plan
in Murrysville, PA.
The PixController Remote
VideoEye™ is a wireless remote control device which can
control any Sony or Canon camcorders with the LANC editing
port. The Remote VideoEye™ consists of a small waterproof
box, RF wireless receiver unit, and LANC port for connecting
your user supplied camcorder. A handheld remote
control unit is included to control the Remote VideoEye™
from a wireless distance up to 180 feet. The unit is powered
by 4 AA batteries which will last all season long.
The Remote VideoEye™ is the perfect for tool for capturing
video without needing another camera man. Filming wildlife
documentaries or hunting videos will now take on a whole new
and exciting look. You can now film “never before seen”
angles of your hunt or wildlife documentary. Imagine a video
camera setup from ground filming the shot from a tree stand
all controlled from the hunter or camera man in the tree
stand.
PixController, Inc. attends first ever Animal Tracking
Seminar at Princeton University May 2007
Bill Powers (CEO)
- We , Hank Lentz (Senior Engineer) and
myself, were given an invite to attend the first ever Animal
Tracking Seminar by Roland Kays, Ph.D. Curator
of Mammals, New York State Museum. About 90 people were in
attendance from all over the world from England,
Netherlands, Denmark, France, Switzerland, and India. All of
the major US universities seemed to be in attendance such as
Harvard, Princeton, UCLA,
Oregon, and many others.
Most of the workshop seemed to be centered around radio
tracking of animals with many different techniques of radio
designs. Much of this was way over my head (less for Hank)
and a bit intimidating. After the all day talks the first
day there was a Poster Session that evening where Hank and I
presented a Poster on "LARGE AREA REMOTE VIDEO MONITORING
USING MULTIPLE WIRELESS MOTION SENSORS". This was basically
a design using our RF controller to position a Pan-Tilt-Zoom
video camera around to different areas using the X10 sensors
as trigger locations. This would give you the ability to
cover a large area with a single video camera. On the back
end of the system you can add video tape decks, DVR,
wireless video transmitters, cellular modems... Many things
to make this function as you'd need.
You can download a PDF version of the Poster by
clicking here
We were also given a table at the Poster Session to put out
all of our toys, which all of the guys there seemed to like
seeing.
I hope they hold this again next year and we are given the
option to attend again. I think Hank and I could present a
very good paper giving a spin on using trail cameras for
tracking by embedding location information within the JPEG
photos as they are taken and putting all of this information
into a database. This is kind of where I was going with
Visual Media Explorer, and much of this does already exist
in this software application now.
First Ever Sumatran Rhino Captured on Video! April 2007
This amazing "first
ever" 2-minute video of a rare Borneo Rhino captured
using a PixController motion-activated video controller
making International News! On March 29, 2007 we received an
email from a very excited Stephen Hogg of WWF-Malaysia
stating:
"The really great news is I have had one of your boards
set in the forest in Borneo for some time now trying to get
the Sumatran Rhino as you may be aware. Well after the trip
last year that turned out to be a disaster if you remember
after the board broke down before we could get the unit set
after we were dropped by helicopter into the site and took
forever to walk back out ha ha I will never live that one
down haha. Any way we have had another one set and I
retrieved it last Friday and yes we got it the first ever
wild Sumatran Rhino caught on video trap, 2 mins of heaven
it is awesome it really is I cannot tell you how good this
footage is it just cannot be better".
PixController featured in March, 2007 issue of "Bear
Hunting Magazine" March 2007
Trail Cams - See Who's Coming to Dinner Jim Gaskins
- I am a field editor for BearHunting Magazine. My latest
article (March/April) is a discussion about the use of trail
cams. I was given a lot of help by Josh Johnson, one of the
owners of Spot Hogg Archery Products and from Bill and Donna
Powers, the owners of PixController, Inc. I'll post the
article below in case you're interested.
My article for May/June 2007 is entitled, "Digital Trail
Photography - The Future Has Arrived". This article
discusses building your own trail cam, a DIY product. It
also highlights PixController, Inc. since they provide
virtually everything you need to do-it-yourself at home. I
will be happy to post that article too.
PixController TV sponsored TV Shows for 2007 January 2007
PixController, Inc. will
sponsor Footprint Productions,
http://www.footprinthunts.com/, and Good Ole Boys
Outdoor,
http://www.goodoleboysoutdoors.com/ TV shows and
publications for the 2007 season. Please visit the sponsored
links for TV airing times and more information.
PixController Products helping study Tasmanian Devil Cancer
Problems December 2006
Jeff La Valette (Tasmania, Australia)
- (Disease can
be seen on the face of both of these individuals - which is
the cause of ongoing research by DPIWE and the Devil
Taskforce) See more reading
Jeff's Blog Site which has photos and videos using
PixController Digital/Video motion-activate products.
PixController in the Duluth News Tribune
December 2006
Read
PixController customer Steve Fikes trail camera article in
the December 31, 2006 issue of the Duluth, MN "Duluth
News Tribune"
PixController sponsors the new Wild Wisconsin
TV Show
September 2006
PixController, Inc. sponsors a one of
a kind TV show, "Wild Wisconsin", which films hunting shows
and airs them only one week after filming. This is very
difficult since every other hunting TV show uses footage
from the previous season.
Read more
about Wild Wisconsin here.
PixController announces the first DVR video scouting
camera
July 2006
With another first
from PixController, Inc. we are pleased to announce
the "worlds first" DVR video scouting camera,
the
DVREYE™!
The new PixController
DVREYE™
(Digital Video Recorder) is a complete (PIR) motion
triggered video recording system.
The advantages the
DVREYE™
has over traditional camcorder motion event
recording systems are that the video camera switches
to full color during daylight hours and stealth IR
mode for night recording automatically with IR
illumination out to 60+ feet. Sound is also recorded
with your video, which is a very important feature
when recording wildlife especially. Being that there
are no mechanical parts for running camcorder tape
recording the DVREYE™
can be used in much lower temperature conditions
where a camcorder will often freeze, and it can be
used in much more humid weather conditions where a
camcorder can be damaged by moisture, and will power
up much faster than camcorders will.
PixController, Inc. introduces
"Worlds First" Cellular Trail Camera
April 2005
The new PixController
CellularEye™
trail camera system
will revolutionize the way you scout your next trophy deer,
research wildlife, or protect your property with the best "mobile"
security camera on the market today! Advanced integrated PIR
motion detector the
CellularEye™
will capture a full
color digital photo (up to 1.3 mega pixels with the new Treo
700p) and email it to your PC or cell phone within one
minute after motion is detected. You will know instantly
when that trophy deer or trespasser passes in front of your
camera.
Boon & Crocket deer
taken in Ohio with use of scouting cameras
October 2004
Dave Conrad with his
before and after photos of this amazing 190" class Boon &
Crocked whitetail deer taken in Ohio this archery season! With the
aid of his new PixController
Universal trail camera system Dave was able to capture some
great photos of this deer before the season started. Click here to
read the his story,
and check out our Photo section to
see the rest of these photos.
Large
black bear spotted in Murrysville PA
May 2004
With the use of a PixController LANC
camcorder system with IR light and a digital trail camera the
Powers family was able to see what was getting into their bird
feeder at night! Click here to read
more.
If you have an
interesting story using your PixController setup and would like to
post it here
please email us at support@pixcontroller.com
along with your story and photos.
