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TECHNICAL DISCUSSION
How does the camera connect to the internet so you can observe the bird images?
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We used to require a PC connected full time to the internet with the previous generation of USB cameras, but with this IP camera, the web server is built in and so we no longer need to keep a power hungry PC running 24 hours a day.
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The camera is mounted in a heated and waterproof glass enclosure in our back yard close to the bird feeders. Because this is an IP camera we run the Ethernet cable from the camera to the router inside the house.
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We live in Canada and we have this white stuff called snow. It reflects sunlight and is abnormally bright causing a total washout of the image through our old camera. We used neutral filters on the old camera but we will need to wait until winter to see how the Cisco camera fares.
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We have a wireless internet service from Rogers connecting our home in the country to their antenna in South London. We are too far from the city to have wired cable service or DSL. Our average download and upload speed is about 300 Kbps. We have verified our speed using Broadband Reports.com servers, and you may wish to test the speed of your own link the same way. With these speeds, we can probably support several simultaneous cam viewers.
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We are using a broadband router made by Cisco-Linksys to connect the IP camera as well as our other home computers, to the internet. Our IP address is not fixed, so we use the services of dyndns.com to keep track whenever the IP address changes, so that when you click WEBCAM to connect to the cam, your browser can find the IP camera at our home.
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We are constantly searching for cameras and plan to eventually upgrade the camera to a higher quality Pan/Tilt/Zoom version with sound. There are many technologies involved and many choices of cameras. However if one wants the latest MPEG4 codec, sound, zoom the choices get very slim. This will be an ongoing project and may involve different cameras that we try over the next year or two.
If you have further technical questions please respond using the Contact-Us Form.
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