The technology of the webcam page Samothraki:
For the realization of the Samothrace weather webcam a lot of points had to be taken into consideration:
- Files and data have to be transmitted to the WWW.SAMOTHRAKI.COM host all the time.
- For the case of a power failure that might arise and which happens rather often here, shall be bypassed with a non interruptible power supply.
- The web cam shall create a picture of the vicinity hourly, during the day.
- At night the camera shan't transmit any data.
- The picture size shall be at least 640 x 480, very sharp and the least possible data size.
- PC must be resistant against computer viruses
- The webcam must continuously work faultless
You have had to live with
a small and unsharp picture with a size of 352 x 288 pixels, because the used Philips Webcam PCVC 680K is connected via USB1.1
unlike most of the webcams. The interface cannot transfer bigger amounts of data to the PC. During this time the computer had been
attacked from viruses several times. The picture's quality was depending on the environmental temperature. During the last months
the webcam program delivered only between one and three pictures a day, instead of nine. During this time my dear friend
Dukas Hailas had to get up the stairs and manually put at least one picture into the net, almost every day. At the end, the
pictures became green and finally black. Unstrung, I searched for a new webcam. If you are interested: here's the
link to the technology of the old webcam.
And here it is. www.samothraki.com info org proudly presents you the new sight on Samothrace....
12-04-2004 The first picture from mountain peak Fengari with the new webcam Mobotix MB 10 Web is transferred to the host.
Resolution: 640 x 480, file size 53737 Byte. The Mobotix company is specialized in observation cameras for internal and external use.
But as a matter of fact webcam is not the correct description for this device.
After all, the device contains also a complete computer with Linux OS, a network connection and an ISDN modem.
That means that I have to replace the present webcam connection by ISDN, which doubles the basic charge, but it also means that
all parameters expected by me are fulfilled. Especially the reliability has been already proved by an identical webcam which
is installed on the Zugspitze (Germany's highest peak in the South of Germany) and works for several years without any blackouts.
But also the operation and the variety of calibration are almost perfect. The calibration is done via a computer which is connected
via Ethernet or via ISDN. Latter allows a remote calibration from any ISDN connection form anywhere in the world. Due to
the consumption of 2 Watts, the power supply is provided via the ISDN connection. There are so many special things and good ideas on this device
that it's worth to visit the link to the Mobotix company, if there is any interest in buying a very good external camera. By the way,
with this webcam I also could deliver pictures in the size 800 x 600 or even 1280 x 960. But the file size and the transmission
time would be correspondingly bigger and longer. With respectfulness of visitors who don't possess a DSL connection, the size of
640 x 480 must be enough.
Also streaming video would be possible, but the costs are too high in Greece. Alas, there won't be any DSl connection or
flat rate on Samothrace. But who knows, how it'll be in some years.
I hope the 900,- Euro investment is worth and you and I enjoy the big and sharp picture, I can present.
Additionally to the purchasing costs, monthly running costs of about 100 Euro for current, internet and
phone charges have to be taken into consideration.
As you can see, I spare no
expense and pains, to make the Samothrace internet sites
more attractive for you. The only thing I am asking for is an entry in
my
guest book.
Thanks a lot!
But maybe you would like to have a look at our room and hotel offers. Or discover which delicious meals are offered by our restaurants. The owners have financially supported this weather site.
Here you can see the tests of the web cam and the weather station in chronological order.
If you can't see a navigation menu on the left side of your screen e.g., because
you arrived here with a search engine, then you are in the overall view. With a resolution
of 800 x 600 pixels this is the best presentation. Please, use the links on this page.
You can get the best presentation and easiest choice which is available in our frame view
by clicking the link
reload frame view.
You can navigate much easier through our further 120 pages. The frame view will be
optimal
only, if you set the screen's resolution to at least 1024 x 768 pixels, frames and
additionally Java support in your browser. By the way, you get the best results with
the Microsoft Internet Explorer from version 4 and higher. If you have reloaded the frame
view, although you have been already in the frame view then click twice on
"back" in your browser.
