You can grab snapshots from my MartinCam - here's how

Guest · Mon Apr 21, 2008 6:41 pm

With the Camera window and the Controller window up on your screen, you should see this.

Notice the small box with the word "One shot Jpeg". Right above the left side of this box you will see an icon that looks like a camera. When you want to grab a snapshot of the video you are looking at, just click on this camera icon. When you do, your snapshot will pop up and look like this:

To save this image to your computer, right-click on the picture, then select "Save picture as" and then navigate to the folder you want to save the picture in, type in the name you want for the picture, and click on "Save". (it comes up with the file name "oneshot.jpg" which you could leave as is, but you will need to change it for any subsequent pictures or you will overwrite the previous image)

If you get a small box with a red X in it, instead of a picture, let me know and I'll offer a suggestion which should fix that.

You can go to any of the Presets and grab a snapshot at any time. The snapshot you grab, of course, is one frame from the video you are watching.

Here's a snapshot I grabbed this afternoon of a Hummingbird at the feeder.

Enjoy,

Gus

iluvbirds · Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:04 pm

Gus, I just love watching your web cam on my regular computer. Unfortunately, I'm not able to view it on this laptop. I just get an empty square in the upper left corner. I can get the sound to come on, but there is no picture. By any chance would you know what the problem could be? I've cleared my cookies out, but I still can't get it to show up....

duck · Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:51 pm

Hi Gus, I have enjoyed your barnswallows for a couple of years now but I am having trouble connecting for your Martins.
I did allow for your pop ups but now I can't do the download..I get a page that says Toshiba Network Camera-Viewer on a blue bar and under that is a white box and in the left hand upper corner is " b93 0"
What is up with that?? I do have Windows XP. I also can get your barnswallows this year with no problem.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you may give.
Pat

Fred Kaluza~MI · Tue Apr 22, 2008 8:30 am

Hey Gus...It's working fine for me. I have your audio and video and they look great! Hey, you've got Martins! Real ones that chirp and chortle and cavort! I just heard something like a steamship whistle or maybe a train. You're decoys seem a little concerned about the real Martins flying all around since they've remained stock-still this whole time. I also think I saw a Mockingbird on your housing for a few seconds. Do you have those around you? The audio takes real momentary hits like once every 30 seconds or so for maybe a second. Sounds real good though. Here we've hung out the Oriole Jelly and put out a Hummer Feeder as the Orioles will be back in a week or so. Holy Cow! Was that a Sikorski that just flew over? I think I heard a chopper AND a small single engine aircraft at the same time.

Guest · Tue Apr 22, 2008 8:50 am

Hi Fred, thanks for your kind comments and very good obserations! No steamships here in the Dallas area!

But there are trains around that you can hear from time to time.

Yes, we have a LOT of Mockingbirds here. They are nesting and yes, they DO like to perch on my Martin pearchs. Most of the time my Martins don't care, but I have seen them going after the Mockers. Off and on you will hear some real gutteral sounds. That's two Mockingbirds fighting for territory, namely my backyard!

Sorry about the audio cutting out once in a while. Not to be passing the buck, but sometimes the audio cutout is do to the user's computer's CPU hitting the 100% mark, like when an e-mail is coming in, etc. I've seen that happen on my computer.

Yes, VERY keen ear, there, Fred! I think you are correct, there was a helicopter and a small plane flying over at the same time. Sometimes when I am at the computer, I can direct the camera to the helicopter and pan/tilt and follow it in the sky. These PTZ cameras sure are nice aren't they?

Gus

Fred Kaluza~MI wrote:Hey Gus...It's working fine for me. I have your audio and video and they look great! Hey, you've got Martins! Real ones that chirp and chortle and cavort! I just heard something like a steamship whistle or maybe a train. You're decoys seem a little concerned about the real Martins flying all around since they've remained stock-still this whole time. I also think I saw a Mockingbird on your housing for a few seconds. Do you have those around you? The audio takes real momentary hits like once every 30 seconds or so for maybe a second. Sounds real good though. Here we've hung out the Oriole Jelly and put out a Hummer Feeder as the Orioles will be back in a week or so. Holy Cow! Was that a Sikorski that just flew over? I think I heard a chopper AND a small single engine aircraft at the same time.

Guest · Tue Apr 22, 2008 8:56 am

Pat, it sounds to me like you are missing the ActiveX component. Close your camera window, and start from the beginning by opening up a new browser window and typing in the URL:
http://purplemartin.homeip.net and hit Enter.

Now watch very closely and look for a message near the top of the browser window that says something like "This program wants to install...". Click on that line, then click on "Yes", "OK" etc to all the prompts. First it will ask you if you OK the download of the component, then it will warn you, then it will ask you if you want to install it. Just approve all of these. It's perfectly safe.

After you have done all this, the camera window should come up. Let me know if this took care of the problem for you.

Gus

iluvbirds wrote:Gus, I just love watching your web cam on my regular computer. Unfortunately, I'm not able to view it on this laptop. I just get an empty square in the upper left corner. I can get the sound to come on, but there is no picture. By any chance would you know what the problem could be? I've cleared my cookies out, but I still can't get it to show up....

Guest · Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:01 am

I'm not sure I have seen the window you are describing. If it's a fairly large window with some menu items on it, click on "View".

If this is not the case, I recommend that you go through the procedure that I just posted to the other Pat. Namely close down your Camera window and go through the whole connection routine again. If you still have more problems, is there a way you can do a print screen, crop out the error window and send it to me?

Gus

duck wrote:Hi Gus, I have enjoyed your barnswallows for a couple of years now but I am having trouble connecting for your Martins.
I did allow for your pop ups but now I can't do the download..I get a page that says Toshiba Network Camera-Viewer on a blue bar and under that is a white box and in the left hand upper corner is " b93 0"
What is up with that?? I do have Windows XP. I also can get your barnswallows this year with no problem.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you may give.
Pat

iluvbirds · Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:56 pm

It's working now Gus. Thank You! I think my problem was a pop up blocker. When I gave it permission to allow pop ups, it started working.

MM · Thu May 08, 2008 8:15 am

Gus:
I have tried a couple times to grab a snapshot with your camera and all I get is a clicking noise, no picture pops up, am I not doing something right or do I not have the right program or what? I was just now trying to get a shot of a sparrow that was on the box and went into # 4.

Guest · Thu May 08, 2008 9:05 am

MM wrote:Gus:
I have tried a couple times to grab a snapshot with your camera and all I get is a clicking noise, no picture pops up, am I not doing something right or do I not have the right program or what? I was just now trying to get a shot of a sparrow that was on the box and went into # 4.

I think you might have all pop-ups blocked. The picture that comes up is a pop-up. If you see an error message at the top saying something about a pop-up being blocked, click on that and tell it to "always allow pop-ups from this website".

Let me know if that helps.

Gus