After the initial configuration of Willing Webcam, I noticed a few things that I wanted to fine-tune.
- Codecs – Willing Webcam had three codec choices for time lapse videos: MS Video 1, Indeo video 5.10 and SWF. The default was MS Video 1. I noticed after a few days,\ that the video quality wasn’t that good. I did some searching around their forums and found a posting that said that was true and to try using the Indeo codec. I tested that for a few days and the quality was better. However, I initially had a problem playing the AVI back on my Windows 7 computer. I found a posting that said you had to register a DLL on Vista and Windows 7. I next did a test of SWF. The file size and quality was the same as Indeo. However, when I tried to open up the SWF in Adobe Premiere Elements, the SWF crashed the program. So, the Indeo codec was the selection. All three did upload to YouTube.
- Mounting – I was testing the web camera looking out our upstairs bedroom window. This provided a good vantage point for the view below. However, the noise of the old desktop computer wasn’t the best for sleeping. I decided to move the computer and camera downstairs but then I needed to figure out a way to mount the camera up high in the window sill. So, I made a small wooden frame and screwed it to the top of the window opening. It was behind the window blinds and I was able to route the USB cable around. I was able to position the camera so the horizon was in the bottom third of the image. Check out the Woicik Current Weather.
- Webcam controls – I left everything on the Logitech C910 as automatic. I did some testing to find out if it was better to turn off auto focus. I notice with the new mounting that the camera was focusing on the window glass. So, I turned off auto-focus and set the focus to be distant. I started testing the other settings like exposure, gain, color intensity and white balance. It didn’t take much to cause the image to be less than desirable but thought I found a good balance. The main reason I wanted to turn off the automatic settings were to prevent the condition I was seeing where a time lapse would radically change during the day. So, I checked the time lapse the next day. The results were terrible. I had tuned the auto settings on an overcast day. However, the next day was sunny and the image was washed out. So, I turned back on the auto settings.