Framing shots that told a story was how Ian and I rolled back in the day. We worked hard at it. Fortunately we had sway in the early days until the resorts realised the Internet was indeed a legit media. I reckon 2000~2004 was peak snow-cam-as-a-resource.
The old slalom carpark cam was fantastic. Inter in the background was the icing on the cake for visibility and cover. If you framed that then much kudos. Nothing nearly as good these days although cedarwood is very much appreciated
Whereas my theory is that a lot of the resort operated cams deliberately lack context & nuance. They're expected to have cams, so they have cams, but they just show macro details ie snow/no snow, sun/no sun etc.
The reason I didn't run POE is because the housing has a heater and blower in it so requires more current down the line than just the camera itself which I was reluctant to put over the Ethernet cable in the case it got broken and shorted out the power on it might toast stuff like the router etc. I run 24v AC which was not a problem running another power cable since I had to put a cover over the Ethernet cable so both cables run inside that.
doh! Yes of course. The heating always needs it own power even if the cam is PoE. A constant 2A+ draw is not exactly viable with PoE. I'm getting out of touch, will leave in your capable hands - just send the invoice plus add some beer & pizza money for good measure, @CarveMan & I will play financiers.
The newer cam has better view too so we will see more of the area Old SNC CS10 is 66 degree horizontal viewing angle with a 1/4 CCD sensor at 640x480 image size, minimum illumination is The newer SNC EB630 is 114 degree horizontal viewing angle with a 1/2.9 CMOS sensor at 1920x1080 image size Re the history, it would be handy if they could have that again here at ski but it might be a bit much to maintain In the mean time I registered the cams with Lookr a few years ago and they have a history function. https://www.webcams.travel/search/mt buller https://www.webcams.travel/webcam/1531635964-mount-buller-village-square Click on the image to get history video.
Fkn Amazon not shipping to Aus I found one at Amazon Aus, its a 630B model, only diff is 630B model has Electronic Day/Night and 630 has "True Day/Night" but I have NFI what that means I doubt it's an issue. Local Aus on is about AU$670 I got onto Amazon Support and via chat they said it should allow me to ship the US one (USD$399) and she will get back to me. I'm inclined to just go for the Aus one since there is only 1 in stock.
If we could get wholesale synchronous service up the mountain that would work. Then who knows. ADSL Is pretty rubbish these days. But with 5g around the corner perhaps?
NBN and ISPs just don't get it. They count ski resorts as being low volume users and don't want to spend money there.
That must be why. Plus lots of people only connect for the winter only. I enquired about places with orphaned ADSL connections with no fixed line NBN, the advice from Whirlpool was to not disconnect, fortunately internet bills for online businesses are easy to justify. I'm not sure if there's any legislative imperative to maintain the ADSL service up there. We get good Optus reception in our apartment but when you want to stream video then the gigs rack up and 4G just doesn't have the allowances for this.
I just decided to suck it up and keep it going year round so if people go up through summer - friends MTBing, etc, it's available. Plus the disconnection fee, and getting it reconnected was a bit of a PITA a couple of times so it's just an expense I factor in.
OK here is the state of play The reason I cant get Sony cams from the US is due to Sony clamping down on selling US cams to other regions. Found this out form the support guy at Adorama who pointed me to it explicitly stated, he could understand why at first but asked around and got back to me. The issue with thew local one if that the Sony SNC EB630B lakcs true day / night abilty, while I cant find out if that refers to still images of only vidoe the other issues is that the 630B is cheaper than the 630 model To compare Aus price to US US $279.99 AU $399 Aus AU$662.48 + shipping https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B00FBCJXOQ While the EB630 (True Night / Day) Is 399 USD at Amazon There is also a used one at Adorama for US$105 https://www.adorama.com/us 797924.html I'm told Adorama which is a huge camera seller has tested the cam and listed it as on good condition with no visible signs of wear. But they cant send it outside the US even second hand. He did suggest however if I can give him a US address he can send it there, wink wink. Bottom line is I cant get the EB630 in Aus only the EB630B So was thinking maybe use a freight forwarding agent that can re ship the item to Aus and I can buy the S/H one. What i really what to do is replace both VS cam and APIRA cam too. Since VS has plenty of light then the EB630B would probably work there fine APIRA not as much so maybe I can get the second hand one for it. So has anyone here used a re-shipping agent to use to get the S/H one here form Adorama ?
**** - I hope we wont see "Sponsored by AussieSkier" all over the cams - I get enough spam and facebook adds etc from that shop as it is!
Got mail Adorama has sent package to US address so that's the first hurdle. I was a bit apprehensive they might baulk at the forwarding service address but seems the Adorama support guys advice was solid. Once it makes land here Ill then order the new one from Amazon USD399 and see how that goes. I really would like to replace both cams. Put the new one at VS cam and the used one at APIRA.
Cam has arrived Sure doesn't look second hand, all in original sealed packing So this model only runs via POE so I got an AC powered POE injector and short ethernet patch lead from Wancar (AKA Jaycar) I'll have to run a double adapter to plug in the 24v AC and POE injector indoors with short ethernet patch lead between injector and router and the cam ethernet lead into the injector At the cam housing end snip the short 24AC jumper leads from cam housing heater to cam off so the housing still runs on 24v AC and the cam runs off POE Ill power it up tonight and go into the admin and make sure it's all working right. Next is to order another new unit from Amazon as planned so I can upgrade both VS and APIRA cams. Some stage we may be moving the APIRA cam to a better location on the building.
PoE is good for 15 or 30 watts, so it should be enough for a heater as well as the camera. Just string a few power ceramic resistors in a series, to match the voltage/power spec.
The housings are rated as AC and already wired so may as well leave it as is. I was not over the moon about running the housings off the same power as cam to begin with so separating them suits me. The cams are expensive and the housings are cheap (high Chineseium content) and the heater in one of them has already died once I discovered when I brought the VS cam home to do the change over for the new balcony fence..
Super! I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying someone else dealing with these damn things #somanysmallissues #thepeopledontcareboutyotroubles.
1st world problem I know but with the camera tour of Buller - can you make all the windows the same size? I have to move the mouse when scrolling through! It is the VS and Apria windows that are smaller than all the other. #ifyouhaveothersdealingwithotherissues-youmusthavetimetodealwiththis
This camera has been giving me the shits. Seems it refuses to reset to its original defaults and IP address. Hit the reset button on it while powering up and the lights indicated it was resetting itself but no go. After about 4 hours of trying all sorts (ip scans and x-over cables and such) and some googling I finally found a program called SNC Toolbox by Sony. So downloaded it and it found the camera and I managed to set the IP in back to factory of 192.168.0.100 allowing me to access setting via the browser using HTTP. The one if has was way off. So it seems to allow all setting to be changed but refuses to allow me to change the IP from the admin via the browser so I put all the setting in it to match the cam it will replace on the mountain and it allowed all those setting to be adjusted and will just use the program to set the IP on it to suit the router pool up there. This thing has so many settings compared to the old CS11 units, its a minefield
Ok so found the hidden window to set IP info from the admin in the browser. The one i was looking at on the main network screen in the manual only lists the set UP and doesn't allow changes from that, which makes no sense because you can highlight the text in the boxes. Still doesn't explain why the reset didn't work I suspect the button has to be held down for a lot longer after powering up but it doesn't specify how long in the manual anywhere.
One good feature with this is ability to focus by admin software. The old one I had to plug in an AV monitor to focus the thing and it was hard to see and sensitive to adjust and the problem was I cant get to the lens to adjust it without sliding the cam back from the housing so had to adjust it in steps and push it back in the housing to check it each time This one has the same manual focus on the lens to get it close but looks like the lens also has focus motor in it as well as aperture so admin software has live preview with fine and coarse focus control buttons to get a dead sharp focus while the unit is in the housing and also means I can do it remotely if it goes out of focus for some reason.
awesome feature! ahh the memories... good times, good times. Ian and I spent countless days and evenings focusing the cams inside their housing prior to installation - set them up looking out windows in apartments because it was such a pain in the ass to focus once installed out in the elements. There was a Burle housing we liked because you could open the whole top of it like a car bonnet in order to adjust the focus in situ without having to slide the cam in and out.
Yes one of those flip top housings would have helped a lot. I found when focusing out of the housing I could get it pretty good with he monitor but after some time in the housing with the heater going under the lens it seemed to need a bit of a tweak on the focus. Other benefit of this is I wont need to have a monitor with me and Ill be skiing in the do the cams with tools and cams in my back pack.
Heres a brochure on the current cam http://www.videocom.dk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Sony-SNC-EB630.pdf And the user manual https://www.sony.net/Products/CameraSystem/CA/SNC_64x/Manual/AEN2100181.pdf
I got a bunch of CS mount lens in a cupboard somewhere. I'll see if I can dig em up and I'll send to you as spares.
Thanks for the offer but after I replace these Ill have some spares myself off the old cams. I might use one of the cams at home on the workshop The one that came with the new cam is good, and has both the aperture and focus motors in it. The old ones only had aperture motor in them and I bought them locally, one of them was a cheap lens and the other a Bosch lens
Some odd reason the VS cam is not updating it time from the time server as APIRA cam is so VS cam is nearly an hour and half off in the time stamp. Maybe it can sense impending replacement and its going on strike.
It was doing that during the previous snow storm when i was watching the cams, time stamp was hours out. At the time i wasnt sure if the image was current and the time was wrong or the image was up to date and the time was wrong.
Just went back the the listing at Adorama and it seems they had more then one second hand unit (thought they only has the one), so I ordered it.
It was good as new and oddly no settings in it other then the IP address, everything else was default factory settings. Only other thing I noticed was it was zoomed in a bit and out of focus.
I find default ntp servers on lots of devices are carp. If they fail I always change to Internode ntp. Lemme google that
I use this one at home on on the cams. It always worked so far and the APIRA cam seems ok au.pool.ntp.org I suspect that the VS might be set to update weekly not daily like APIRA cam, it seems to have drifted quite a bit. Once I get up there to do both cams I suspect Ill find the cause of it.
To drift that far means it prob has almost never updated. May be a DNS thing, can't look it up as normally au.pool should work - (though being it's a pool its ends up routing elsewhere - as my understanding goes). Alternative is plug in an ip address direct. Either way, always easier to fix when you got the thing in your hands and can wring it's neck directly.
Camera number 2 has arrived. Same as the other one, can't tell its second hand. Turned it on and logged in as previous using SNC tool and its all working so put all the VS cam settings into that one, other one has all the APIRA settings. So now just a matter of when I can get up there to fit them. Plan A is to stay one night at APIRA, not a member anymore but can get a night there and rates are still pretty good. That way I can fit both cams and get some skiing in, maybe do VS cam in the morning then APIRA one in the evening. Ive got to do a bracket change on VS cam to get the view a bit left and the nose of it out more so it doesn't get a curtain of ice off the balcony and fix the cable issue (mx mentioned) Inside just need to plug dble adapter in and plug in ethernet patch lead to POE injector and cam ethernet into it. APIRA is simple for the cam, it has a hub in the loft that is now redundant as I am removing the temp sensor unit so all I need to do is swap the hub for the POE injector and its right to go. Aside form that plan on fitting a timer to the outside lamp so it comes on at night the illuminate the roof.
