Peter's OCTOBER 2001
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Peter's OCTOBER 2001
Weblog
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Wednesday, October 3, 2001
We Now WebCast LIVE Events Around California
I can't believe it has been a whole year since my last entry!
In the last year, we lost Ricochet, our high speed wireless internet service provider. They went bankrupt. We are presently using GoAmerica's SLOW wireless internet service with some reservations and restrictions. They offer two plans. One has unlimited service in our local area only while the other has service in our area at a premium usage charge but offers unlimited use out of our area. So far, we have opted for the second plan, hence, we have done limited webcasting while reserving the right to go out of the area and still use the service. However, this might change very soon. We will probably switch to the more inexpensive local plan that offers unlimited local coverage. The limitation will be in the size of the service area.
In the past, we have experienced Ricochet local coverage and GoAmerica nation-wide coverage. Now we have been forced to hold on to only the Go-America nation-wide coverage. Once we switch to GoAmerica local coverage, we will not be able to webcast any views around California that are located outside of the San Francisco Area. This, in my opinion, kind of defeats the purpose of the CaliforniaCam. TheCaliforniaCam.com has been intended to be used all over California. Granted, the nation-wide GoAmerica coverage has it's limitations as well. It only worked near major highways or freeways. Unfortunately, the majority of California's beauty is located away from such roads. That is why satellite wireless internet coverage will ultimately be superior for our application of the technology.
Our present setup limits us to the amount of webcasting we can do locally. Ironically, the ATT nationwide coverage area does not cover where we live. In our area, using ATT would be considered roaming and would incur high charges per image uploaded. Adding insult to injury, Verizon allows unlimited coverage here but does not offer any service whatsoever outside of the area. Frankly, we can't afford both plans. We would only use the ATT service once in a while and though it would offer some more variety in coverage, it wouldn't be worth the added expense to activate it for a year (about $700). So I think we will have to curtail California wide service for now and limit our wireless webcasts to the San Francisco Bay Area only.
Although GoAmerica operates at speeds from 3K to 19.2Kbps (we find it to average about 4-5K), we have found ways to adapt. With Ricochet, we were spoiled with a baud rate of nearly 64K upload. One good thing that came out of this is that it has forced us to invent new ways to deal with the slower speed and still maintain image quality and refresh rates. Believe it or not, the service is not that much different. In the past, we got about one frame (320x240 pixles) to upload every four seconds. Now, it's one frame about every 8-9 seconds. Before we were forced to make modifications to image weight, we were uploading the same size image with about 30-50K per image. Now, we upload the same thing at 5-10K with little noticable, if any, distortion. Can you imagine how fast uploads would have been with Ricochet if image file size had been reduced? So you can see how in one way we can be thankful we had to give up Ricochet. I am reminded of that age old saying "Necessity is the mother of invention."
One devistating result of losing the higher speed Ricochet service is the loss of the ability to voice chat while we were mobile. In the past, we had the ability to talk to our chat room visitors from around the world while we were webcasting. Although this was a bit distracting at times, it added a unique dimension to our webcast. It was as if we had several friends from all over the world riding in our back seat as we drove around California. They actually had the ability to talk with us in full duplex mode. Their voice came over our car stereo and we talked to them using a microphone suspended from the interior roof of our SUV. We will have to live without this feature. It is possible, however, to start a text only chat along side of our live image webcast. That way, we could get some instant feedback from our viewers as well as communicate information about the live image.
We are still able to use the GPS map indicating our position during webcasting. This feature will continue to be accessed by clicking on the live image. At that click, a near live GPS map with a pointed dot showing our location and direction of travel will replace the live webcast image. Click again on the GPS image to go back to the camera image. If you don't click on it, it will automatically revert back to the camera image after about a minute anyway. We upload a new GPS image when we enter a new area or move a significant distance. At that time, the map will chage and the image will appear to have moved to the new location.
We are thankful for your patronage and apologize for the inconsistency of service lately. We hope to stabalize service soon. By that we mean that we hope to make a decision about what options for wireless service to go with.
Sunday, October 15, 2000
We Now WebCast LIVE Events Around California
So many things have happened since our last entry in March 2000!
We did complete a WebCast of our vacation to Yellowstone. Our car was struck by lightning with the camera rolling!
We purchased a new cellular wireless modem that works just about anywhere!
We WebCast the Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay. Please visit our Cyber Pumpkin Patch.
We were featured on world-wide Family Radio with Marcy and Matthew's Focus 2000 broadcast.
We are going into the wireless webcasting of events business.
We have completely redesigned TheCaliforniaCam.com. We have added thumnails and a recent image archive.
We upgraded our webcam to a state of the art Digital Video camera.
We now have access to a 750 Mhz laptop computer with fire wire.
We use new Coffee Cup webcam software. We have also become a reseller for them.
We will be getting a 128K wireless modem soon.
... and the list goes on and on. We'll have to elaborate when we get some more time.
Go to Peter's APRIL - SEPTEMBER 2000 WEBLOG (NO ENTRIES)
Go to Peter's MARCH 2000 WEBLOG
Go to Peter's FEBRUARY 2000 WEBLOG
Go to Peter's JANUARY 2000 WEBLOG
Go to Peter's DECEMBER 1999 WEBLOG
Go to Peter's SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 1999 WEBLOG (NO ENTRIES)
Go to Peter's AUGUST 1999 WEBLOG (LOTS OF GOOD STUFF HERE)
Go to Peter's JULY 1999 WEBLOG
Go to Peter's JUNE 1999 WEBLOG
Go to Peter's MAY 1999 WEBLOG