Testing The Webcam

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 30, 2010

Lo and behold, I have a new webcam, my first ever. I was going to say that Santa bought it for me but that would be a lie. I’ve thought about having some kind of camera on my computer for a long time and decided to give myself a Christmas treat.

It turns out not to be as easy as one might think it would be, especially for someone who’s used to professional speaking. Figuring out where to look was an interesting challenge, and I was doing some things during the couple of practice runs that I had to quickly train myself not to do. Anyway, here’s the video:

There’s a few things I had to do to get the video on here. I didn’t want to have to go to YouTube, so I installed a plugin called Embedded Video. Then I had to switch to WYSIWYG so I could access the program, as that’s the only way it shows. The last tab of the program allows you to pop in the link to the video, which is on my own website, and thus you see the video. Once I saw what the code looked like, I went back and got out of WYSIWYG and only used the code I saw before in my normal mode to see if it still worked, and it didn’t. So, it would seem that you can’t just write the code and add a video that way; sigh…

Also, my original file was around 183MB, so I had to upload it to my site, which took awhile being that big, but the video seems to be doing its job, and I’m a happy guy.

So, this post ends up being a great learning tool as well as you seeing my video; it’s all good. I did go back and find out that the webcam I bought today is the one I’m showing down below; it’s pretty neat and fairly inexpensive. I bought one for my wife as well today to replace her obsolete one once I got her a Win 7 machine.

What do you think?

Update If you don’t have a very fast internet connection it’s going to take forever for the video to load. I’m learning on the go, and I realize that’s a really huge file for many people. Sorry about that in advance.

Update II It turns out I actually have a YouTube account, though I have absolutely no idea where it came from. Anyway, the video is now able to be viewed by everyone; go for it!

Tags: Embedded Video, Logitech, video, webcam, Wordpress plugin

34 Comments »

Scott Thomas Photography:

That’s a big file. Took a awhile to load. Suggestion, work on the angle and try and get it perpendicular to you. The looking up angle this has distorts your face. I know your chin isn’t that big. LOL Oh, and it is okay to blink.

Very cool, Mitch. BTW, my Mac has a built in camera, just sayin’

Scott Thomas Photography Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 9:56 AM

Hmmm…the video disappeared after I posted my comment. :-/

Mitch Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 11:13 AM

I wonder why it took so long for it to load for you. It loaded for me in 5 seconds; that’s weird. I don’t have a lot of options with the camera; we had to tape it onto the monitor to get it to stay, and that’s pretty much what I’m stuck with, at least for now. lol

You and your Macs!

Jessica Sieghart Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 8:05 PM

Me and my Macs, too I was a loyal Windows person for years and needed a new computer because something or other failed on my HP when I stopped in the Apple store.. I can honestly say that I would never buy anything but a Mac again.

December 30th, 2010 | 9:55 AM

Charles Gulotta:

I don’t see the video at all, Mitch (and you got my hopes up, too). It says “Missing Plug-in.”

Mitch Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 2:14 PM

Charles, I’m not sure which plugin you’re missing that won’t let you see it; wish I did. Maybe you need a new Flash upgrade or something; I’m clueless. Meanwhile it’s kind of an interesting test. It came up almost instantly in both Firefox and IE, took awhile before it came up in Chrome, and won’t come up at all on Opera. I guess that’s the “beauty” of all the different browsers; this probably won’t be the best thing for me or anyone else overall with such a large file.

December 30th, 2010 | 1:04 PM

Alex@Jocuri:

Hey Mitch,
Congratulations for your new acquisition It looks very good and the image seems clear.

I am not a video expert, but I would suggest keeping your camera more level with your header so that you look straight.
Also you should move your head more when talking, when you keep it still, it seems you are stiff and emotive.

Mitch Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 2:15 PM

Well Alex, I figure I’ll get better with video as I move on, so I’m kind of ignoring those critiques for now. The idea was more to introduce myself and talk about the plugin.

December 30th, 2010 | 2:05 PM

Carl:

Nice present from Santa, this Christmas I bought a lot of toys for my son, a kid laptop and a lot other actually all electronic. I think new generation beats us in everything will the all the information that they can get. However, embedding self hosted video on website depends. I prefer doing a video and uploading on Youtube and other social media websites and after that embedding on my websites or blogs. This save bandwidth and actually can bring extra traffic if you input a link on Youtube description.

Mitch Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 9:25 PM

Carl, for a test I didn’t want to go that route. I’m not sure how I’ll feel at some point, but I do know that I’ll probably end up loading some videos onto YouTube, but not all of them. I’ve seen some of the comments people make on many videos, and frankly I’m not opening myself up to that.

December 30th, 2010 | 8:14 PM

Allan Douglas:

Like Charles I don’t see any video either. But I do see a yellow bar acros the top of my screen that tells me this web site wants to install “Windows Media Player Extension” When I tell it to go ahead and do that Microsoft screams about what a dangerous thing it is to allow acive-x controls to be installed. Sigh.

I’m in my easy chair using out netbook – it’s pretty stripped down. I’ll try from my office in the morning

The photo of the camera looks pretty slick though!

Oh, and my NetBook has a camera bult into it but I’ve never had any desire to learn to use it.

I have thought about setting up a web cam in the window of my workshop and letting the world share in our glorious sunsets.

Mitch Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 9:23 PM

Okay, that’s what the issue is with y’all. I have that extension, and obviously that’s what you need to use so you can see the video, since it was created originally as a .WMV video. It shouldn’t be dangerous since both products are made by Microsoft; that makes no sense.

December 30th, 2010 | 7:25 PM

Jessica Sieghart:

I can’t see any video either, but I am on my iPad. I’ll check when I can get to my computer? This could be one of your new in 2011 things-vlogging!

Mitch Reply:
December 30th, 2010 at 9:23 PM

Jessica, I don’t see me doing a lot of this type of thing, but you never really know do you?

December 30th, 2010 | 8:00 PM

Kissie:

That’s cool, I don’t know why I had to install a plugin to even see your video though. Too late at night for me to figure it out.

Happy New Year!

Kissie Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:12 AM

Mitch, this is hilarious. I’m watching you looking straight ahead and wondering “why is he acting like a robot” … hilarious! You don’t want to know how many videos I’ve made with my granddaughter — I know EXACTLY what you mean about NOT looking into the camera. But, my camera is built it — I think you should be able to adjust it some so you can loosen up. I will tell you more later.

Do you know Eren McCay? She has an excellent camera (we Skype a lot) and it may even be the same one … so she might be able to help you break it in. But, for you to get this far without any assistance — well, let’s just say mine would still be in the box until Ileane would have to tell me how to use it.

For real, good night this time. (Now let me finish watching this video.)

Kissie Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:18 AM

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

As you signed off, before looking down at yourself, I was still giggling.

I LOVED it … you don’t need the jokes.

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:33 AM

First Kissie, you make me feel special; thanks! Second, I think I’ve seen Eren McCay; she might have even commented here once. I’ve never done Skype, but now that I have a camera I might take a shot at it. And all that giggling; now cut that out! lol Okay, go ahead and giggle; my wife laughed as well.

December 31st, 2010 | 12:07 AM

Sire:

OK, I’ve waited some 20 or so minutes and it’s only about a third of the way there. Still it was enough to finally hear what you sound like and it was great.

I’m not a professional or anything, you’ve seen my video , but I reckon you should be allowed to move around a little, I mean it’s unnatural if you don’t. Forget that there’s a camera there. Imagine it’s a person instead and just act naturally and I reckon you’ll come across a whole heap better.

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:32 AM

Sire, first time ever on camera, and I had only practiced a couple of times before doing that. I’ll get used to it; my wife and I are trying to get used to it by talking to each other through the cameras. I couldn’t really forget the camera was there because I wanted to look at it; we’ll see where it all goes.

As for the loading thing, I think it’s the speed of your connection. I’m sitting around 15 MBPS, so it loaded fairly fast for me on Firefox. I worried about that, though, because I wasn’t really sure how the program would work across the board for folks. But as you said, you got to hear me. I need to check settings to see if I can record without it being in HD; that’ll shrink the file a lot.

Sire Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:45 AM

Yeah, that’s heaps more than I’m getting. I just ran a test at speakeasy using San Francisco CA and I only registered 0.85 MBPS, and I thought that was pretty good. Sheesh.

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:47 AM

Wow, really? I didn’t know anyone was running that slow anymore that wasn’t using dial-up; are you using that? Sometimes I forget you’re not in Europe, as those folks have really fast speeds. I’ve been thinking of upgrading to 30 MBPS, but maybe I’ll just shut up and be happy with what I have. lol

Sire Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 1:57 AM

That test doesn’t seem to be accurate, perhaps because it’s an American site. I tested it here and it’s closer to 4.5. Still pretty slow compared to yours.

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 10:01 AM

That could be, Sire. Actually, I find that if the location is relatively close to New York my speed is pretty fast. Further away, like California, and it drops under 10 MBPS. So, it seems to all be relative to where you are.

December 30th, 2010 | 11:12 PM

Kimi@wordpress video tutorial:

Mitch,

I agree with Scott above, i can’t load the video..I have waited for about 5 minutes, and it is still saying “waiting”..

But, logitech is the best webcam i have ever had.

Happy 2011

Kimi.

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 10:04 AM

Kimi, I think it’s the file size as well as your download speed that’s the issue. No matter; you at least know I’m there. lol

December 31st, 2010 | 5:22 AM

Carolee a.ka. Blogging Biz Mom:

I’m STILL waiting for it to load….been waiting quite a while….

I will shooting a video soon- maybe today…….my daughter got a camera w/video for Christmas. I keep putting it off because my hair is overdue for a cut, but I never seems to get to it

Ok, I just took a phone call that lasted about 3 minutes and the video still didn’t load. Let me go refresh….

December 31st, 2010 | 10:04 AM

Carolee a.ka. Blogging Biz Mom:

Hm…still won’t load. Usually I have a pretty zippy computer!

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 10:21 AM

It is a large file, Carolee, and I don’t know if you’re on Road Runner, where you’d probably already have it. I assume you’re using either FF or IE?

December 31st, 2010 | 10:08 AM

InquestofaWoman:

Wow, is that our Sire I see up there? Lovely to see–brings back a lot of fun memories

Our Mitch, this video does not appear to want to run on my laptop. But then, this is a common trouble with it–I likely have too much nonsense on there, and it is bloody near as antiquated as Noah’s Ark!!! (sigh) Then too, I might be missing a Flash update or two…again :O!

Sire Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 7:19 PM

Ah, my dear Inquest, you have me at a disadvantage, you can see me but I can not see you

I hope you had a nice Christmas and that you will have the best New Year ever.

Mitch Reply:
December 31st, 2010 at 9:56 PM

Candace, you probably have the same problem some others do, not a fast enough download speed through your ISP to get it done. Sorry about that; first test, you know.

December 31st, 2010 | 6:38 PM

Gem:

Really? First webcam ever at this time! It must be exciting. I felt the same when I owned my first webcam. I bought my laptop first with built-in webcam then after a few days I managed to buy my desktop a USB webcam. That all happened last year!

I think my connection is slow too, for the video to load.

Mitch Reply:
January 1st, 2011 at 7:21 PM

Hi Gem; thanks for the comment. Yeah, that file was really huge. I’ve been experimenting and I know my next video might not look as clear, but it’ll be much, much smaller.

January 1st, 2011 | 3:24 AM

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I'm Just Sharing

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 30, 2010

34 Comments »

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