checked the hotel cam at 12:30 EST and found that it was still in color with no traffic. When I brought up the museum cam, much to my surprise there sat the little red caboose number 55555. This is the one with the fresh paint and the modern stallion NS logo. It has been waiting for over a half hour for all to admire. Woo hoo!
Rich
Those that desire, find a way..... Those that don't, find an excuse.
OK, Thanks for the explanation, mum's the word.......
In reference to the other, I have Verizon fios bundled, and I never have any problems with slowing, etc......
"Knock down that Blue Flag and line us out of here, I think I can find Run 8 on this thing."
And one more thing...
Some of us are paying for highspeed internet service from our ISP (Phone, Cable, etc. company) but part of the contract is that you get HS only up to some number of bytes delivered, then it reduces to a slower access rate.
If you notice that toward the end of your billing month (or possibly some point during the week or late in the day, however your ISP decides to count toward the max allowed) that your internet access seems to have "slowed", it just might be that you should NOT be logging into the various webcams (or watching so many YouTube videos) all day long and using up your allotment of High Speed access.
If you are not actively watching, it is better to not have your computer displaying.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
The reason for the two methods of viewing the cam are because the "smooth" version takes a lot of bandwidth (more images per second and a large format) and that is a problem when many people are accessing the server. By going to the fewer images per second, more people can view the video stream without taxing the server and the computers between the server and the rest of the world.
When accessed via the Trains . com link the data is first filtered through one or more intermediate servers. Those intermediate ones are accessing the originating server and reducing the image size slightly and sending fewer images per second. This reduces the workload on the one gathering the data and the amount of traffic on the internet so more people can view the scene (albeit not quite the quality of the original).
If we had never seen the "smooth" version, we would not be so quick to complain as the image is 100's of times better than any of the other railcams I have seen, just due to the nice size and excellent resolution. I know it has "spoiled me" for the best!
I suspect that eventually someone will alter the name of the smooth version and keep it a secret known only to the intermediate server(s), so that the only way to view the scene will be via the "not-so-smooth" URL. I am honestly torn between letting others know of the URL that is smooth and keeping it a secret so that who ever is paying for this wonderful piece of technology doesn't ever get the impetus to make the smooth version inaccessable to the general public and "I" then lose access to it myself.
Those that don't read this thread will never learn the secret!
As I was making my last post, a Westbound M T Hopper Train went by. It's now stopped west of the hotel, but can be seen on the Museum Cam. The Hoppers are Olive Green with Red Ends. Anyone know who they belong to?? I can't make out the reporting Marks......
On the "Jerky" Problem on the hote Cam, it can be fixed. Make sure the link ends with the letters "RRCmov" and the video is smooth.............. If the link ends with "RRCtrains" you get the jerky action. maybe someone knows why, I sure don't.........
Semper Vaporo; Thank you for sorting this out , makes sense to me now . There for a bit I thought it was ghosties from the days gone by. That reminded me of ionicferic ? skip on my 2way in my truck. I thought he was close to me ,when he was in another country.
Cannonball
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
As I type, the "hotel cam" is up and running...{black / white}, and it appears as smooth as it ever is.
Quentin
You must have Auto Repeat enabled on your media player and the camera shut off, so the media player just kept repeating the same 10 to 15 seconds of data in the buffer. I have seen that myself and it is just long enough to make you think you are seeing a might busy scene. I saw it happen once and the only clues that it was occuring was that one car at the end of the string that was coming from the west dissappeared completely as it crossed N. Jefferson (the "T" intersection) instead of continuing toward the camera... that and the train was just way too long (all the cars were near identical coal cars and it just kept going and going and going) I mean, I have seen some pretty long trains there, but this was going for near 15 to 20 minutes before I noticed the dissappearing automobile.
That antenna is actually not very far away, but since we have no perspective in the flat 2D view it is very hard to tell just what/where it is. I spent a long time on Google Earth trying to find it way on the other side of the river, but finally found that it is actually a bit less than 2000 feet from the camera! It is on a city government building. (It may be the city Police dispatch radio antenna.) The main mast of the antenna has several short aerials hanging on the sides and these are very thin. I think they are so thin that when the image is projected through the camera lens onto the sensor, their images are thinner than the space between the individual pixels; so as the wind moves the antenna slightly the lines sweep across the sensors and you see ghost images that come and go. Remember, these video images are compressed and that creates all kinds of artifacts that can come and go based on slight changes (very slight changes!) in brightness or color.
Well, today is much more interesting. I thought I could beat the blackouts by "brute forcing" it. Well, it turns out that there are no camera problems at all. First, several times in a row, while 2 trains sat far away, a Coke truck and identical vehicles made their rounds on the cam. It was neat. They repeated the exact same moves several times in a row! That was excellent coordination! And while 3 locos are still sitting closeby, a UPS truck had backed up in the same spot to make a delivery several times as well. He must have kept forgetting some packages. Then some more cars on the road kept having ignition problems. They must have restarted their cars all at the same time while still in gear, because they all lurched way forward suddenly before having more ignition problems. And then, best of all, a solar eclipse suddenly hit! It passed now, but, wow, this cam ain't too shabby after all!
In more serious news, as I can see the radio tower to the left of the parking garage, I notice something interesting about it. It seems that it actually extends up past the hgihest point of the stuff on that roof of the building to the left of it. Not only that, but I can also see that "secondary tower" immediately to the left of that one. The thing is, I'm not sure it really exists. Right now, the tower is well visible, even though it's often not visible at all. With the jerkiness of the cam, I notice that pieces of the tower seem to "break off" and float to the right of it about 1/2 a centimeter on my screen. Well, I wonder certain frames could also be doing it to the left, creating a ghost secondary tower closeby that one that I've reported. More importantly, I notice that that secondary tower often seem to be the hight of the bulge in the real tower at the bottom (that bulge seems to be just past height of the roof of the building on the right, so I believe that those frames just aren't quite aligning sometimes, creating that ghost tower. Can anyone else seem to see if there is only one tower?
it`s up now.
I seldom check them anymore .The hotel cam is usually down and the museum cam is too jerky to watch. RON
It was offline when I got up at 0500 EST. I haven't the patience to wait long for it to buffer. (Read; Excedrin Headache.)
Norm
9:00am MST ; connection ok , now offering a pain pill (buffering) . Something must have a terrible headache . Maybe a shot of technology would help. HEH HEH
Jim
It's up; It's down. Hopefully not for the count.
I see I haven't read through since page 43, and this is page 57. I've got a lot of reading to catch up on. As for the cam going down, it's down, whether you use the older, better URL, or the newer, suckier URL. The downtimes usually occurs in the afternoons when it does go down, so I believe it to be a bandwidth-exhausted issue at the location, though where its exact origin would be, I don't know. Once it eases up, the cam usually comes back on its own. So, I guess you should check back this evening.
Yow know guys, I’m going to take the minority viewpoint about the museum cam. IF, just IF, that cam could be made to function smoothly as the hotel cam usually does, when it does work, I would not mind it at all. At least one can read the locomotive numbers and, if sound were included, I think it would be really awesome! I don’t know about anybody else, but I would be more than willing to pay a subscription fee for something like that. The museum just might be able to make a few bucks that way too. Perhaps maybe good ol’ Jim Wrinn would help us convince the museum to start such a service – NAW! I'm sure he is far too busy counting his (our) money to bother with us. Ron Wilson
Yow know guys, I’m going to take the minority viewpoint about the museum cam.
IF, just IF, that cam could be made to function smoothly as the hotel cam usually does, when it does work,
I would not mind it at all. At least one can read the locomotive numbers and, if sound were included, I
think it would be really awesome!
I don’t know about anybody else, but I would be more than willing to pay a subscription fee for
something like that. The museum just might be able to make a few bucks that way too.
Perhaps maybe good ol’ Jim Wrinn would help us convince the museum to start such a service – NAW!
I'm sure he is far too busy counting his (our) money to bother with us.
Ron Wilson
It's down - again!
Lots of traffic today . It is great to have something to watch besides that crappy museum cam . RON
....Bingo...! Just took a peek, and sure enough, an auto carrier heading east. That's more like it. Thanks to whom ever repaired it.
Maybe if they knew how hard these outages are on our health , they would make a special effort to keep them up and running . RON
Yeah!
Back up and running at 2:40 PM EST when I came back from a meeting. Glad to see it because I was going through withdrawal.
Fantastic !!!!!! They can take me out of the straight jacket now . RON
Either my eyes were deceiving me earlier or I saw two diesels and a passenger car being hauled West past the museum cam. Both diesels were in red livery and one of them had the figure "1" on the body.
Colin.
It appears that the railcam is back up at 1:10 this afternoon. I must admit, I missed it.
Tom
Pittsburgh, PA
I know what you mean . I haven`t been to the rochelle cam in over a year. Since the hotei cam has been down , i have been watching the one in the netherlands . The hotel cam keeps saying readyand i keep yelling yes . I guess it doesn`t hear too well . RON
....Yes, changing the Rochelle cam with updating would be nice. A larger pic. display.....streaming video.....Lights at night...{I certainly don't expect that to happen}, and of course, sound would be great.
That, basically is the competition out there on the web. I really don't spend much time on it now, with the 2 sec. or so frames updating, and such a small pic. And of course, nothing to see in the evening / night.
........Continues to indicate "ready"....For what, we're not seeing it.
Severe withdrawal pain . Need medical attention . RON
Don`t count on it . I believe these cams are installed with the best of intentions , but over time they realize what a pain they are to maintain . They then figure they are not worth the trouble . I am afraid that is what has happened to the roanoke cam . RON
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