It's down - again!
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
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.
It's up; It's down. Hopefully not for the count.
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
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
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.)
I seldom check them anymore .The hotel cam is usually down and the museum cam is too jerky to watch. RON
it`s up now.
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?
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.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
As I type, the "hotel cam" is up and running...{black / white}, and it appears as smooth as it ever is.
Quentin
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
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.........
"Knock down that Blue Flag and line us out of here, I think I can find Run 8 on this thing."
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......
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!
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.
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......
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.
It was working at 9 PM Pacific, just saw a nice coal drag go by. Good to see it working again.
Looking at the cam it seems that Roanoke has missed out on the great Snowstorm/Blizzard that has swept up from NM to New England. I guess the locals are more than pleased and providing trains are not stuck elsewhere, which they may well be, we should still see some traffic.
Alan, Oliver & North Fork Railroad
https://www.buckfast.org.uk/
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll English author & recreational mathematician (1832 - 1898)
Argh! All that effort to try to catch the steam loco, and I missed it!? Grrrr. Did anyone get any screen snapshots or rip the video feed? I really wanted to do that.
Well, about this morning, there sure was a lot of train traffic! Wow, that has to be the most action I've seen in a morming! All because I was waiting to get a close screenshot of the caboose that was sitting there...and I ended up seeing a variety of trains with a variety of power and cars. Annoyingly, quite a few movements with the variety happened at the same time, so I missed quite a few of the shots I wanted to get. : (
Right now, there is pratcically nothing, nor has there been for a while, but that's fine. As for the URLs thing, I think both should be kept. The new setup with the weaker feed is okay for most potential viewers, especially as word of the cam spreads, but us serious viewers have the older, better URL here, and only we really know about it, so it's not like it will get overused or anything. And on the bandwidth things, this is when it's nice to have both versions. You can use the smaller bandwidth one when you want, and revert to the live action one when a significant train comes by. You save yourself bandwidth that way, you save them bandwidth, and you still get your full resolution when you want it. I see no reason they'd go to any effort to change that. Besides, we still never had anything come from the suggestion of the police there helping fund the camera with proceeds from all the tickets they'd be issuing for people running the stopsigns, eh?
There was a great deal of train movements between 9 and 10 ET (my afternoon).
I was using a split screen to watch and work and I have to say that is the busiest I think I ever saw the cams.
Most enjoyable.
Been in florida for a week. time to catch up on what`s been going on. Really missed this forum. RON
Is it just me or has the hotel cam picture quality deteriorated ? It doesn`t seem to be as clear as it used to be . RON
There are some smudges on the window in front of the camera that fog several areas... even making one spot look 'smokey'. Also the focus seems to settle on "close-up" and that leaves the distant stuff quite blurry, especially when it is in B&W mode.
But other than that, the image seems about the same to me. (The smudges have been there for a couple of months).
I noticed the other day that it was very windy (the trees on the other side of the tracks were shaking quite a bit) and the camera seemed to be shaking in the wind. It was barely noticable unless looking at something very near the edges, then I could see that it was shaking sideways as well as up and down a small amount. This makes me wonder if the camera is inside the walkway or on a pole on the outside. If it is outside I wonder what is smudged.... It may have a protective dome, I guess, but when it rains, water droplets on what ever it is seems to streak on the surface as though it is a flat, vertical surface.
j610 It doesn`t seem to be as clear as it used to be.
It doesn`t seem to be as clear as it used to be.
I think you might be on to something. It isn't lens flare, but I'm not sure what the correct term is. In B&W mode the auto headlights, streetlights, and signals seem to be much larger than they should be. And I just saw a WB pass through the picture, and the flashing light on the FRED looked like it was about 2 feet across. It showed up much better than they used to. I'm not sure if just cleaning the glass in front of the camera will fix this problem, or if it is a settings issue. Still it is mice to have it back this last week or so.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
The camera has an "auto-focus" feature... if you watch when an eastbound train passes the headlights will cause the camera to go though a "re-focus" sequence and during that time the distant lights and signals will reduce in size and look better. Unfortunately the camera will settle on a near/close/short distance focus thus leaving the distant objects severely out of focus.
I have a video surveillance system at my house and I use cheap "web cams" for most of the cameras. Many of these have an "autofocus" feature and with some of them I can disable that feature.
Sometimes a camera will just go through a re-focus sequence and that will drive my motion detection software nutz.... it sees motion all over!
Where possible, I turn that feature off and manually set the focus at "infinity", which means that if someone came right up to the camera (just inches away) they would be terribly out of focus, but everything more than about 3 or 4 feet away is generally well "in-focus", which suits me fine for the purpose I am using the cameras.
The Hotel Cam has "auto-focus" (as witness the re-focus sequence sometimes when a bright light approaches the camera) but apparently the owner/site admin possibly does not have access to the camera in a way to shut the feature off, or maybe doesn't know how or may not even know that it can be done, or maybe that camera cannot have that feature disabled.
The out of focus situation seems to be worse when the camera is in the B&W mode and I think that is because in that mode the camera is actually responding to the near infrared frequencies of light and the camera is attempting to focus on the weather shield/window it is looking through rather than the scene we railfans are interested in.
If I knew who has control of the camera, I would respectfully suggest that they disable the auto-focus feature for us railfans, but I have no specific instructions on how to get it done (it seems to be something that varies based on the brand/model of camera and software program used to access it).
For my cameras I have to access them with a program that gives me access to the feature to disable it and then run the surveillance/motion detection program. Sometimes the computer remembers my setting through a reboot, and sometimes I have to do it again if I have had to reboot the computer.
I fear we are just stuck with the problem on the Roanoke Rail Cam.
I've also noticed the focus issue as well, especially at night. Having seen highrail trucks on Rochelle and Roanoke cams, and I wonder...how are the signals set up to accomodate the highrail equipment? Those usually don't run with signals, right? So, a dispatcher would have to have them prealigned where all they're going to go, and he'd just have to remember not to allow any trains to go through the area, right? Does he just give green signals to the highrail truck, and after it's gone to the end of its run, cancel all of them? Or is there some other means to ensure a train isn't given green signals on a track with a highrail truck? Whata bout multiple highrail trucks? How are all those handled, especially if they're spread out?
10:05: Noticed a 3 unit lash up idling on the second track back, high hood unit towards the cam.
10:06: Lash up went up and out of sight to the right.
It still sucks really bad having missed the steam loco. Anyhow, I also saw the high nose and the bright red caboose with the NS horsey on the side, among other things. A crew was working about the middle of the cam with a backhoe, doing something with the track, but I couldn't tell what.
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