Truly Wireless Webcams

February 29, 2008


One of the interesting projects I’ve recently completed was to come up with a portable, wireless, webcam solution. The primary requirement was a video and audio device that could be carried from room to room, be used independently of a computer, and be accessible from the Internet.

The first task was to source a camera. This was a pretty simple affair with Google used to good effect. The product of choice was the Linksys WVC200, as this was the only device that met the requirements. However, it did have a standard power supply, which meant I had to find a battery that could power it.

As a proof of concept, some rudimentary components were bought from Maplin to make a 4.5v battery pack. At this time we used 3 standard D cell batteries, as we had been informed that 4.5v from these three batteries would be enough to match the 5v input from the original power supply. While the camera did power up and get a DHCP address from the server, you couldn’t browse to the web page, and therefore couldn’t configure the device.

It was clear that the 0.5v shortage was causing this issue, and it was important that we found a 5v power source.


Google again provided links to the answer. I wanted to use a rechargable battery, and lithium seemed the obvious choice. The only one I could find that output 5v was at BiXNET.com. The battery pack they offered had a variety of connectors, and a charger. The connectors meant that it would fit a multitude of devices, and although the charger had US pins, it could be used with any mains adapter.

Bearing in mind they are based in California, it only took 3 days from order to delivery in London.

After unpacking, it was clear that the battery already had a charge, so we ran a successful test with the camera. The battery was then placed on charge for 24 hours, and then reconnected to the camera to see how long it would hold charge. The battery surpassed my expectations and the camera continuously streamed audio and video to the Internet for 5 hours and 22 minutes.


The final piece to this puzzle was what to do with the cable and the battery pack (asthetics are important to this client). The answer here was with Muji. Part of their household range includes an opaque plastic CD storage case, with a hole to open the drawer. The whole unit is big enough to hold the battery and the cable, and by changing the orientation of the box, the hole acts as a natural route for the power cable to the bottom of the camera.

So there is the solution; a wireless webcam, a rechargable battery, and a storage box. Not your everyday kind of IT request, but it keeps the mind sharp!

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Posted by Noel

Apple TV

February 1, 2008

Last week I was asked to install Apple TV into a home cinema system. I’d never used one of these boxes before, and thought it was just another Apple gimmick – how wrong was I?
The technical specs for the box are impressive – built-in 802.11g/n wifi, HDMI and composite AV interconnects, and left and right audio channels. Interestingly there are no cables provided to connect to your AV source, and I think this is a good decision as you’re not going to be paying for cables you never use.
For this installation I had to connect it to an Arcam AV350 amplifier, which was acting as an AV aggregator and sending to a Pioneer plasma TV. While all three devices (TV, AV amp and Apple TV) have HDMI capabilities, this was not being used due to existing cable runs. That said, even on composite video and standard audio, the picture and sound were astonishing.
On power up Apple TV looked for available wireless networks and asked for the key. Inputting was a little fiddly, but considering all you have is the Apple mini remote, it’s not bad for a one-time experience. After connecting to the wireless network, it then downloaded and applied an update. This took a while, even on a 24Mb BeBox connection, and then the box rebooted.
Once up again, it provided a code for iTunes. I turned on my laptop, fired up iTunes and could see the Apple TV listed in the devices section. iTunes asked for the code and I punched it in. It went through a few more options and then started synching my iTunes library onto the unbuilt 40Gb disk.
Now I have a lot more media than 40Gb and I was wondering how it would deal with that. Apple have come up with common sense here – it will synchronise movies and videos first, then music, podcasts and photos. This makes sure that video content will take priority.
It also has this other great feature of letting upto 5 other iTunes libraries connect to it wirelessly, allowing these other computers to stream content wirelessly to the TV.
With Steve Jobs announcing Apple TV take 2 at the recent MacWorld event in San Francisco, it’s clear that Apple want movie rentals to become as big a revenue stream as music sales are. And it makes sense too. I have about 200 DVD’s and most of those I’ve only watched once or twice. They’re taking up space on my bookshelves and generally just a reminder of how much money I’ve wasted.
All in all, this is a great solution for getting iTunes media onto your TV, and with the forthcoming update to allow video rentals I can see this flying out of the Apple stores.

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Posted by Noel