Robin Paardekam

.NET Newbie - Silverlight, Sharepoint, AJAX and C#.

Vista Sidebar - Webcam gadget

Now that I am using Vista for several months, I got used to the sidebar gadgets quite fast. It's nice to have those small applications within reach and visible instantly. I thought it would be nice to play with gadget-development a little bit and found that no real configurable webcam gadgets were available yet so that would be a fun little project to experiment with. I found it is very easy to create these gadgets, as they are just tiny HTML-pages with some Javascript functionality. After developing a first version of my Webcam gadget I uploaded it to the Microsoft Live Gallery and within a week I got an email that it was actually published! It's nice to see that people actually want to view a webcam directly in their Vista sidebar, I know that I'd appreciate the functionality, but I was not sure if other people would like it as well.

If you use Vista and like to view a webcam of your choice in your sidebar, then you could view the Windows Live Gallery (category Miscellaneous) and download my webcam gadget. It is attached to this blog-post as well. In the settings-flyout you can define a live stream that you'd like to view, or an image-feed that gets refreshed at regular intervals. Any comments about the gadget are welcome ofcourse and if you like it, don't forget to rate 5 stars!

More info: http://gallery.live.com/
http://www.aeroxp.org/
http://www.codeproject.com/

Attachment: Webcam.zip
Posted: Thu, Apr 19 2007 11:42 AM by Robin Paardekam | with 24 comment(s)
Filed under: , , , ,

Comments

RJoosen said:

Hmmm, probably the only one that doesn't get it to work.

After Install there's nothing. Any idea ? Webcam is connected (logitech Quickcam 4000)

# April 27, 2007 10:56 PM

Robin Paardekam said:

After downloading the gadget and running it in Windows Vista it should at least prompt you with a certificate message. Once you confirmed the signature it should install in your sidebar automatically. Do you see the gadget in your Windows Vista Sidebar? Another note: the gadget itself can not connect directly to your webcam (yet). It can only stream a live-feed or it can display a configurable image at a configurable interval. Hope this helps. I will investigate how to view a "locally connected webcam" in the gadget. I received more requests like that. Thanks.

# May 2, 2007 12:41 PM

Hans said:

Logitech has released two webcam gadgets, which obviously only work with Logitech QuickCams:

www.logitech.com/.../558&cl=us,en

In theory, it should be possible to modify the gadget's code, somehow, to see any webcam installed. My Lenovo laptop has a built-in webcam, and that's what I've been working on, but so far, has not been successful in modifying the Logitech gadget.

# June 21, 2007 5:27 AM

Henry said:

Hi.. I cant seem to find an appropriate live webcam for Waikiki??  

# July 4, 2007 8:10 AM

Robin Paardekam said:

Hello Henry, I found several streaming webcams for Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Hawaii, but most of them were packed in Java-applets. There's one (official governmental) stream at the following URL:

www.honolulu.gov/.../dtsdtwiha.asp

But I am not sure if this is a reliable source as it's currently offline. You should however be able to add this URL manually to the webcam gadget. As soon as the cam is up you will see that on your sidebar. Hope this helps.

# July 4, 2007 10:37 AM

jay said:

luv this gadget, but mine does not seem to update the image, so cool tho!

# July 14, 2007 5:58 PM

Pitof said:

Great... Exactly what I am looking for. :-)

Thanks a lot.

It would be nice if we could save our webcam url and easily switch from one to another.

PS: I'm very interesting of how you build it. Would you agree to share the code source?

# September 14, 2007 10:56 AM

Pitof said:

Wonderfull, I just find the settings.html file and add my own place. :-)

Great gadget.

# September 14, 2007 11:05 AM

darren said:

Great gadget!!  This is the only webcam gadget you ever need.  I have two events of it running at the same time with different views.  Much like jay above though, it does not refresh at the interval that I request in the settings fly-out... It does not refresh at all unless I close the sidebar and re- open it.  Any thoughts?

# October 14, 2007 4:56 PM

Reinier said:

Image indeed does not refresh at the interval rate. The adress itself however provides regular updates. Please try www.scheveningenlive.nl/cam_1.jpg as an example, which updates at 1 minute intervals.

Thnx, Reinier

# November 25, 2007 3:02 PM

Basil said:

Mine picks up my TV Card instead of my Laptop Camera...  Since no config. options...  I cannot use with my Camera without disabling my TV Card...

Needs some more work to be useful...

Thanks for trying though...

# November 27, 2007 6:39 AM

Andy said:

Hi. When I add a URL to an image the gadget works fine. When I reboot the machine, the gadget shows as not configured, but if I click on the spanner, the settings are still there, and when I click OK (without making any changes), the image appears again. This is Vista Home Premium SP1. Any ideas ?

Thanks

Andy

# March 31, 2008 10:13 AM

Robin Paardekam said:

Hello Andy. I did not yet test the image-feed on an SP1 machine. I assumed (I know: I shouldn't have done that) that it would all just work fine but let me check your reported problem when I get home... I did not see that happen before. Regards, Robin.

# April 3, 2008 10:15 AM

Jon said:

Hi Robin,

I have several gadgets that display pictures from the web.  When I boot up all of them including yours first display a comment that means no network connection.  Once the network connection is established all except Live Webcam 2.0 recover and begin displaying.  Even though your gadget displays the not found message if I click enlarge I see the webcam correctly. But this does not fix the small view.  To fix the small view I have to open options and click OK (without making changes).  I presume that once your code times out it does not retry.

Thanks for the great gadget!

--Jon

# May 13, 2008 5:21 AM

Branko said:

I´m having the problem with updating the images from website. The gadget is exactly useless. :-(

# August 1, 2008 9:24 AM

Ken said:

Can you help me please?  I am trying to get the webcam from:

www.earthcam.com/.../seattle

but I can't seem to find the right URL to work in this gadget.  Thank you.

# December 26, 2008 9:27 PM

Mike said:

This is great.

I can get this as a gadget on the machine that has the USB camera attached, but how do I view it on my laptop? I've tried entering the address and the port number but nothing comes up.

Please help anyone.

Thanks

# February 3, 2009 8:11 PM

Robin Paardekam said:

Hi Mike, if I understand your question correctly you have a machine with the webcam connected to, on which the gadget works fine, and also a laptop from which you would also like to view the webcam-source, but without taking it from your first machine? If so then you should use another piece of software, for example KABCam, which can upload images to an FTP location, or perhaps you could have a look at Windows Media Encoder which can also stream live video to a user defined port on your machine. That way you can easily connect the gadget fromn your laptop to it.

Hope this helps.

# February 3, 2009 9:56 PM

Homme said:

I use the wireless network webcam Syslink WVC54GCA and noted that the gadget has a display delay of about 2 minutes. In the fly-out, however the delay is only seconds. Also using the syslink webinterface or directly using windows media player the delay is only seconds. Any idea's about this behaviour? I had a look at your code but could not find an immediate answer.

# March 1, 2009 11:33 AM

Rich said:

Hi Robin,

I was looking for a gadget like this for ages before I found this, as I wanted to display this in my sidebar: www.nuerburgring.de/.../webcam.jpg

It's just a still image that is updated every minute, but I don't seem to be able to get the gadget working properly, I have entered the URL and picture size and how often it should refresh, but it seems to only change twice a day?

Is there anything obvious I could be doing wrong? Any pointers would be great!

Thanks, Rich

# July 31, 2009 4:37 AM

jP said:

Really great idea. I keep it active at work and when my back is to something other than a wall so no one can get the drop on me. lol

# August 10, 2009 12:59 AM

JKR said:

Hi Robin,

I was very intrigued by your gadget when I first saw it, and decided to download it. Lately, I have been going through an obsession with downloading anything and everything.

However, after downloading your gadget, I realized I have no use for it. Before uninstalling it, I decided to compare picture quality with my default webcam, CyberLink YouCam. Although, when I attempted to activate my webcam, this popped up:

" Cannot connect to this video device (HP Webcam-101). Please select another capture device via Settings or close any application that may be using this video device and restart YouCam. "

I closed the program and returned to the Vista Sidebar and opened up the gallery. I right-clicked on Live Webcam gadget and clicked uninstall. However, in short, I was not successful. I've tried everything to uninstall this gadget, but no luck. I can no longer access my default webcam in any way, except for your gadget. I no longer want this gadget on my computer!

I am contacting you in hopes you know how to uninstall your gadget! This is very high priority. Ever since installing your gadget, my laptop has been freezing up more than usual. I am aware that this may not have anything to do with downloading Live Webcam and I am also aware that it is my fault in the first place for downloading it, but my concerns and suspicions continue to grow. Please contact me as soon as possible, as I would very much like to be shot of it.

My email address is jkr@live.ca

Do not hesitate to get a hold of me!

Thank-you.

Regards, JKR.

# August 27, 2009 11:04 PM

Sam said:

Do you know when a new release will be available that includes the ability of view local (attached) webcams?  You app works perfectly with the embedded webcam links you provided, but not yet with personal webcams.  Kind regards and thanks !!

# October 2, 2009 4:13 PM

evao said:

Great gadget you'll have to start charging us soon!!

# April 29, 2010 11:01 AM
Leave a Comment

(required) 

(required) 

(optional)

(required) 


Please add 3 and 2 and type the answer here: