Re: An idea about a webcam....

[Jason Brower <encompass gmail com>]

First off thank you for your advice...
Answers are in Doc...
On Sat, 2007-02-03 at 23:56 +0100, Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen wrote:
> 2007/2/2, Jason Brower <encompass gmail com>:
>         I wanted a unified way of communicating with video with as
>         many people
>         in as many technologies as possible.
>         I found this very hard so came to the idea of working around
>         technology
>         that almost everyone has on their computers.  This came to 2
>         things 
>         A browser and JAVA.
>         With that I was able to create a webcam web-page and people
>         where able
>         to see me without any problem.  I can talk with my family and
>         they can
>         see me.  Even a novice can use my webcam.  They just click
>         with a mouse. 
>         Of course there are better technologies.  But google video has
>         sucky
>         video, we still use it because it is so easy to use. 
> 
> And google-vid uses flash which rules out 64 bit machines (like
> mine)... 
Don't worry I won't be using Flash.  Infact, I am working to get rid of
the Java too.  But don't know my php good enough.  Additionaly if I use
a streamlined http server I get issues too.
> 
>         I use a combination of the following...(with notes)
>         Camserv
>                 Works rather well considering it hasn't been developed
>         sinces 
>                 2003.  Very well built and able to do exactly what I
>         want. 

> I found this here: http://cserv.sourceforge.net/  it looks like the
> right  one, but where can I find CamServFront anywhere... Also,
> screenshots and perhaps even screencasts would be nice. 
> 
Yes you have the correct address, but the "CamServFront" is the name of
the program I created to glue all this stuff together.
Below I mentioned Apache for my server.  Since then I have found a VERY
small alternative called webfs.  It is very nice, very small, and I
don't need any root priviladges of funky configs just for my webcam
program to work. 
> 
>         Apache
>                 I am sure I could use something smaller and more
>         streamlined for 
>                 this use.  All it has to do is provide at most maybe
>         five 
>                 connections and run under a designated port.
>         CamServFront
>                 This is a Python, GTK, Glade Program I have made this
>         last week
>                 that is a simple front end to camserv.  It provides a
>         nice way 
>                 to turn of and on the cam and adjust a few settings to
>         meet the
>                 needs of the you and the client.
>         
>         Here is why I am here...
>         I want this to be a part of gnome.  So that people that want
>         to
>         communicate with a webcam don't have to screw around with msn,
>         aol,
>         ekiga, or any other protocals or programs.  The people that
>         want to see
>         your webcam can simply use it.  Nothing more.  Just a click.
>         We have see these all the time, webcams online, but none of
>         been 
>         streamlined for the personal desktop use.
>         What do you think? 
> 
> 
> Why does it need to be part of Gnome? I mean, it sounds cool and all,
> but it seems a bit overkill to put in a standard desktop install..?
> Having an easy to setup/install bundled somewhere (perhaps from
> distro-vendors) seems more like the right solution. 
> 
I felt this was a program that can fill many gaps in the programming
community.  Currently, if any programmers are working on web-cam support
for all these different clients like, Skype Web-cam, AOL web-cam, MSN
web-cam, etc... all have different technologies to do the comunicating.
If I want someone to see me and I don't have gtalk web-cam support
(which we know doesn't exist), it doesn't matter, I use my little
program.  They don't need any knowledge... Just what comes naturally in
the OS.  A browser and Java.

And about talking to the distro's.  I guess that's fine.  But I think it
would be a great advantage to integrate this framework into gnome so
that any product that wishes to use it can.  For example:  Jabber(for
gnome... not sure if that is the name) wants to start supporting
web-cams.  What better way then to just create the connections between
my web-cam too and jabber so that I can press "send my web-cam" in
jabber and it automatically sends the link and starts up the service
waiting for the response.  If I am not mistaken, I think telepathy is
trying to create a framework for this type of communication.
> Another question; how does this compare to Ekiga? Can they
> interoperate/integrate in any way?
They can...  for example, I use ekiga for my phone calls... (thanks by
they way, I hated skype, ekiga is better :P)  My mother doesn't use
chatting at all, she wants to communicate with the phone, nothing else.
BUT with the new baby in the family coming near and she living int he
states and me in Finland.  She is more than happy to click just one link
and not worry about what to install or setup.  She just put in what I
tell her and it works.
This brings me to a more advanced solution.  Voice and video
conversations can be setup with just a click.  Linux does the hosting
and any other browser is the client.  Imagine
grandma-"never-used-a-computer" going to the address you give and having
a video and voice chat with you without any install and setup on her
part. (But that's a much more advances solution than what I can offer.)
>  
> Cheers,
> Mikkel
> 
>