WebCam/2 ReadMe



Whats new:

 8 Sep 1997 - REMOTE.EXE triggers a running WebCam/2 from another process
19 Feb 2002 - Upload to hobbes, updated email address


WarpTV comes with an application for watching TV in an overlay window.
It has all the controls known from a TV set. It can also take a snapshot of
the screen and save it. But it is not possible to take pictures in intervals
unattended.

WebCam/2 allows to select a video source and a time interval for saving a
snapshot to disk. Primary I wrote this app for myself, but it came out that
many OS/2 users want to have this, too...


Requirements for WebCam/2 

  1. A Video input adapter with drivers (only FAST MMII tested by myself,
     some Haupauge adapters reported to work) 
  2. OS/2 Device driver for the Video adapter 
  3. Optional: WarpTV or equivalent to adjust the video source in real time 


WebCam/2's current developement status: 

New:
After an image snapshot WebCam/2 calls a REXX file named "WCamExit.CMD".
It can be used for an external program e.g. to convert the bitmap into JPEG format.
See example file: It calls GBMREF.EXE to do this convertion.
I added the files GBMREF.EXE and GBM.DLL from Andy Key. For more information look at
http://www.interalpha.net/customer/nyangau/

In the future I want to add JPEG support directly to WebCam/2, but until today I
have not got the GBM library to work with my WATCOM compiler... (any suggestions?)

Unfortunately, I have waste my time with working and therefore a limited free time for my hobbies ;-)
So it can take some weeks for finishing WebCam/2!

You are welcome to test WebCam/2, especially with Hauppauge adapters. Any wish and comment highly
appreciated!


Installation and deinstallation

Copy WEBCAM.EXE to a directory of your choice. After the first program start
a file WEBCAM.INI is created, where WabCam/2 stores its settings. It does
not change your system ini files!
If you want to deinstall WebCam/2, just delete WEBCAM.EXE and WEBCAM.INI, thats it.


Running WebCam/2

Before you can use WebCam/2, you have to configure it using the WebCam Settings dialog:

Video Device:    The system's name of your video-input device, e.g.:Digitalvideo03
Input Connector: Video source of the adapter, video input or TV tuner
TV Region:       Depends on your country and TV source (antenna or cable)
TV Channel:      Your favorite...
Interval:        This is the time between the video snapshots, 1 second to 24 hours.
                 Disabled, if Hours, Minutes and Seconds are set to 0.
Filename Format: WEBCAM.BMP - only one image file will be created and overwritten
                 with the next snapshot.
                 <Time>.BMP - The filename will be created from the current time.
                 Using this selection, you store the images for 24 hours until
                 they will be overwritten.
                 <Date-Time>.BMP- This selection gives every image an individual
                 filename from the actual date and time. Every image will be kept
                 until your disk runs full!


You can manually take a snapshot by either selecting "Click!" from the menu,
pressing ALT-C, or double-click with mousebutton 1 in the window.

It is also possible to "remote-control" WebCam/2 from another program, e.g. a REXX script:
Start WebCam/2 as usual, time interval can be set to zero. Execution of REMOTE.EXE causes
WebCam/2 to update the image. REMOTE.EXE can be located in any directory.
Example: Imagine you want to have the video snapshot controlled by a special event;
this can be e.g. the execution of a web server cgi program or within a script file.
Just execute or call REMOTE.EXE while WebCam/2 is running in a forground session or 
minimized.
For programmers: Post the event semaphore "\\SEM32\\WEBCAM\\CAPTURE".


A note about system performance:
WebCam/2 uses the MCI_GETIMAGEBUFFER command to read out the video source.
This function has a very high thread priority and causes a high system load
during execution time. If you have selected a very short interval (1 second),
WebCam/2 can slow down your system. Between the image snapshots, the program
consumes almost no CPU time, all the threads are waiting.


Have fun!

Juergen Dittmer
os2@dttmr.de
http://www.dttmr.de

