02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 1 The Wild World of Web Cams In This Book ᮣ What is a Web cam? ᮣ Looking at how people use Web cams ᮣ Becoming a Web cam video producer ᮣ Getting creative with Web cams eb cams enable you to share still images and Wvideo with anyone around the world. If you’ve ever wanted to see the person you’re chatting with on the Internet, send a snapshot of yourself to a friend, or broadcast live images from a specific location, a Web cam is for you. This handy book introduces you to many wonderful uses you can put your Web cam to and lists many helpful Web sites that show how people are using Web cams. Icons Used in This Book To help you navigate the info better, this book uses the following icons to highlight special points: This icon flags a shortcut or technique that can improve something you do with your COPYRIGHTEDWeb cam. MATERIAL 02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 2 2 This icon flags some of the techie explanations of how Web cams and video work — if you’re into the innards of Web cams, this is for you. If not, um, you can skip it. What the Heck Is a Web Cam? A Web cam is nothing more than a tiny camera that con- nects to your personal computer. Unlike an ordinary still or video camera, a Web cam stores and displays images directly onto your computer screen so you can edit, save, or send these images to other people. Web cams (sometimes called “cams,” which is short for cameras) get their name because the cameras are most often used to send or display images on the World Wide Web. Web cams can display two types of images: ߜ Still images. Used for taking snapshots to send via e-mail to friends, family members, or anyone else in the world who has an e-mail account. ߜ Live video. Used for videoconferencing or chat- ting so you can see what the other person is doing. Essentially, your Web cam acts like a minia- ture movie camera so whatever you see through the Web cam is what’s really happening in real time. An alternative to real-time video is the use of time-lapsed still images, which displays images taken every few seconds or minutes. What People Are Doing with Web Cams To give you some ideas about what you can do with a Web cam, browse through this section to discover 02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 3 3 some of the creative ways that people are currently using their Web cams. Although some people buy Web cams exclusively for business, others get a Web cam purely for their own amusement. Think of a Web cam as a new toy and start dreaming up different ways to take advantage of having a camera attached to your personal computer. One of the earliest and most popular uses of Web cams is to display views of interesting sites and ongoing events that people from other parts of the world may like to see. When something as monumental as a natu- ral or man-made disaster (such as a volcanic eruption or a riot) happens in another part of the world, some- one may connect a Web cam so that others can view those events live and free of bias, censorship, or filter- ing by the news media or government. By viewing images from these distant Web cams, you can peek into another world from the comfort of your home. Don’t overlook the excitement of events in your own backyard; training your Web cam on that bird nest right outside your window in the spring may be monumental to you and other bird lovers around the globe. Or how about interviewing your own star achiever for the benefit of long-distance family members when your child comes dashing in from winning the soccer game? Capturing a Movie with Your Web Cam In this section, you find out about all the creative ways that you can use your Web cam to capture video 02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 4 4 images. In an ideal world, you could always display live video directly from your Web cam to your Web site, so that people all over the world could see exactly what your Web cam is capturing at that moment. Unfortunately, displaying live video through a Web cam may not be feasible, because you need a constant Internet connection so your Web cam can send a steady stream of images to your Web site. An additional challenge with live video is the bandwidth requirement. Bandwidth refers to the speed and amount of data a network connection (such as the Internet) can transfer at any given time. The bandwidth of your particular Internet connection can vary depending on your location and the particular Internet service you use. For example, connecting to the Internet on weekends and weekday evenings can often take a while because other people are trying to connect at the same time. Conversely, using a small Internet service can often speed up your connection because fewer people are competing for its resources. America Online users occasionally have trouble connecting due to the mil- lions of America Online subscribers trying to connect simultaneously. When setting up a Web cam, keep your Internet connection capabilities in mind. Live video takes time to send, so trying to shove live video from your Web cam through a 56K modem Internet connection can be as frustrat- ing as trying to suck a watermelon through a straw. Until dial-up connections through telephone modems disappear and everyone has high-speed, always-on 02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 5 5 Internet access through either cable or DSL modems, most people have to live with these technological limitations when using their Web cams. Instead of dis- playing live video, many people are choosing a less bandwidth-intensive method of capturing video images in a special video file. That way, they just have to send the one video file to their Web site, instead of sending a continuous stream of video images. Understanding movie file formats When you save video images to a file, you have to save them in a special video file format. The two most common video file formats are ߜ QuickTime ߜ Audio/Video Interleave (AVI) Although QuickTime is the native video file format for Macintosh computers, you can view QuickTime files on a Windows computer if you download and install the QuickTime for Windows program from Apple Computers (www.apple.com/quicktime). QuickTime files usually end with the .mov or .qt file extension. The AVI standard is the native video file format for Windows 98 SE and higher. Of course, Macintosh users can still view AVI files if they have the QuickTime player on their computers. Three additional movie file formats you may run across are RealVideo (ram file extension), Advanced Streaming Format (asf file extension), and MPEG (mpg file extension). To play RealVideo movies, you need the RealPlayer plug-in, available from the Real.com Web 02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 6 6 site (www.real.com/playerplus). To play ASF files, you need the Windows Media Player. To play MPEG files, you can use QuickTime or the Windows Media Player. Capturing a video Capturing a video with your Web cam can be as simple as pointing your Web cam at an object and running your Web cam software. (Your software may have come with your Web cam or you may have bought your soft- ware separately.) When capturing a video, you can choose several options to modify its appearance. Some typical options that many Web cam programs offer include the following: ߜ File format. Many Web cam programs save files in AVI or QuickTime formats, but you may want to experiment with different file formats to see which one you think creates the smallest files with the best image quality. ߜ Frame rate. Typical frame rates for Web videos range between 12 and 30 frames per second, although you can specify higher (for higher image quality at the cost of larger file size) or lower (for lower image quality in return for smaller file size) frame rates. ߜ Resolution. Typical Web video resolutions are 320 x 240 or 160 x 120, although you can specify higher resolutions (such as 640 x 480), which create larger files, or lower resolutions (such as 128 x 96), which create smaller files. ߜ Color settings. The more colors you capture, the larger the file. Black-and-white images create smaller file sizes, whereas 24-bit color captures sharper images at the cost of creating larger files. 02_129845 ch01.qxp 10/12/06 9:39 AM Page 7 7 Although you may be perfectly happy aiming your Web cam at an object and capturing a video, you may want to get a bit more creative and try some of the techniques originally developed by Hollywood to create interesting visual effects, such as stop-motion animation and time-lapse photography. Touching Up Your Video After you create a video, you can post it on your Web site for others to download. But if you’re a perfection- ist, you may want to take a little time to edit your video by adding titles and sounds or touching up visual flaws (such as the infamous red eye effect).