Setup to capture events live

[lambep]

I would like to setup a live webcam to capture outdoor festivals. The camera will be vehicle mounted and providing PoE power will not be a problem. The camera will be on a mast 20' to 30' in the air. I would like to capture timelaps video (up to 24 hrs) as well as embed the live stream it to two different websites for public viewing. Image clarity and FPS refresh are important. The data connection will most likely be a cellular card.

I am looking for a suggestion on a camera and any recommendations that you would have for setup/configuration. I realize that there is a lot of technology out there and this can be accomplished for a lot of money. I am looking for a reasonably priced setup that I can use to prove this concept before I invest in the ideal system.

[nyc_bob]

What do you mean by time lapse video? I have set up my Panasonic HCM 735 to take one (megapixel) picture every 10 seconds and then at the end of the day convert them into a giant mpg movie.
At the same time you can watch live streaming.

A cellular card isn't going to give you much bandwidth for live viewing though.

[buellwinkle]

If you mount it on a mast that's 30' tall, won't you just get the tops of people's heads? Also, is this daytime only or 24/7?

I agree on not being able to do much with a celluar broadband card and how do you get internet connectivity to a ethernet PoE switch from a cellular broadband card? Maybe if you keep the resolution low, like 320x240 and have a low frame rate, maybe 1-2 fps you may be able to upload a video stream to a website. I know Axis cameras do this and they also allow FTP of an image once a minute for example. Also, you do know you are capped at 5GB on most broadband carriers so this can run you a lot of money in overcharges.

For trying to do this on the cheap and you feel you have a very special broadband card that has enough bandwidth, the Axis M1011 runs about $150, has decent day time image quality (forget it after sunset), has the ability to FTP an image every minute (you'll need a local device to FTP to, you don't want to burden your broadband card with this traffic). It also has the ability to stream to a website. The caveat is that it's not an outdoor camera, so you have to make sure it's protected from the elements by putting it in a clear plastic cube or somthing like that. Also, it's not PoE, you'll have to plug it in A/C. PoE cameras tend to be about 3-4X more expensive.

For doing this on higher end, get a Mobotix M12-IT DNIGHT, it's VGA resolution, has a seperate day and night sensor so you get very sharp day and night pictures, runs about $1,200 list but maybe you can deal online. It's an outdoor camera so no worries about rain. You can put a 32GB SD card to capture your still images so later you can bundle them into a time lapse video. I never tried streaming to a website, so you may want to call their support people and ask if this is possible.

[nyc_bob]

Regarding the 5GB limit...
Just to throw out some numbers, I automatically upload a 1 megapixel image from my camera to my server 5 times per minute. 16 hours of pictures uses ~425 megabytes. At the end of the day, I have a script create an mpg out of the ~4000 pictures which winds up being anywhere from 50 to 100 megabytes. (my poor man's dvr). With the mpg, I can see the whole day in around 3 minutes.

I do this remotely across the internet. With a cellular card you probably would want to do it locally as buellwinkle suggested.

If you cut it down to 640x480 you can cut the numbers by ~60%.

I would suggest you get something like the Virgin Mobile cellular modem $60 for 5gigs over 30 days and you can re-load when necessary. Otherwise you might be at the mercy of your cellular provider. Don't expect "real" broadband speed from any of these cards though - maybe 3 to 4 megs a minute.

Also, vehicle mounted on a mast 30 feet high? If the vehicle is moving you are going to get a lot of camera shake if you have rough ground or don't build the mast solidly.

Let me know if you want to see one of my mpgs from my Panasonic 735.