Slashdot Mirror
A Full-Time 2-Way Video Link To Grandparents?
uid7306m writes "We have elderly parents who live a long way off. However, my technological radar tells me that it's possible to set up a 24/7 video link between our kitchen and theirs. It'd be good for our kids and good for the parents, and we can now get pretty cheap nearly unlimited broadband connections at this end (UK). What's the best way to do it? Has anyone tried it? On the far end, it ought to have, in Dilbert's(TM) immortal words 'One big button on it, and we push it for you in the factory.'"
I use Apple's iChat. Of course you need a Mac but I talk for hours full screen to my relatives around the world. With two semi-good broadband connections, it works flawlessly and the quality is second to none (in this price range). Of course the downside is that you'd both need Macs.
I am sure that there are other similar products, and at under $150 a piece, something like the DLink DVC-1000 here: http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=8 would be hard to beat in terms of simplicity.
Those willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security.
I have tried it on numerous occasions - it is solid for home-home comminications.
Also, everything is just a click away!
You can also use skype but the quality is not consistent. Also, too many clicks.
Are you with a decent ISP? (If there is such a thing)
If you are with Virgin Media then you will easily exceed their bandwidth limits which you can find at the bottom of this page.
I'm not sure what other ISPs set their limits at (or if they publish them at all like VM do) but I'm pretty sure you would exceed them also.
I'd think about the possibility of other options, such as simply using a video-call when required. Most of the time you would simply be streaming video of 2 empty kitchens to each other wouldn't you?
If you have a Linux distribution, there is 'ekiga' which allows you to run video conferencing.
But I've always wondered if there was something simpler that wouldn't need to go through a third party server, and would allow the webcam window to be resized.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Install Skype at both ends and start a video call between them. Enable full screen mode and presto, you have a 24/7 live video link.
Get an embedded video-conferencing system.
Polycom e.g. has some nice systems, one of the smaller ones is the V700.
They come with a pricetag of 2500 EUR but work. I guess your grandparents don't wanna fiddle with the software on their machine or something similar.
Skype might be good enough, because you can set it to auto-start, and you can set it to auto-accept calls (so you can initiate the calls from your end) and I think you can set it to auto-start in full-screen. That way, once you have it all set up, the most they'll have to do is turn on the physical power, and you'll be able to initiate the connection from your end.
At your gramp's kitchen, two options:
If you're not very adventurous: Any computer. Any video conferencing software (such as Skype). VPN software (such as OpenVPN). VNC software (such as RealVNC). The best is if you get a computer where the screen and computer are in the same enclosure. You don't even hook up a keyboard or a rat. If something happens, you lgo on their desktop thru the VPN and VNC and click on Skype again or whatever.
If you are very adventurous. Buy a nice flat screen display. Take the damn thing apart and get rid of all the crap except the screen and whatever signal massaging hardware is hooked up to it. Get a single board x86 computer that has a watchdog chip on it and built-in flash and tons of RAM for your software installation. Attach it and the screen's signal massaging hardware to one side of a rectangular piece of sheet metal the size of the display, and attach the display on the other side of it. Make that sheet metal a bit taller than the display. Get a camera with built-in microphone; take it apart, and attach it above the display. This probably requires drilling a few holes, tapping is optional, and will probably require some nuts, standoffs, etc. Run the wires however you can, preferably the shortest distance possible. Make an enclosure for this out of wood or something. Install Linux, OpenVPN, X, VNC, and your video conferencing software (something like Ekiga, hacked to automatically initiate a connection to you upon startup) into the flash in such a manner that upon power-up or reset, the entire flash partition is copied into RAM that's treated as a partition and booted from there. At all other times, the flash is never touched. Upon the computer crashing, locking up, or being h4x0red/0wn3d/etc., (which might happen once in a while), the watchdog will reboot it, so a fresh, original filesystem image is loaded back into the RAM and rebooted. This can happen in a matter of a minute from reset thru the videoconferencing software coming up again. With OpenVPN, you can always log in and fix something unexpected if that happens. While we're at it, build yourself one of these. And for extra credit, document the whole process with photos and videos and post it online for everyone to respect you in awe for being such a 1337 h4x0rz yourself. Heck, you might even be able to make a business out of selling a bunch of these. Hint: If you want to do that, stock up on a bunch of the same model display, because those change all the time and you can never buy the same exact thing (with same hardware attached) twice. If you attempt to go through one of those flatscreen stocking companies, the same display will cost you double and not come with the added hardware.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
There are a variety of IP surveillance systems on the market designed for people who want to monitor their vacation homes, etc. Most of these are pretty inexpensive and easy to configure. That might be easier than building your own system using PCs.
This company seems to offer a wide variety of solutions, some standalone, some PC based: www.fgeng.com
You made no mention of what your hardware was, nor even whether or not you had a video camera.
A few years ago, I bought some DLink webcams to set up a custom home video surveillance system, with remote monitoring from work. I believe that the model number was DCS-5300. But since they're mounted on-high, I'd rather not climb up on a ladder to find out for sure.
For bandwidth and security reasons, I chose to get the 10/100Base-T versions, not wireless. The wired versions were also cheaper. You're going to have to run power cords to the wherever you mount them anyway, so why not an Ethernet wires at the same time?
They're designed to be always on (for home surveillance), as you indicated you wanted, 24/7. I don't even remember if they have an on/off switch. They draw considerably less power than a computer and webcam combination.
They came with their own Web server and have their own IP addresses on my home LAN. Of course, they're configurable with a Web page interface.
You wanted using the system to be a no-brainer, presumably to help out your less-than-techno-savvy kids and parents. You can't get any more simple than these webcams. You just browse to them with any Web browser. You can set the browsers up with Bookmarks/Favorites to make getting there simple.
The cams serve up a Web page with the camera feed on it. If you've configured them for permission to control the camera, the page will also have controls to pan, tilt and zoom.
If you use a broadband router as a firewall, you'll have to configure the router to expose the cam's server port to the Internet. If you're concerned about the security of doing that, note that the Web server software resides on a chip. It doesn't have a disk drive. It isn't even big enough to contain a disk drive. It's as secure as the Web server that comes built into most broadband routers these days.
As I said, I bought them years ago. There are bound to be other brands by now besides DLink that do the same things, if you want to shop around.
Technically, that would be rule 35.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Several have already said it, but I had to endorse iChat.
I have 7x24 video conferencing up and running with a remote test team in India. The idea is that it is muted unless one or the other side wants to say something.
We tried both Skype Video (another frequently mentioned option) and iChat. We are staying with iChat due to the simplicity, robustness, and quality.
With Skype we had the connection drop multiple times in a night. With iChat it runs and runs and runs.
With Skype, we had significant video and audio artifacts all of the time. With iChat they are infrequent occurrences.
For Skype I had to write up an instruction guide. With iChat folks just got it.
So, I say go with iChat.
Rule 34 says:
There is porn of it. No exceptions
Rule 35 says:
If no porn is found at the moment, it will be created.
Rule #34: If it exists, there's porn of it.
Rule #35: If there's no porn of it, porn of it will be made.
Yup. VLC passing off to a Darwin Streaming Server and being viewed by VLC on the other end. Easy to do, no issues until power goes out
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
seems like a easy and free / multi platform and open source solution is the VLVC plugin for VLC
http://www.vlvc.net/en-home.html
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
The Japanese have had porn for a while, but they are clever about it. For instance they have porn magazine vending machines on the street, but a cover comes down over the magazines till after 8PM, then you can see what you would be buying. They also have beer vending machines. In some ways they are very advanced.