1. Webcams, Streaming Video, and the Future
Beth Kettenacker
Cully Radvillas
Sam Javner

2. Webcams

3. What A Webcam Is A camera connected to the internet
Most use the USB (Universal Serial Bus) to connect the camera to their computer
                                  
                                  
                 
                 

4. Personal Webcams This is the most common type of camera
Used to share moving images of themselves or others
Users can access this image by knowing a specific address to connect to
Cameras are only available when the camera is connected and an internet connection exists

5. Buying a Webcam Personal Use—Logitech or Creative Labs
We are using the Logitech QuickCam Pro
Professional Use—Sony PCS1600 (recommended by entrepreneur.com)
Need a high speed internet connection

6. Most posted webcams are available 24/7
Webcam Posting
An online webcam pointed at a specific scene or location of interest to possible viewers
Most posted webcams are available 24/7

7. Webcams Around the World
                                
Japan
San Francisco
London

8. Video Conferencing

9. How Video Conferencing Works
Uses a decoder that changes analog video and audio signals into digital signals from cameras and microphones
This digital signal is transmitted to a receiving site and is decoded back into the analog signal to be read

10. Analog Signals Digital Encoding
Television receives these signals from cameras and microphones
Used in old time televisions
Uses Approximate copies of the signals
Transfers to ones and zeros
Creates an exact copy of the signal
Used by video conferencing and has greatly increased its quality

11. The Basics Of Video Conferencing
The combination of computer software, cameras, microphones, and other peripherals
Uses digital phone lines (ISDN lines) to transmit and receive information

12. Benefits of Video Conferencing
Allows interactive communication with people over any distance
The quality has greatly increased in recent years

13. History of Video Conferencing
First became available
Not popular in the beginning because of high cost for such poor quality
1990’s
Digital Communication through ISDN services started
Started a foundational network capability that created many technologies—Video Conferencing
History of Video Conferencing

14. Video Conferencing Today
Network technologies are popular in most office environments
Software and services are easily available to general public and is affordable
It is a top choice for businesses because it is economical, safe, and saves time

15. Popular Types of Video Conferencing Systems
Webcams
Popular among consumers
Set-Top Designs
Popular for professional use
Integrated Systems

16. Streaming

17. What is Streaming?
Process of viewing media while it is being downloaded
Usually refers to video or audio
Audio is usually higher quality
Smaller file size
Less compression needed

18. Streaming Media Distribution
Web Server
TCP protocol
Does not sacrifice data – not always real time
Has to be able to determine bandwidth speed
Media Server
UDP protocol
Sends data at a predetermined rate
Allows for some lost information

19. Hardware and Software Needed for Broadcasting
                                  
The device (a webcam)
Media Server
WWW connection
Compression Software

20. FishCam
Our HTTP FishCam

21. Options for Online Video
Download entire video
On-Demand Video Streaming
“Live” Video Streaming

22. Downloading an Entire Video
The only option before streaming video
Problems
Video files are large
Large delays between starting downloading video and watching it
Solution
Streaming video

23. Benefits of Downloading an Entire Video
Higher Quality
Video can be saved to the computer and viewed at any time

24. On Demand Streaming PROCESS
Media player program starts downloading a program
Starts to fill a buffer
When buffer is filled, playback begins

25. Benefits of On-Demand Streaming
Video can be viewed at any time without waiting for the entire file to download
Speed of the media is not constant, so placing the next frames in a buffer prepares them to be played smoothly

26. “Live” Streaming Video Process
Frame is displayed to the screen as soon as it can after the frame is received
Video quality is usually lower than buffered video due to variations in download speed
Video also may look jerky because each frame has an individual download speed

27. Three Major Players for Streaming Video
Widows Media Player by Microsoft
QuickTime by Apple
RealPlayer by RealNetworks

28. Most popular format for streaming
Allows streaming different quality video from the same video source

29. Windows Media Player Has video of a higher quality than RealPlayer
Disadvantage
Requires different sources in order to vary quality

30. QuickTime Has the best and most consistent quality
Used by the movie industry
This version is the least popular format of streaming

31. Video Compression

32. Video Compression
One minute of uncompressed DVD-quality video would require ~ 1.6 gigabytes
Without compression, a DVD could only hold 3-12 minutes of video
Nearly impossible to stream uncompressed video over the Internet – Compression is absolutely necessary

33. Interframe Compression
Takes advantages of similarities between adjacent frames (temporal redundancy)
Only store information on parts of video that are changing

34. Interframe Compression Techniques
Sub-sampling
Only store “necessary frames”
Our brains can fill in the missing information
Difference Coding
Only store data on pixels that have changed
Motion Compensation
Store how fast an object (or block of pixels) is moving and which direction it is moving

35. Compression Difficulties
Less movement, better compression
A lot of motion in video or a rapidly moving camera makes it hard to compress – lots of pixels are changing

36. Compression Rate Vs. Quality

37. Experiments with Compression Rate
We recorded a video
We compressed it at various bit rates
Observed how changing the bit rate affects video quality

38. Sample Videos Non-Moving Camera Moving Camera Video for Dial-up
Video for ISDN
Video for Broadband (low quality)
Video for Broadband (high quality)
Video for LAN
Moving Camera
Video for Dial-up
Video for ISDN
Video for Broadband (low quality)
Video for Broadband (high quality)
Video for LAN

39. Findings
Higher bandwidth will allow for higher bit rates and less compression, which means higher quality
Video taken with a non-moving camera has higher quality than video taken with a moving camera

40. Future of Webcams

41. Future of Video Compression: MPEG-4 Standard
Creates files of same quality and half the size of MPEG-2 files.
MPEG-2 files are used in DVDs
It is supported in Apple, Microsoft, and RealNetworks video files

42. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It is in compression software
Determines what information is needed to convey the message in the information
For Example:
A ball is bouncing on one side of the scene and a stationary object is on the other side. The pixels in the area of the moving object will change while the other side is not refreshed
Also involved with downloading information from the server to the client

43. Future: Integration
The goal is to have many different types of media (pictures, sounds, music, video, etc.) may be stored together in one file
Information displayed depends on the type of device will be reading it
Work has already begun using the MPEG-21 standard

44. Future: Solving Network Congestion
AI uses the software to determine which part of the multimedia real-time transfer (audio and video) to remove information from
Decreases bandwidth usage
Ex: the frame rate or quality of video can be automatically reduced wile keeping the data transfer real-time and the sound quality consistent

45. Future: 3D Video Has become a topic of discussion Difficulties:
File size
Decoding of information by the user
Think about a 3D movie where the image needed to be decoded by a device that separated images into right and left (stereographic)

46. Microsoft and 3D Video Currently developing software
Uses two cameras to achieve a stereographic effect
Uses an algorithm to separate the images into a 3D representation

47. Future: Bandwidth Bandwidth of most connections is increasing
This means there will be more viability in streaming media because it will become available to more users

48. DDCam Project

49. How the Camera Works Process of developing camera image:
Camera driver calls framecallback code
Framecallback either manipulates the data or leaves it alone
Image is then put back into memory
User sees the image on the screen
(information from Drew Demerath’s documentation)

50. Using Usercallback
We took Drew’s source code and added our own callback routines
Usercallback provides us with an array of raw video data
Each pixel in this array is composed of red, green, and blue components
We can change the values in this array to change the image that is displayed

51. Our Features Added Grayscale Flip Image Mirror Image Negative Image
his code did not function correctly
Flip Image
Mirror Image
Negative Image
Adjust Red/Green/Blue Percentages