WEBCAM: TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Jeremy Routledge, August 2000

I wanted to make a comment on the increasing separation between physical and mental experience. Using a webcam, the idea was to let visitors to our website see the visitors to the Temple experiencing the old voyeuristic thrill of a camera obscura. People at home would be using relatively hi-tech equipment in contrast to the ancient pinhole techniques of the temple. Those at their computers would be essentially sitting in the dark looking into a world happening in real time (or at least jpeg time), those inside the obscura would be gazing out into a world unfolding just outside.

I had to do a lot of research to come up with an incredibly basic portable webcam set up. As a film maker used to a wide range of available equipment, I wanted to have a degree of control over the camera. Pan and tilt, zoom and most importantly a good quality lens were factors I was looking for when I researched the idea.

I quickly discovered that if you have a very limited budget (£200-300) you have no chance of achieving this with a webcam. Most available web cameras are fixed lens and because bandwidth is all important, they sacrifice camera lens quality for ease of use. You can get good quality webcams, people in the UK will be familiar with Channel 4's Big Brother site, but they cost a lot of money (£1-2k)!

I'm using my old Sony Hi 8 camera fixed inside the dome of the temple with a 'magic arm' clamp. Using an analogue camera is a bit more fiddly. You'll need to download something like Webcam32 software from Surveyor Corpration's site and get hold of the appropriate USB videobus. The end user experiences about the same picture quality as they would with a consumer webcam, but you have a whole lot more flexibility about frame size and aperture etc as well as the option of using Nicad batteries.

The Hi-8 is linked to a laptop by phono connectors. Laptops can run off batteries (1 hour life) or power from the 85 ampere battery installed inside the temple. From the laptop there is a connection to a phone line via hardwiring. This has considerable drawbacks of course, we can only send live images in certain places where we can establish connection (our local phone company have been helpful here). But with forward planning we should be able to do it on about 90% of our visits.

The other benefit from using a Hi 8 camera is that the images can be recorded on to tape and transmitted 'as live' at a later date. This way you don't need any external cabling and have less power worries.