Embed office webcam as background on business website

kevpatts

Hey all,

I've been asked to set up a site that has live webcam as the brochure webpage background. 4 pages would have 4 different webcam streams.

My concerns are about bandwidth if multiple users are logged on to the site really. I think I'd need something like uStream to be a proxy/source for the video feed so there isn't multiple streams, each for a visitor to the site, being streamed out of the office internet connection. The problem is that uStream is too expensive for this, it would be $999/month!

Is there any other way of doing this or any other service I could use as an alternative? I've searched but haven't come up with much.

Kevpatts

Gordon

Sorry, can't help with this, and sorry if I'm sticking my nose in here, but I'm really curious. Do they want a background, as in - a background div of webcam content, overlaid with text/image content on divs on top of the background?!

Sparks

Has anyone mentioned to them that bandwidth and technical concerns might not be the main problem, that there are some minor legal quibbles that might arise from people being filmed and put on the 'net by private parties without permissions and releases and that sort of thing?

billyduk

Is this something they have specifically requested? I've seen short out of focus loops as backgrounds before but always thought it a complete waste of resources... a livestream background would take it to another level altogether.

kevpatts

Yes, it is something they've actually requested. I know it's ridiculous, but they're paying for it so let em at it I say!

About the legal issues, I did mention it. They will only be filming their own office, where only 5 of them work, so there's no huge concern. All staff are okay with it. Guests would have to be informed about it.

billyduk

If it were me i'd be explaining the negative site performance issues that would arise from such a feature and explain to them how poor site performance impacts them from a business perspective.

From the legal perspective, being "ok with it" doesn't translate into consent. The staff would need to sign waivers as there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in the workplace under Irish (and most countries) law. As the workplace is not a public place, simply asking your customers if they are ok with it as they come in is not sufficient and also reflects poorly on the company image. All in all, this is a bad idea and the reasons need to be explained to the client from a performance, legal and business impact perspective.

was.deevey

Do they realize they'll possibly need a dedicated internet connection just for the site if they are running 4 reasonably decent streams running at a decent frame rate ?

I know youtube have a live webcast thingy that operates via google hangouts which i think was free .. maybe its something that might be worth looking into if they are intent on going that route.

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/onair.html

stevenmu

kevpatts wrote: »

Yes, it is something they've actually requested. I know it's ridiculous, but they're paying for it so let em at it I say!

Something I learned a long time ago is that part of being an expert is knowing when to tell customers that they really don't want what they think they want, and if they don't listen to tell them again and again until they do, and if they still don't listen to walk away. This screams of being the type of project where the customer will never be happy and it will make your life a misery for months on end.

First off, it will be technically difficult in the first place, getting the video feeds to stream from the cameras to a few users browsers and in a format suitable for embedding as a page background will be tricky. Getting it to do it at a good quality will be even trickier.

But then you have to ask yourself about the quality in general. Off the top of my head there are a lot of issues I can foresee being raised during testing that will lead to the customer rejecting the site over and over until it matches their "vision", which may well be impossible. Some of them are:

How good a quality will the web cams be, will the customer be happy with the general picture quality?
How will they handle different lighting conditions, they might look great on a sunny day with natural light, but awful on a dark day with standard office lighting, or vice versa.
How will handle different browser sizes, will the video stretch and pixelate, and what will happen with different aspect ratios?
How will you handle mobile?
What happens if a web cam breaks, or the office's internet connection goes down, or even just has the many small outages and decreases in speed that most broadband suffers from?
How will you handle large numbers of users?
What happens if some users leave their browser open for a few days, how big a data bill will that give the customer uploading the video, and the user who was constantly downloading the video?

Digital Society

Probably the craziest request ive ever seen from a customer. Why does it even have to be live if its just a brochure page? And 4 never mind 1.

One of this virtual tours would surely be better if it suits. stevenmu hit the nail on the head there with its a customer education situation.

Just mention itll be 999 a month and theyll soon back down.

kevpatts

Thanks guys.

The customer isn't actually mine, it's a friend who asked me if it's technically possible. I told him that it's not feasible but I was asked again if it's possible so that's the only question I had here, a technical question.

I'll go back to him and say that yes it is possible, although stupid, but the research and testing alone will be expensive.

CreepingDeath

kevpatts wrote: »

I've been asked to set up a site that has live webcam as the brochure webpage background. 4 pages would have 4 different webcam streams.

My concerns are about bandwidth if multiple users are logged on to the site really.

Well maybe you should clarify what the clients definition/expectations of a "live stream" is.

All this talk about bandwidth seems to assume they want 10-30 frames per second.
When they might just want a static image refreshed every minute or so.

Eg. the Dublin traffic cam site only refreshes their webcam snapshots every 10 minutes or so. http://www.dublincity.ie/dublintraffic/

Hoster

Check out the spotify App on Android for a nice video effect that isnt live and doesnt seem to use much bandwidth.

That seems to be a good solution if thats what they really want but its gonna be just one giant eyesore on a big screen.

zig

http://grainandmortar.com/about/ is another nice example.

kevpatts

Thanks guys, but the technical challenge I was addressing was to do with a live feed. a static video background is an easy enough thing to achieve.

ressem

I've only background knowledge rather than implementation experience.

You could have Adobe Media Server 5 professional in house, transmitting to one or more external AMS installs acting as edge servers, hosted on Amazon Web Services platform.

The edge servers handle the client connections.

Lots of moolah spent for a gimmick.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/adobemediaserver/devguide/WSeb6b7485f9649bf23d103e5512e08f3a338-8000.2.3.html

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/adobemediaserver/techoverview/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d119ed944a1a-7ff3.2.3.html

Procasinator

What kind of traffic would you be expecting? How long would the typical user they be on the page for? Are you going need 5000 viewing hours the are available in the $999 uStream package?

If there is going to be a lot (whatever lot means) of traffic, could you choose to stream for each visitor only a limited time, say for 1 minute. Or, design the page in such a way that the video goes out the view-port naturally while the user is on the page to read content, and stop streaming once it does so.

What is the background going to be when no one is in the office?

daveohdave

Don't forget the diddley-idle-eye soundtrack. And leprechaun gifs. The leprechauns'll push you into award territory, just you wait and see!

TheBandicoot

I would just fake it. Record a day or two of real footage and just loop it as a static video thereafter.