Considering a few cameras for embedding

[MountainMan 0]

Hey there community! I'm new here, but from the looks of things these forums are quite helpful.

 

I've got a website that I'm setting up about hamsters (quite the niche website) and I actually have a hamster that I'd like to show on a 24 hour webcam stream. So here's what I'm thinking I'll likely need:

 

• Hamsters are nocturnal, so he'll only start moving around in his cage once it gets dark, so I need a camera that will switch IR on automatically once it gets dark. Since the camera will be set relatively close to the cage (which isn't even that large) I don't need the IR to reach far at all.
  
• I don't need too much video quality or fps, but something decent would be nice (640x480 with about 15 fps would be fine). Hamsters are small, so I probably wouldn't want anything lower quality than that or else he might be difficult to see.
  
• I'd like a camera that has a zoom function, but it's not crucial. His cage is relatively large and it'd be nice to manually zoom in on him whenever he's sleep during the day. Since the camera will be so close to his cage I wouldn't really need any powerful optical zoom; a basic digital would be fine I'm sure.
  
• 802.11n support would be nice, since the home network I'll be going through has a stupidly expensive Dual N router with a rather high internet speed running through it.

 

I hope I don't come off as though I want you guys to do my shopping for me; I've been doing a good bit of research online for something that fits my needs and I think I may have found a few. I just wanted to get some advice before making a purchase. My main thing is that I want to know whether I can embed the camera on an HTML page on my site. All the IP cams I'm looking at seem to come with software and I'm not sure how easy it'd be to just ignore the software entirely and pull just the stream from my camera for use on my site. For example, a ZyXEL that I'm looking at has some proprietary software that you have to log into to view your camera. I wonder how easy it'd be to just use some embedding code using the camera's IP address.

 

Anyhow, here are a few cameras I'm looking at currently. Any advice on these? Most importantly, would it be possible to embed any of these camera's stream onto my own site?

 

http://www.amazon.com/ZyXEL-Wireless-Camera-Vision-IPC4605N/dp/B0071N5I3I

 

http://www.amazon.com/Esky-C5900-H-264-Wireless-Camera/dp/B005CMN0RQ/ref=pd_cp_p_0

 

http://www.amazon.com/Foscam-FI8910W-Wireless-Network-Camera/dp/B006ZP8UOW/

 

http://www.amazon.com/LOFTEK-Newest-Wireless-Wired-installation-Black/dp/B004GWQBWY/

 

Sorry for the wordy post (wanted to be as detailed about my needs as possible). Appreciate any help you all can throw my way. Cheers!

[yakky 0]

Wow... a hamster cam...

 

I have one of the Foscam Pan and Tilts. It does ok,more of a toy. I'd recommend going with one of the Panasonics. Much better image quality and software. The foscams can be viewed through various platforms and there is an SDK. Not sure about the others. Controlling the pan and zoom is going to be the most difficult part. Check zoneminder for support on the various cameras, then you can reverse engineer from there.

[MountainMan 0]

I had originally wanted to get a Panasonic camera, as they seemed recommended in a number of places on these forums, but from looking over their website I couldn't find any cameras that had IR. Which, considering the nocturnal nature of the hamster and how he only moves around when it's dark, kind of makes an automatic IR mode essential.

[buellwinkle 0]

Certain animals, especially ones that are nocturnal like hamsters are affected by infrared light. Just because IR light is not visible to humans does not mean you may be affecting the hamsters in a harmful way. So you may want to research that before having a dozen IR LEDs in their face.

 

Panasonic does make some consumer level cameras that are reasonaby priced. Up close, you may be able to use a 7w night light to provide enough light to provide an effective image. Also, the AVTech cameras I've reviewed have very good low light performance and they have a built in white light LED. Even though they are 1.3MP, you can configure them to lower resolution as you wish. The advantage to white light is the abiity to have a color picture 24/7. The Foscam does not have an IR filter, meaning that during the day, the colors will be way off in some cases, and at night it will be b&w.

[MountainMan 0]

Hey there buellwinkle, thanks for the reply.

 

After doing a bit of research I've learned that hamsters can see UV light, but not IR light. So an IR cam should be fine. While I would absolutely love to get a Panasonic camera (since they seem very easy to embed onto a website from what I've been reading), sadly none of their cameras have IR capabilities. Panasonic's cameras seemed to operate at 3 Lux for their night mode settings, and according to a few reviews the results were not that great. I could maybe put up a tiny night light, as you mentioned, for a Panasonic cam, but I'm not sure if it'd help all that much considering the dismal reviews Panasonic's 3 Lux night mode has been getting. I looked at AVTech's product line up and they, too, seem to not offer any IR options.

 

Regarding IR, I don't mind having a b&w image if that means that the hamster can be seen well enough in his habitat. Also, the more I research, the more it seems like I'd prefer H.264 compression rather than MPEG.

 

Anyhow, my main requirement is the need to easily embed the stream onto an HTML page. At present I'm looking at some Foscam's, but the only one that seems to have H.264 support is out of stock everywhere (the FI9820). Seems like at every turn I'm hitting a dead end. I'm relatively new at all this, so my apologies if I'm coming off as a tad dense. I can maybe bump my price range up to $300 if need be, but I'd prefer to not go any higher than that considering I just want a basic IR cam with a decent image that can be easily embedded on an HTML page.

 

Here are the two that I'm looking at currently, though I'm not too familiar with the Esky brand.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Foscam-FI8608W-100-Channels-Recording-Software-Pan/dp/B0084P0AEO

 

http://www.amazon.com/Esky-C5900-H-264-Wireless-Camera/dp/B005CMN0RQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

[buellwinkle 0]

Don't stress over h.264 as you'll probably expose only mjpeg as that's a universal standard that most browsers can see.