Not long ago I got HD cameras going as an option for my Trek Transponder remote boat monitor. The results are so good I couldnt resist putting a pic up here to show everyone, otherwise no one will know. Photo was snapped by me at sitting at home of Treks deck in Pittwater yesterday morning. The camera is mounted under the solar panel on the stern, thats the dark area at the top of photo. The big surprise is if cant get to the boat I can get a beer out and look whats happening and feel kind of like I've been there.

I need to feel like I've been there too at the moment. It's been over a month since I've 'been to the boat'.

Will the Trek Transponder and associated camera work over the marinas WiFi?

Sorry Toph no. Its got its own SIM card in it and connects directly to 4G. On the plus side if you use Aldi Mobile its $5 for a starter SIM card and 35c for a each MMS (photo) - so pretty cheap.

Reason being if you do a cruise you dont have to know the wifi password of every marina you stop at and the range is much better. It will work anywhere a 3G/4G mobile phone will work.

I just found this public live feed of Mosman Bay on the Swan River. Good to see what's happening on the river, but my boat is around in Freshwater Bay so hopefully this idea catches on and they publish a feed from there:

swan.paddle.org.au/swan-tv/

This is the Swansea bar web cam. It would be great to have one on all bars that can cut up rough. I used this one a few times to decide to go through or not.

www.nsw.gov.au/topics/using-waterways/conditions-weather-and-tides/webcams/swansea

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Trek said..
This is the Swansea bar web cam. It would be great to have one on all bars that can cut up rough. I used this one a few times to decide to go through or not.

www.nsw.gov.au/topics/using-waterways/conditions-weather-and-tides/webcams/swansea

There are river cams on all the bars in NSW but its unfortunate that the gov calls them bar cams as most of them spend little time actually looking at the bars but take you on a scenic trip around the associated river.
I tried to get the then RMS Minister Pavey to do something about this problem, which she rejected, but since then covid has got in the way.
I haven't let it go!

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Trek said..
Not long ago I got HD cameras going as an option for my Trek Transponder remote boat monitor. The results are so good I couldnt resist putting a pic up here to show everyone, otherwise no one will know. Photo was snapped by me at sitting at home of Treks deck in Pittwater yesterday morning. The camera is mounted under the solar panel on the stern, thats the dark area at the top of photo. The big surprise is if cant get to the boat I can get a beer out and look whats happening and feel kind of like I've been there.

Hiya Trek,
That's a great image!
Isn't it amazing how small they have made the bandwidth required to stream video? It wasn't that many years ago (10 odd) when this would have been near impossible,
Mpeg 4 was a big improvement over Mpeg2.
H.264 was a big improvement over Mpeg4.
Then H.265 came along and made H.264 look fat and lazy.
I'm doing some testing on H.265 at the moment, and I'm getting a 1080P video at 15fps down to 800kbps with an 1 x I frame (high bandwidth frame) every sec. I need at least one I frame a sec for this project, but most vendors are pushing out to 1 x I frame every 3 secs as a default setting whihc makes the bandwidth even lower.

The problem with this is the CPU grunt needed to decode it keeps going up inversely. My test PC is pretty grunty, but I can only decode 1 off x 4K stream at H.265 verses 4-6 off x 4K streams at H.264.

I find I have to explain to people that a yuppie hi res camera is much worse than a low res camera for a lot of reasons, like low light performance. People get caught up in the 4K hype, and don't release their 1080P camera they are replacing gave them a better overall picture.

The Trek transponder is a great idea btw, but I don't envy you the sales cycle!
Cheers,
SB

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nswsailor said..

Trek said..
This is the Swansea bar web cam. It would be great to have one on all bars that can cut up rough. I used this one a few times to decide to go through or not.

www.nsw.gov.au/topics/using-waterways/conditions-weather-and-tides/webcams/swansea

There are river cams on all the bars in NSW but its unfortunate that the gov calls them bar cams as most of them spend little time actually looking at the bars but take you on a scenic trip around the associated river.
I tried to get the then RMS Minister Pavey to do something about this problem, which she rejected, but since then covid has got in the way.
I haven't let it go!

Strange how the Crookhaven bar does not have a webcam. How many deaths are required to score one?

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shaggybaxter said..

Hiya Trek,
That's a great image!
Isn't it amazing how small they have made the bandwidth required to stream video? It wasn't that many years ago (10 odd) when this would have been near impossible,
Mpeg 4 was a big improvement over Mpeg2.
H.264 was a big improvement over Mpeg4.
Then H.265 came along and made H.264 look fat and lazy.
I'm doing some testing on H.265 at the moment, and I'm getting a 1080P video at 15fps down to 800kbps with an 1 x I frame (high bandwidth frame) every sec. I need at least one I frame a sec for this project, but most vendors are pushing out to 1 x I frame every 3 secs as a default setting whihc makes the bandwidth even lower.

The problem with this is the CPU grunt needed to decode it keeps going up inversely. My test PC is pretty grunty, but I can only decode 1 off x 4K stream at H.265 verses 4-6 off x 4K streams at H.264.

I find I have to explain to people that a yuppie hi res camera is much worse than a low res camera for a lot of reasons, like low light performance. People get caught up in the 4K hype, and don't release their 1080P camera they are replacing gave them a better overall picture.

The Trek transponder is a great idea btw, but I don't envy you the sales cycle!
Cheers,
SB

English please Shaggy - we use English here!!

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Lazzz said..

shaggybaxter said..

Hiya Trek,
That's a great image!
Isn't it amazing how small they have made the bandwidth required to stream video? It wasn't that many years ago (10 odd) when this would have been near impossible,
Mpeg 4 was a big improvement over Mpeg2.
H.264 was a big improvement over Mpeg4.
Then H.265 came along and made H.264 look fat and lazy.
I'm doing some testing on H.265 at the moment, and I'm getting a 1080P video at 15fps down to 800kbps with an 1 x I frame (high bandwidth frame) every sec. I need at least one I frame a sec for this project, but most vendors are pushing out to 1 x I frame every 3 secs as a default setting whihc makes the bandwidth even lower.

The problem with this is the CPU grunt needed to decode it keeps going up inversely. My test PC is pretty grunty, but I can only decode 1 off x 4K stream at H.265 verses 4-6 off x 4K streams at H.264.

I find I have to explain to people that a yuppie hi res camera is much worse than a low res camera for a lot of reasons, like low light performance. People get caught up in the 4K hype, and don't release their 1080P camera they are replacing gave them a better overall picture.

The Trek transponder is a great idea btw, but I don't envy you the sales cycle!
Cheers,
SB

English please Shaggy - we use English here!!

Sorry Lazz, my inner nerd coming to light... oh dear .
I got busted by my wife the other night showing my youngest daughter how to make plasma arcs in a microwave, that didn't go down very well.
It is safe, but I wisely decided not to interrupt her at the time .

Pssst....if you want to do it, get two grapes and put them end to end in a bowl curved enough that they rest together.
The ends of the grape focus the 2.4ghz frequency down to a laser length waveguide and after 20 secs or so you'll get a nice plasma arc show.
Open the door before it withers and burst into flames..
Regards,
Hopeless nerd
.

Shaggy don't let lazz pull the wool over your eyes he himself has bamboozled a few of us with tech intel
nice trick with the grapes !

Excellent idea, I'm getting some grapes tomorrow